Create own distribution linux

How to Develop Own Custom Linux Distribution From Scratch

Have you ever thought of making your own Linux Distribution? Every Linux user in their journey to Linux thought of making their own Linux distribution, at-least once. Even I was not an exception as a newbie to Linux land and have given my considerable time developing my own Linux Distribution. Developing a Linux Distribution from scratch is called Linux From Scratch (LFS)

Before starting, I concluded a few things about LFS which can be described as:

1. Those who want to develop their own Linux Distribution should understand the difference between Developing a Linux distribution from scratch (by scratch means starting from the beginning) or all you want is just to tweak an already available Linux Distro.

If you just want to tweak flash screen, customize login and preferably work on the look and feel of Linux OS, you can choose any fair Linux Distribution and customize it the way you want. Moreover a lots of tweaking tools there will help.

If you want to put all the necessary files and boot-loaders and kernel and choose what to include and what not to include and then compile everything yourselves you need to develop Linux From Scratch (LFS).

Note: If you just want to customize the look and feel of a Linux OS, this guide is not for you. If you really want to develop a Linux distribution from scratch and want to know where to start and other basic information, here is the guide for you.

2. Pros of Developing own Linux Distribution (LFS):

1. You get to know the internal working of Linux OS.
2. You develop a very flexible OS as per your need.
3. Your developed OS (LFS) will be very compact as you have full control over what to include/exclude.
4. You Development (LFS) will have added security.

3. Cons of Developing own Linux Distribution (LFS):

Developing a Linux OS from scratch means putting all the necessary things together and compile. This requires a lot of reading, patience and time. Also you should have a working Linux System to develop LFS and fairly enough disk space.

4. Interesting to know, that Gentoo/GNU Linux is closest to LFS to certain extent. Both Gentoo and LFS is the customized Linux System built entirely out from compilation of Source.

5. You should be experienced Linux user having good knowledge of package compilation, resolving dependencies, and pro in shell scripting language. Knowledge of a programming language (Preferably C) will ease things for you. Even if you are a newbie but a good learner and grasp the things quickly, you may start as well. The most important part is you should not loose your enthusiasm throughout the process of LFS development.

If you are not determined enough, I fear you may leave building your LFS in the middle.

6. Now you need a step-by-step guide, So that Linux can be developed from scratch. LFS is the official guide to develop Linux From Scratch. Our partner site tradepub has made available LFS guide to our readers and that too for free.

You can download the Linux From Scratch book from the below link:

About: Linux From Scratch

This book is created by Gerard Beekmans, who is the Project Leader of LFS and Edited by Matthew Burgess and Bruse Dubbs, both of whom are Co-leader of the Project. This book is extensive and expands over 338 pages.

Having covered – Introduction to LFS, Preparing for the build, Build LFS from Scratch, Setting up of Boot scripts, Making LFS Bootable followed by Appendices, it has all you want to know on LFS Project.

Also this book gives you the estimated time required for the compilation of a package. The estimated time are calculated based upon the reference of the compilation time of the first package. All the details are presented in a manner easy to understand and implement, even for newbies.

If you have plenty of time and really interested in developing your own Linux Distribution you would never want to miss a chance to download this ebook and that too for free. All you need is, to start developing your own Linux OS using this ebook along with a working Linux OS (Any Linux Distribution with enough Disk Space), Time and Enthusiasm.

If Linux fascinates you, if you want to understand Linux from scratch and want to develop your own Linux Distribution, then this is all you should know at this stage, for most of other things you may like to refer to the book, in the above link.

Also let me know your experience with the book. How ease it was to get along the elaborated LFS guide? Also if you have already Developed a LFS and want to give some tips to our readers, your feedbacks are welcome.

Источник

5 Tools to Easily Create a Custom Linux Distro

With so many Linux distros out there, you are probably wondering why someone would want to create their own distro instead of getting a ready-made one. While in most cases a ready-made distro is fine, if you want to have a distro that is 100 percent tailored to your needs, you may have to create your own.

With the right tools, creating your own Linux distro isn’t as hard as it seems, though it takes time for sure. There are many tools for the purpose – some of them are universal, and some of them are distro-specific. Here are a few of them.

Content

1. Linux Live Kit

Linux Live Kit is a tool you can use to create your own distro or back up your system. It prefers Debian but fortunately can be run on other distros as well, provided it supports aufs and squashfs kernel modules. Linux Live Kit has a very short and sweet wizard on how to build a distro – just follow the steps and you are done. The entire process happens within the confines of a bash script that grabs all your system files and plops them into a bootable ISO, recreating whatever you’re running into a live image.

If you want to take your entire system with you on a USB stick, you won’t need to scroll down any further. Linux Live Kit is probably the easiest tool to do this with.

2. Linux from Scratch

If you want to have absolute control on what is included in your distro and have lots of free time, you can have a look at the Linux from Scratch project. LFS has very extensive documentation and is a great learning resource about Linux in general, not just about how to create your own distro. Linux from Scratch allows you to build your own customized Linux system entirely from source code.

LFS is not exactly a tool like others on this list, but you can still use it for the same purpose – to create your own Linux distro (and to learn a lot about Linux as a whole).

3. Customizer

Customizer isn’t under active development anymore, but that, according to its developer, is because it is considered stable. It is another tool with which you can remix Ubuntu, and it also supports different Ubuntu flavors, like Xubuntu and Kubuntu. A critical restriction, though, is that the host system under which you are using it should share the same release number and architecture as the guest system you are remixing.

4. MX Snapshot

If you’re looking for an in-distro tool that can easily reproduce your entire system from a GUI, look no further than MX Linux’s own MX Snapshot. Although this locks you into using MX, you just might find switching to this distro worth it (check out our review of MX Linux here) if an easy-to-use snapshot ISO creator is that important to you.

In a few clicks and with some patience, MX Snapshot automates the entire distro packaging process for you, dropping your custom distro into an ISO file for you on your Home directory. Convenient!

Although MX Linux is based on Debian, unfortunately, you will not be able to use MX Snapshot for other distros because it looks for files that are specific to this one.

5. Archiso

If you’re an avid Arch user, you may have used snapshotting tools and might even be using the BTRFS file system to back up your data. But did you know that all Arch-based distros have access to a nifty little tool for creating ISO files?

Known as archiso, this command line tool will create a complete ISO of Arch Linux including any custom extras you’d like to add in its configuration files. The Wiki in the link provides a wealth of information on how to properly configure archiso to do what you want.

Although the tool doesn’t just plop your system into a bootable image, its features allow for an incredible amount of customization, including the installation of applications your system doesn’t currently have. It even includes a portable virtual machine to test your image!

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are so many of these Linux creation tools command-line based?

In this list, most of the tools require some use of the command line, which may be a bit intimidating for newer users of Linux. Archiso is an especially difficult one, but if you’re used to Arch Linux, it may not be a surprise.

At the same time, you might notice that the two GUI tools here (Customizer and MX Snapshot) are essentially one-stop shops that don’t offer a significant amount of flexibility from the interface itself. In general, command-line tools offer far more advanced features and personalization, making the process of learning how to use them well worth it for some people.

Which of these Linux creation tools is the easiest to use?

From a pure ease-of-use perspective, MX Snapshot takes the cake. However, if you want something that doesn’t lock you down to one distro or even one family of distros, Linux Live Kit is hands-down the most usable.

How do I install these custom Linux distros on a new system?

If you’re looking to re-base your personal Linux distro on another machine, all you have to do is format its boot drive and clone the entire USB stick onto it. You may have to reconfigure “/etc/fstab” and other configuration files to properly reflect the configuration of the new machine, but if you’re accustomed to working with your system files, it shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes.

Miguel has been a business growth and technology expert for more than a decade and has written software for even longer. From his little castle in Romania, he presents cold and analytical perspectives to things that affect the tech world.

Our latest tutorials delivered straight to your inbox

Источник