Some items on the list may be a point of debate; for instance, while the bash shell is common and well-regarded, other shells - csh, ksh, and zsh being three - have their advocates. Nevertheless, the Linux from Scratch list is an extremely useful starting point. Any would-be distro builder would do well to ensure compliance with the tools and libraries and versions recommended.

Next, a recommended suite of source codes is presented. The total size of these come to about 180Mb. These items are not the final list of packages your distro will supply - not yet - but rather those deemed necessary for making a minimal Linux system. They will be used to construct a temporary system. When ready you should actually be able to boot your computer into this temporary, bare-bones, system and complete work here, free from any debris or detris.

A final critically important package is presented later by Linux for Scratch, but is worth mentioning here. This is the LFS-Bootscripts package which provides scripts to check file system integrity, halt the system, start and stop network devices, manage the master run-levels, enable and disable swap space and other functions essential to the well-being of a multi-user multi-tasking operating system.

It has to be said that the team behind Linux from Scratch have put a lot of thought into their instructions. They give sensible and pragmatic advice which helps minimise any risk of disaster: they advocate having an empty disk partition to work with, and to have a special non-privileged lfs user account to work from. This avoids corrupting your live system and avoids the potential of inadvertant damage from running as root.

With all this groundwork out of the way, it's time to gather together the packages your distro will supply and which ones it will automatically install. Here is where you can make a major design decision about your distro.

You might opt to make a very specialised configuration - with an ERP system and without a web server, for example. Or you might want to stick it to the man by including the Mono project's .NET framework for Linux and a collection of .NET applications or web sites, making them enjoy the liberation of Linux. As an example, SplendidCRM is an open source but Microsoft-centric customer relationship system (CRM) which has been successfully run on Linux. In many ways, it is a better system than the original LAMP system it re-engineers. It's not hard to imagine the worth of a completely open source Linux distro that provides an enterprise CRM with backend database and no reliance whatsoever on - or distribution issues involved with - Microsoft software.

Linux from Scratch do not favour one package manager over another. They give advice on what a good package management system should do but leave the actual selection to the reader. Thus, along with the packages themselves, this is another opportunity to make your distro unique.

It's by no means the final opportunity. Linux from Scratch ends at this point, with a bootable customised Linux operating system on your system - but you can go in many further directions. One thing you will want to do is capture your distro onto CD/DVD as can be done with ROCK. You might wish to make alternative builds of your distro for different system architectures. You might wish to make your distro automate its installation so the user has no, or minimal, prompting. You may desire heightened security. All of these choices are described in depth in Beyond Linux from Scratch - and other advanced subprojects. That should be your next port of call.

No matter which method of distro-building you choose to emply, the ultimately fact is your distro can be whatever you wish it to be. The only limiting constraint is what you can imagine. And we at ITWire wish you the best.

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