smallest distro
 

Ideally I'd like to learn how to put together the smallest possible distro which has no GUI, very few commands, and hardly any apps apart from the smallest text editor, say Nano, a text based browser, say Links, and the means to get onto the Internet wirelessly - but nothing else.
I've seen Slitaz & Tiny & Microcore & Coyote: the latter fits onto a floppy, but still contains a lot of stuff I neither want nor need, but I don't really know how to strip it down.
Nor do I think I know enough to cope with LFS just yet (unless someone who's familiar thinks it's easy peasy?)
Is anyone willing to give me any pointers? Thanks, Andy.

SliTaz has a command-line only option if you pick the "base" option in the ISO image.

Arch will install a minimal system as you describe (without the browser) by default.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide

Just do something like a base Arch install?

That would give you what you want.

If you want to learn the basics of creating a Slitaz like system without going through LFS (which will result in a much larger system anyways) have a look at the Slitaz Scratchbook.
It shows you how to get to a minimal system and then add what you want.

Pup skeleton
 

I know of nothing much thinner than multicore, BUT: there is a way to re-spin puppy linux to add or remove features. All of these projects attempt to make something generally useful. I infer from your post that your objective is something minimally useful for a targeted purpose.

BTW: I would stick with vi/vim for the editor were I you. Only think useful that I use that is smaller might be e3.

A kernel & busybox is about as small as you will get.
There are several very minimal distros available, but most sacrifice wifi to be so small.
Another distro to consider may be AntiX Core Libre - http://antix.mepis.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Hi.

An ""expert" install," [SEARCH]netinst[/SEARCH] and you can even opt-out on the "standard system utilities" (I have not tried that yet,) Slackware, DragonFly-BSD, Minix, LinuxConsole, Gentoo, on and on... some are not Linux like BSD plus make sure they are actively supported (if needing security fixes i.e. interweb) or at lest well documented?

Best wishes and have fun! :)

smallest distro
 

fatmac's suggestion is what I would recommend too. you can make your own init too. this is similar to an initrd file.c

I just tried a new one http://kolibrios.org/en/ ...
not *nux or BSD but GPL, has a GUI to start and amazed me on my old t20-700MHz\256RAM(\no-WiFi)

Quote:

KolibriOS is a tiny open-source operating system with a monolithic preemptive kernel and video drivers for 32-bit x86 architecture computers. KolibriOS is a fork of MenuetOS, written entirely in FASM (assembly language). However, C, C++, Free Pascal, Forth, among other high-level languages and compilers, can also be used in application development. KolibriOS features a rich set of applications that include a word processor, image viewer, graphical editor, web browser, and over 30 games.

:)

A debootstrap install of debian is about 200MB on x86_64. I'm not sure how small you intend to be. Things like ddwrt tend to shrink linux down to 4MB or less. But a lot of that is shrinking the linux kernel down, which makes staying current and well patched for security difficult and time consuming to accomplish.

Does it have to be GNU/Linux? I could see installing OpenBSD, setting up your network, installing Links, and being done with it. It's surprisingly complete for being so small, and you'll learn a lot if you use it consistently.

Thanks to all for your responses & this is resolved for now. I'll explore your suggestions but may want to come back if that's OK?

I know that this is marked solved but I have to say LFS!! If you are willing to build it you learn lots :).

You can indeed take your time and visit back when you get a chance.