[olug] Distro X?

[T. J. Brumfield]

You're free to do what you want. I hope you enjoy the journey, but overall I
think more people will gain if you continued to make contributions to larger
distro (like Arch).

SUSE Studio makes it almost trivial to roll your own distro. And if you
really want to build on a non-Suse base, you can still use the openSUSE
Build Service to build custom packages on top of a Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu,
or Mandriva core.

Personally, with Yast, openSUSE Build Service, and SUSE Studio, you already
have a distro that offers tons of choice. They offer four official desktops,
that are all polished, in their main repositories, and get equal love. You
can work with official releases every 8 months, or go rolling release with
Tumbleweed.

openSUSE is extremely stable, they contribute more code upstream than
anybody on the planet (perhaps except for Fedora/Red Hat). And if you want
bleeding edge, you can can weekly snapshot repositories for everything, or
individual components such as Gnome, KDE, Firefox, etc.

They offer a "core" install without a UI. They offer a network install. You
can install from Windows. You can do a thin-client install with the Linux
Terminal Server Project.

Instead of rolling a completely new distro from scratch, what if you
contributed to the openSUSE community with scripts to further customize the
install, or rebuild as you see fit? What if the scripts made it trivial for
people to recompile and rebuild using the openSUSE build service?

-- T. J.

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 6:27 PM, Daniel J Griffiths (Ghost1227) <
ghost1227 at archlinux.us> wrote:

> Before I get into what exactly I am looking for, let me tell you a little
> about myself. My introduction to Linux came through a copy of Red Hat 2.4
> given to me by a friend. As new distributions were introduced, I went
> through the typical distro-hopping spree that many Linux users go through.
> After spending time with Slackware, Gentoo, Fedora, Debian, and half a
> dozen
> others I finally settled down with Arch. Over several years, I became a Bug
> Wrangler, then a Trusted User, and finally joined the Arch Developer Team.
> For various reasons, I recently stepped down and decided it was time to
> develop my own distro.
>
> So why another Linux distro? Several reasons, perhaps most importantly the
> challenge and knowledge to be gained. Additionally, I haven't found a
> distro
> that completely suits me. Some aren't stable enough, some are too
> conservative. Some take too much choice away from the user, some allow full
> customization but at the expense of usability. The list goes on. As such, I
> am now working on what will hopefully become a viable Linux distribution
> henceforth known as Distro X (hey, I haven't come up with a decent name
> yet).
>
> *What is Distro X?
> *Distro X is an attempt to create a Linux distribution with a focus on
> extensibility and choice. Through the assembly of a dedicated community of
> developers, trusted users and (eventually) bug-wranglers, Distro X is being
> developed in the spirit of Linux and the open source community.
> Through the dedication of its development team, it is also intended to be
> built as an open source distribution with the potential to eventually
> compete in the commercial market. Once Distro X is deemed suitable for
> commercial sale, it will be provided at little more than cost, covering
> only
> end-user essentials, documentation and furthering its development.
>
> *Why is Distro X being developed?
> *Distro X is being developed to fill a hole in the Linux distribution map.
> Mainstream distributions are frequently developed with a singular purpose
> in
> mind. Distributions like Ubuntu are designed with new users in mind, where
> installation and configuration takes little more than a single keypress.
> While this may be ideal for a user just coming into the Linux community,
> many users may find this setup too restrictive. Conversely, distributions
> like Arch are more focused on advanced users, providing nothing more than a
> command line and expecting the user to figure out deployment for
> themselves.
> Debian, while extremely stable, tends to lag behind other distributions in
> terms of its release cycle, and Red Hat caters exclusively to enterprise
> users.
> We believe that in an ideal distribution, users should have as much say in
> the deployment of their system as possible. As such, when a Distro X live
> CD
> is booted, users will have the ability to choose whether to install via
> command line, dialog, or GUI. Users who want a simplified system will be
> given the opportunity to utilize graphical configuration systems, while
> advanced users can opt out and customize via the command line. Unlike most
> mainstream distributions, Distro X does not provide a so-called default X
> environment. This allows the user to define the parameters of their own
> system, be it through the use of a full DE such as GNOME or KDE, or a more
> minimalistic system utilizing a Window Manager such as Openbox or XMonad.
> Distro X is being developed as neither a purely source distro, nor a purely
> binary distro. Similar to Arch, the core of the distro will be distributed
> in binary format, as will certain critical and/or common-use packages.
> Build
> scripts will be provided for all packages in the official repositories so
> that users may easily recompile them to suit their own needs. An additional
> repository will be provided for user-contributed and -maintained packages.
> While not officially supported, these packages will be monitored by
> designated trusted users, and packages may be migrated to official
> repositories if deemed popular enough.
> Official development teams will be governed by a set of by-laws to be laid
> out by the initial developers at a later date. Joining any of the
> development teams constitutes acceptance of the aformentioned by-laws.
> Members who repeatedly disregard the by-laws can result in removal from
> their position.
>
>
> If you've made it this far, then at the very least you are likely
> interested
> in the possibility of a new distribution and I would love to hear from you.
> If you think you have something to contribute to this project, be it
> through
> core development, UI design, release engineering or something else
> altogether, please let me know! Suggestions for a name? I'll take that too!
> Regardless, if you've made it this far, please make a post and let me know
> what you think!
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