Core Linux

If you want to create your own Linux distribution from scratch (and learn a lot during the process), you could do no better than to start with Linux From Scratch. However, many of us will not want to go to the extremes that LFS requires: there is an alternative – Core Linux.

Core Linux provides just enough of Linux to boot into a shell and compile. Thus it comes with bash and gcc and associated tools. If you want Apache – or PHP – or X11 – or KDE, you’ll have to compile itself – which is the point.

Core Linux comes in a small ISO, and provides a small shell script to install the basics of the system. The ISO is 150M and is available from Sourceforge.

When you burn the ISO, don’t forget to use the image capabilities of your CD burning application; don’t copy the file into a CDROM directory – but then you knew that already, didn’t you?

In upcoming parts of this series, I’ll show you how to install Core and how to get started with some applications. Of course, if you can’t wait…..