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Progressive switch

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:04 pm
by alex.barylski
I have XP on a partitioned drive and half the partition is freely available...

I would like to slowly build my own distro by building one from scratch, just the way I like to learn...

What would be the steps I need to take do accomplish this *completely* manually, without using minimal existing Linux distro's like LFS, etc...

I imagine something like:

1) Update the boot loader so allow booting into XP or Nix
2) Download the latest Kernel
3) Use a boot disk or install *nix kernel through some XP application???
4) Once the kernel is installed properly, I can test by booting into *nix and seeing what happens...

Then slowly begin installing CLI tools, WIndows managers, etc...

Drivers, etc...

I seriously want to start from a very basic simple kernel with basic required drivers...and thats it...

ANyone done this before?

Care to give me tips, warnings, XP applications or boot proggies that fit a floppy which allow me to accomplish the task above?

I do NOT have a CD BURNER so I cannot burn an entire ISO onto CD and boot from there, thus the reason I want to use either XP somehow or peice by peice using a boot disk and boot utilities or something???

Cheers

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:49 am
by Chris Corbyn
I know you mention LFS but have you looked at it?

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

You could easy download the manual and tailor it to suit your needs. I'd strongly recommend installing a strong development distro such as gentoo or archlinux first though. In fact, you'll need to before you even start rolling your own.

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:05 pm
by alex.barylski
Yes I've looked into LFS and another which escapes me right now...

I really want to start from a Windows platform and build up as I go experiementing as I go...

I have a pretty good idea of where to begin, but I wanted some tips on doing so if anyone had any such luck, etc...

First order of action I think is to replace Windows loader with LILO or similar so I can boot into another partition, then somehow (using WIndows XP) writing to that partition and installing the boot code...

Conceptually a very simple process, but I need Windows tools to help me out so I don't have to write my own :)

Suggestions???

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:30 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Hockey wrote:Yes I've looked into LFS and another which escapes me right now...

I really want to start from a Windows platform and build up as I go experiementing as I go...

I have a pretty good idea of where to begin, but I wanted some tips on doing so if anyone had any such luck, etc...

First order of action I think is to replace Windows loader with LILO or similar so I can boot into another partition, then somehow (using WIndows XP) writing to that partition and installing the boot code...

Conceptually a very simple process, but I need Windows tools to help me out so I don't have to write my own :)

Suggestions???
I wouldn't try writing to a linux partition from windows. There is limited support for ext2/resierfs but it's flaky at best and it's certainly not native ;) If you don't want a distro installing then boot from a live CD. And yes, before you do anything else install another boot loader. NOTE: Grub requires being installed on a linux distro to work, not sure about LILO.