Simple Linux source + Easy compile and install!

[StrangeWill]

So I'm a little bit new at OS modifications, I was hoping to hook up with a really simple OS, but all projects I find are usually garbage or use old compilers that don't seem to work anymore...

 

Some people pointed me over to a handful of projects, but I made my mind up now, I definitely want to go Linux. It's something I'm becoming more and more familiar in, and I think would be the best to expand on a few projects I want to complete.

 

 

Basically what I want:

1) An easy set of code to download, no proprietary CVS systems or lack of instructions.

2) An easy build that allows me to create a bootable ISO or live CD ISO

3) Console only access is fine, if not recommended.

4) The less included (games, applications, etc) the better.

 

 

I've been having major difficulty finding something like this, Damn Small Linux wont run on an emulated machine, which is driving me crazy, and I can't find their CVS to begin with.

 

 

Anyway, any pointers? Suggestions? I thought of trying Knoppix but their site is in like German, so finding the CVS, let alone trying to figure it out would be a nightmare. Tried Gentoo, their documentation was useless as far as compiling went, let alone which CVS directory I need...

 

 

Basically I need a simple setup I can download, compile, make, and run, from there I can work on understanding once I know I have something I can work with.

 

 

Linux from scratch is no good, I need to install and modify Linux... then like recompile it, which is going to end up with a lot of stuff I don't need... I have Linux box to compile on, but I want to modify source directly.

 

Update:

Downloading the source for Fedora 7 Hopefully I'm on the right path.

[trq]

I'm not sure exactly what your after. Linux is not a complete operating system itself. It is made of basically two parts (each having many parts of there own). The Linux kernel, and the GNU user tools. You can't have a running system without both.

 

Simply put, Linux is not just one piece of source code you can simply download and compile into an operating system.

 

Linux from scratch is no good, I need to install and modify Linux... then like recompile it, which is going to end up with a lot of stuff I don't need

 

Linux from scratch builds absolutely nothing you do not need. It is just the basic packages required to boot and run Linux. The process described in the book is the way to manually build a Linux system from source code.

 

Another way is to build Gentoo from a stage 1 (unsupported now days), but even Gentoo holds your hand a little by using the portage package manager to manage source download, dependency resolutions, build and compile.

 

So I'm a little bit new at OS modifications, I was hoping to hook up with a really simple OS, but all projects I find are usually garbage or use old compilers that don't seem to work anymore...

 

You really need to be alot more specific about what exactly you want to modify. An OS like Linux is made of many, many smaller projects and parts.

[leonglass]

My advice would be to go bacl to Gentoo and get it installed. If you can manage to use that system you will start to learn how a Linux system works. As the previous poster stated it helps you out a little bit by having a package management system (emerge) to maintain the dependancies. You have to learn about the compiler options you want etc to get it all working. Take a look at Kernel Projects by Gary Nutt for some good guidance on learning the system first maybe. This comes with a copy of Mandrake and some exercises to get you understanding the different parts of the system by getting you to retrieve /proc into a program for instance.

 

ps there may be a newer edition of that book so look around a bit first.