Linux I want:

• Linux Kernel 2.6 (with a shell to)
• Standard Utilities (LS, CHMOD, etc..)
• XFree86 4.4 w/NVIDIA Driver
• GCC 3.4

I do not want GTK, Qt or any other wrapper for X11. I just want to use pure X. I know X has it's own GUI with out Gnome or KDE. So I would only like X by it's self. I also need a web-browser that doesn't require any more then X11 to run. I would like to download all the packages for this myself and manually install Linux. I would like to go pure Linux. I want to work with Linux alot more and I can't because I don't have it installed anymore. But I would like to wipe out my hard drive and install it. I only want the bare essentials. So how do I do this? I can burn the needed images to a CD. I think there is a utility to make a bootable floppy that I can partition/format my HD with. Where do I go to build a custom OS like this? I can't use LFS because I don't have an existing Linux installation. Can any one help me?

Most distros come with what you want, or at least aren't hard to get kernel 2.6 going in. I'd say try out SuSE, or Mandrake, or something easy until you can get around Linux fairly well. However, the Debian netinst distro (for Sarge, latest, RC2 or 3 or something) is easy as cake to get going, so you may want to give that a go. Plus, Debian has the whole apt-get dealy going on, which is nice.

Anyway, nVidia's drivers for Linux are an absolute pinch to install, so no worries there.

Good luck! [smile]

If your going pure linux, I'm afriad you're beyond help my friend.


- Jacob

I very much doubt any distributions ship with nVidia's drivers because of the licences.
That aside, almost every well-known distribution meets those requirements, so you won't have any trouble finding one.

I dont think his question is about finding a distro that provides that, but rather one that dosn't provide 1200meg additional crap.

If you just want "pure" linux, you can't use suse or mandrake or any other of the bloat distros.
Either you install gentoo, which allows you to custumize your system very nicely, but gentoo's package system, altough very nice, is almost to easy to be considerd "pure" linux. :-)

Maybe you should build your own distro? It's not that hard really, google for a tutorial on it if you are intrested. That's really the only way to get 100% control of your system setup.

Gentoo is a great choice.

You pick exactly what you want. A Stage 1 install even has you compile libc and gcc on your system.

Portage(the package management system) is outstanding.


Good Luck! And Good Choice!

Just set -qt -gtk -gtk2 -kde -gnome in your USE flags in Gentoo and you're good to go.

Anything you emerge, such as the Firefox web browser, will not use these libraries.

try an LFS, seems you got nothing to lose..

SUSE 9.2 will allow you to install a minimum graphical system as an option. So the download is quite small. However it doesn't come with the NVIDIA driver but if YaST is installed, then it is easy to get. Also I believe it doesn't use XFree86.

I've bought SuSE 9.1 Pro with a book. I've tried Gentoo and had horrible luck! Maybe your not understanding me, I said that I can't go pure Linux, but I would if I could. The only reason I can't is because the programs I've bought and my games are for Windows. I could re-buy a lot of them in Linux versions. I don't think Linux is such a bad choice for a pure OS. I think it would do nicely and I wouldn't mind getting away from MS for a while. Besides, I know lots of people that I use to go to collage with the ran pure Linux and enjoyed it greatly.

I can try Gentoo again. But the bag thing here is that I have SuSE 9.1 Pro on DVD. It will install fine, but I can use my internet or YOU. I think YOU is a joke and so is YaST with you Online Update. I tried everything I could think of to get it to work and it still wouldn't, neither would be internet.

So I've decided to do this my self and do every thing manually. I need to learn this any ways. I love to program so I will write the applications that I need to missing, like silly little utils. I also will be making mods to X. This is why I only want X because I want to work with X directly instead of a wrapper (GTK, Qt).

I don't care how difficult it will be, I just want to do it. You can't get it done right until you do it your self. So I want to make my Linux OS with just the bare things needed and with out all the other crap! I don't want any games, any email clients or servers, any office software, any developing environments (except GCC and VI) and any extensions for X that tell me the weather in my vally (I can figure this out my self by looking out the damn window). All I want is what I need to run Linux. I will get the NVIDIA driver from NVIDIA, that is no problem. But I do not want and KDE or Gnome crap around my system. JUST PURE X11!

Why would I only want a stripped Linux? Because I can't stand having useless garbage on my computer. I HATE IT! I'm a profectioness so I need to keep things very, very nice and tidy. I only want what I need because I feel greety if I take more then that. If I want something that looks cool that I've seen, I'll write my own version. This is what I've done in Windows too. But in Linux I can do so much more.