Creating my Linux distro

I do love Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Arch Linux. I feel I want to create my Linux distro because I want to make it for independent animators, gamers, game devs, filmmakers, programmers, artists, and general users. I don’t know how difficult to build the independent Linux distro or based Linux distro. I think it should be easy to build the Ubuntu/Debian-based Linux distro. I would like to build it on NixOS or Gentoo, but building the independent Linux distro is kinda complicated. Do you guys want a based Linux distro or the independent Linux distro?

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Welcome to the forums @BigTexasTony

Build on an existing distro. Building from scratch means you own the whole thing… repos, release engineering, and security patching yourself. That’s a team’s full-time job, not a first project.

For animators, gamers, devs, filmmakers Ubuntu LTS or Debian is highly recommended. GPU drivers, Steam, Blender, DaVinci, Krita all target Ubuntu/Debian first, and you inherit security updates instead of maintaining them.

Skip NixOS and Gentoo. Gentoo compiles everything from source, slow, not worth it if new. NixOS is powerful but its filesystem layout can cause issues with some 3rd party apps.

What’s your background in Linux? What is your GitHub or similar platform username? Are there any existing projects you have that users can take a look at?

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Welcome to the community @BigTexasTony, thanks for joining us! :+1:

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I don’t know what you mean by my background on Linux. My GitHub username is 2ve. I don’t think I have any existing projects on GitHub. My KittyLinux project is private.

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You might want to take a look at Ubuntu-Studio (targeted at musicians, painters, photographers, film editors and other artists) to get an indication for what you would do different :slight_smile:

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There is a lot of information on the Internet about just that.

There are many more guides and tutorials. I would spend some time reading before starting. Also look into what it takes to maintain a distro. Money, support and hardware.

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I’m thinking about stable, cutting edge, and unstable features for KittyLinux. I will use Debian/Ubuntu build tools for the stable version. I will also use Fedora build tools for the cutting edge version. I don’t know how would feel about Arch. I knew Arch had malware packages. I think I will use openSUSE build tools for unstable version.

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You can do something like Omarchy maybe? It’s just an Arch Linux bundled with some apps and config files.

Btw Arch repository doesn’t have any malware packages. Arch User Repository had malware packages and those packages has removed. It’s similar to saying Internet has malwares. Of course it has. You have to be careful what you’re going to install. Just like you don’t build and install everything on Github.

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Oh, thanks for the clarity.

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Creating my Linux distro fork

Because you can’t make one alone :

that’s requires cloud repository, package manager, kernel tester, trademarking,servers,etc

but a forked distribution is easy work,
start with the base debian or fedora.


if actually into making one from the ground here a start point

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@BigTexasTony,

Jymm (@Jymm) has given you a good reference on how to “roll your own” Distro. You can certainly give that a try … as long as you are prepared to put in the long, frustrating hours to make it happen.

However, as Thom (@tkn) has said,

I strongly recommend that you heed that advice!

The advantage of joining an existing team is that you can learn a lot of specific skill that are required by “Linux mechanics” and discuss different approaches with people having actual experience with architecting and erecting such Builds.

The other reason is that Distros with single-person support are viewed as high-risk by those who need a dependable workflow. Thom is a workflow guy, so he would have a strong opinion in that regard!

So, if your intent is “legacy-oriented”, meaning that you want to do something that will “outlast” you, contributing to an exsiting Distro is, in my view, the approach with greatest likelyhood of success!

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I agree with you guys. @Jymm shared some resources for rolling my own distro. I will try my best to build my own distro.

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Welcome @BigTexasTony !

The biggest hurdle you have to overcome is as @Jymm said:

Nobody will be interested in a new distro that doesn’t have good support and isn’t on top of the latest threats and upstream patches. As you build new features or incorporate third-party libraries, you will need a secure test environment and methodically carry out layers of regression testing before you can be sure a new release is safe and reliable. Don’t forget all the different types of hardware out there, e.g. video and audio. You may have to proscribe certain types of hardware at the start.

Good luck with your project! And have fun! :shamrock:

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