Is it worth making my own Linux distribution, or just going through the suffering of making my own?

[Aswd]

Hello

Pretty much I want to make my own OS

Problem is I like want it to, LEGITAMETLY, be mine.

Is it better to use Linux (which I, for some reason, feel like is complete cheating) or do i just make my own, completely from zero?

 

[piorunz]

Pretty much I want to make my own OS

Everyone dreams to be famous

The thing is, you are not first, and not the last with this brilliant idea. Distrowatch shows almost 500 actively maintained distros. With many thousand dead never to be seen again.
Guess who is using bottom 400? Almost no one.

 

[Aswd]

Everyone dreams to be famous

The thing is, you are not first, and not the last with this brilliant idea. Distrowatch shows almost 500 actively maintained distros. With many thousand dead never to be seen again.
Guess who is using bottom 400? Almost no one.

I know but im not expecting anyone to use it anyways

Just hate always using something others make and not something i make

 

[gvisoc]

If you have a genuine interest in making something as complex as an Operating System more yours, I'd encourage you to have a look at the kernel code and try to get involved in some part of it.

You can set yourself to work on it using a minimal distribution of your choice (any major distribution has minimal flavours), where you can make all the mindful choices. This will also give you more control in the end result of your workstation.

When you grow your experience around the above two practices, you can revisit your question and try to answer it yourself.

At the end of the day, you'll have to start somewhere.

 

[osprey]

Hello

Pretty much I want to make my own OS

Problem is I like want it to, LEGITAMETLY, be mine.

Is it better to use Linux (which I, for some reason, feel like is complete cheating) or do i just make my own, completely from zero?

The answer to your question: "Is it worth making my own linux distribution or just going through the suffering of my own?" is, "it depends".

Only you can really answer it for yourself since only you would know the level of commitment you could supply to be involved in either making a linux distro, or a new one.

Here a couple of significant resources that may be helpful.

At the webpage: https://wiki.osdev.org/Expanded_Main_Page, there's numerous links to relevant material, and in particular there's a link to "Beginner Mistakes" which could be a quite useful read in providing a perspective on OS creation.

The second resource is here: https://github.com/lighthousand/books/blob/master/Modern Operating Systems 4th Edition--Andrew Tanenbaum.pdf, which is a download of a book by Andrew Tanenbaum who is the creator of the Minix operating system which had a role for Linus Torvalds in his creation of linux. The book is an expansive account of operating systems and covers the areas that one would need to when creating a modern operating system. That link may not be to the latest edition of the book, but it's a good start.

 

[theLegionWithin]

only if you're willing to maintain it long term. most distros die because folks give up maintaining them

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Just hate always using something others make and not something i make

It will be far easier to write a program than making your own distro.
You'll satisfy the condition to make something yours.

The most difficult part of personal distro IMO is package manager and maintenance, in particular handling security issues.
Then also if you're not skillful the overall energy needed to learn things and make your OS stable and working will take a lot.

I don't think making a distro is hard is otherwise, you can borrow package manager code and you can borrow any code out there but connecting things together takes time and some patience and confidence.

 

[wendy-lebaron]

do you have any idea what is going on? with haiku. with gnu hurd. with redox os. with something noticed less like kolibrios.

it's not easy to write an operating system!

only because someone wrote a kludge. that had a lot of differences from unix. and was 16-bits not 8-bits "like those other ones." then made an awful lot of money from it. so he was able to invent an even larger kludge. which included nice-looking windows, menus, buttons, mouse cursors etc. and made even more money from that. than the previous product. someone else wants to write an operating system that is "legitimately" mine.

what would be the purpose of this operating system not created yet? do you expect others to use it? better get ready to create apps for it. if you could create better apps. than what's been available from gnu. then you might have a winner in your hands.

then go through the trouble of hardware support. because there are many thousands of things out there. at least one person in the world will expect his junk to work. if not your operating system won't be used by many people. ijs. ubuntu is beginning to take a lot of heat. for leaving behind people. that insist on 15-year or older equipment. but of course that won't hurt creating a totally new thing. for the ones that want to use macos or windows anyway. and never batted a single eye to linux.

i suggest you download the "linux from scratch" book. read at least half of it. especially the packages that have to be installed. to get a working system. including installing bootloader. even with those ready-made parts. it's not easy and only for dungeon adventurers in virtual reality trying to slay dragons.

why do you think linux is cheating? because you feel you have to use windows? because you hate "systemd" or some other silly reason? many more difficult questions will have to be answered. to invent a whole new thing. to answer only one person's satisfaction.

i'm sorry for the emoticon i gave for first post. but this actually made me laugh a bit.

 

[lazy_lain]

Just hate always using something others make and not something i make

easy go to github resporities and begein to edit the codes and solve the problems (volunteer)

but to create your own distro lets... be honest

have you tried several distros? (the good, the bad, stable or rolling distro, underrated, systemd-free or not )

if you than try gentoo or LFS

and you recognise that 90% of gnu/linux distros are similar, most of theme bassed on ubunto

do you need your os not based in linux kernel and is unix-like os

try freebsd and based ur os in it

not unix

the is open source os's like haiku os or react os....

but im sure in first days you will bored and you will abandoned your os like a thousand of distros abandoned, bcs at last its a hobby and you will be bored like other hobbies

but at last just try and dont ask again like what fight club rules are said

 

[Aswd]

do you have any idea what is going on? with haiku. with gnu hurd. with redox os. with something noticed less like kolibrios.

it's not easy to write an operating system!

only because someone wrote a kludge. that had a lot of differences from unix. and was 16-bits not 8-bits "like those other ones." then made an awful lot of money from it. so he was able to invent an even larger kludge. which included nice-looking windows, menus, buttons, mouse cursors etc. and made even more money from that. than the previous product. someone else wants to write an operating system that is "legitimately" mine.

what would be the purpose of this operating system not created yet? do you expect others to use it? better get ready to create apps for it. if you could create better apps. than what's been available from gnu. then you might have a winner in your hands.

then go through the trouble of hardware support. because there are many thousands of things out there. at least one person in the world will expect his junk to work. if not your operating system won't be used by many people. ijs. ubuntu is beginning to take a lot of heat. for leaving behind people. that insist on 15-year or older equipment. but of course that won't hurt creating a totally new thing. for the ones that want to use macos or windows anyway. and never batted a single eye to linux.

i suggest you download the "linux from scratch" book. read at least half of it. especially the packages that have to be installed. to get a working system. including installing bootloader. even with those ready-made parts. it's not easy and only for dungeon adventurers in virtual reality trying to slay dragons.

why do you think linux is cheating? because you feel you have to use windows? because you hate "systemd" or some other silly reason? many more difficult questions will have to be answered. to invent a whole new thing. to answer only one person's satisfaction.

i'm sorry for the emoticon i gave for first post. but this actually made me laugh a bit.

I feel like Linux is cheating because the OS and kernel is already done. I personally feel like using so much stuff premade is kind of cheating.

(PS. I've already started the first lines of code, it was hard enough to let myself just use something as simple as Limine., so i dont think that i'll convince myself to use a premade kernel aswell.)

 

[Aswd]

easy go to github resporities and begein to edit the codes and solve the problems (volunteer)

but to create your own distro lets... be honest

have you tried several distros? (the good, the bad, stable or rolling distro, underrated, systemd-free or not )

if you than try gentoo or LFS

and you recognise that 90% of gnu/linux distros are similar, most of theme bassed on ubunto

do you need your os not based in linux kernel and is unix-like os

try freebsd and based ur os in it

not unix

the is open source os's like haiku os or react os....

but im sure in first days you will bored and you will abandoned your os like a thousand of distros abandoned, bcs at last its a hobby and you will be bored like other hobbies

but at last just try and dont ask again like what fight club rules are said

Wont say I have tried all of them but I have tried a few, like i think 5 togheter? so i think i might be able to make like idunno, something like windows95 but unoptimized and worse prob

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

Have reactOS a shot
It's already quite close to Win95 on the older releases. It's a little older, so IDK if it's still alright to run online for the 95 lookin like versions, but still close. Hope this helps!

 

[lazy_lain]

Wont say I have tried all of them but I have tried a few, like i think 5 togheter? so i think i might be able to make like idunno, something like windows95 but unoptimized and worse prob

there is another os (i think) called freedos to run windows dos like win95

and if you interested in os dev, there is a forum talk about dis, but can't find it sorry, also visit reddit communities

 

[Aswd]

Have reactOS a shot
It's already quite close to Win95 on the older releases. It's a little older, so IDK if it's still alright to run online for the 95 lookin like versions, but still close. Hope this helps!

I already know about ReactOS, but once again, i am doing this because it doesnt feel with me right with me that i know how to code, but dont actually make my stuff and only use stuff by others

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

You can try to contribute to other projects that you find interesting as well if you want. That's the good about OpenSource! Most of linux would not exist if it was not someone helping on something else. so, find a project that you find interesting and see if you can join! With so many projects out there, you can contribute to something that you use often! Just make sure it's alright with them first, though. In the end, it's a lot easier then waiting something from scratch and keeping repos updated on your own.

 

[The Duck]

@Aswd

If you're really serious about learning take a gander.

Welcome to Linux From Scratch!

Download LFS

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/downloads/12.4/LFS-BOOK-12.4.pdf

Enjoy the adventure as if you do this you will learn a lot.

 

[KGIII]

There are a couple of Linux distros that allow you to use your customized system as a .iso file.

For the life of me, I can't recall which distros allow this. I want to say one of them is MX Linux. Others here may now chime in as I've brought it up (thanks).

In that case, what you'd be doing is making your own distro (or a sort) for your own use. You could then share it, but it's not a 'significant' distro without doing a bunch of changes -- plus people would expect you to provide support. They'd expect you to maintain at least some of the code you customized.

So, that might be something you're interested in trying. In the days of bulk storage, and if you're only doing it for your own usage, it means you don't really have to care about the size of the .iso file.

Also, you could just learn to do proper backups of your data. If you keep that backup updated, you won't lose much data, and all of your tiresome configuration changes won't have to be reproduced. They'd just be applied when you restored your data.

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

Not necessarily a .iso, but I do know about something that Gatorsfan posted on a different topic about penguins eggs- to make spins of distros. Similar to how The Duck said, if you want to get the full build your own distro experience- LFS.
Gentoo might be a good look-at too as it's close to LFS But with it's own compiler I think so you won't have to write your own.

 

[The Duck]

There are a couple of Linux distros that allow you to use your customized system as a .iso file.

For the life of me, I can't recall which distros allow this. I want to say one of them is MX Linux. Others here may now chime in as I've brought it up (thanks).

MX-Linux
Antix Linux
Puppy Linux
Sparky Linux
Peppermint Linux

The above are the ones I remember that allow a user to remaster and create an iso from their own system although I may be wrong.
I'm sure most Linux distros can be remastered.
Ubuntu and Xubuntu used to have core iso downloads.

This allowed users to create a Linux distro with only the software they wanted and needed.

That seems to have ended several releases back.

 

[Zev]

You could also give Gentoo Linux a try, sometimes described as 'Linux from Scratch with Creature Comforts for Day-to-Day Usage and Maintenance).

---

This is an apt description of the difference between LFS and Gentoo that I stumbled upon online some time ago:

Gentoo is like buying a project car. You get to build it from the ground up, using whatever parts you want and tuning them exactly how like them.

LFS is like owning a CNC machine and fabricating the parts needed to build a car run by unicorn blood. You’re going to do 100% of the work, but you’re going to end up with something entirely unique. It also isn’t going to be practical to keep running.