[lug] There must be a better way

[James Alan Brown]

I am sure that there are many of you "die 
hard Linux users" that have thought about 
why all the very different distributions 
we can now obtain.

Each company, it seems, has their own idea 
and way of creating a Linux box and all of 
them seem to modify endless files to reflect 
their view/logos and wishes regardless of 
what the end user really wants. 

RPM's from SuSE that wont work on Red Hat 
for example because of diff file mods to 
the standard tar source files.

There must be a better way than this!

I have looked at "The Linux from Scratch" 
method and boy that seems a bum way to go 
in order to obtain a fully compiled system.  

It seems you need Linux installed before 
you even start building.

I cant help but wonder if it would be 
possible to make up a bootable CD with 
its root mounted containing a formatter, 
/bin/bash, file utils, all the include 
headers  and C compilers needed to format 
a clean hard drive and install the base 
linux system then un-tar each required 
package and compile it up as you go?

I am now at the point of trying to produce 
a CD that fits this requirement.

Has anyone any info or ideas on its 
feasibility?

Has any one else thought about this and 
would like to comment?

Regards,
James at jabcomp.force9.co.uk
JAB Computers Bristol UK

http://www.jabcomp.force9.co.uk/