Making Simple Linux Distro from Scratch

In this video I will demonstrate how you can create a small and simple Linux distro from scratch, together with the kernel I will use BusyBox for the user mode utils and Syslinux for the bootloader.

Installations: apt get install bzip2 git vim make gcc libncurses-dev flex bison bc cpio libelf-dev libssl-dev syslinux dosfstools

[Fellintr]

This ~12 minute video explained it better than the entire "Linux From Scratch" book.

[OdyseeEnjoyer]

My guy really using Ubuntu on Windows Terminal with DWM to build a distro from scratch

[techhoppy]

I have run Linux since kernel 0.99 (Slackware on floppies) and never really knew/thought about the individual bits and pieces that make up a Linux system. This is super educational. I would love to see an expanded version of this that allows for a basic Linux distro (that includes everything that you mention it would need for production) but without any of the bloat that normally comes with distros. A tiny server Linux if you will. Also, just in general, thank you for making these videos - they're awesome! I appreciate the time and effort you put into them.

[faithinverity]

I have been studying how to do this for thirty years and this is the most coherent explanation/demonstration of how to make a bootable system that I have seen. This is a magnificent work. Thank you.

[alexviralata]

Wow, so this is the way to a truly unbloated distro bliss!
Good stuff!

[SystemTomcat]

I think this is the best educated Linux tutorial I've ever seen

[torspedia]

Even though I have no interest in doing something like this myself, I found the whole process rather interesting. 🙂

[xcoder]

Instead of

dd if=/dev/zero of=boot bs=1M count=50

you can also use

truncate -s 50M boot

truncate changes the size of a file. If the file does not yet exist, truncate creates it. If the size is shorter than it used to be, the file is in fact just "truncated", hence the name. Yet if the size is bigger, zeros are added at the end until the file reaches the desired new size.

Not only is the command shorter, it also has another advantage: truncate creates a sparse file on systems that support that. That may not matter in this example but it would matter if the file was 100 GB in size. In a sparse file, only blocks of that file that contain actual data also use real disk space. All blocks that are still zero filled are virtual, they don't use any disk space and they are also not actually created when you created the file, so file creation is also ultra fast, as all that really happens is that a directory entry is created for that file. Yet when the file is accessed, it will always behave to any file operation as if the file really was 100 GB in size and all filled with zeros. If you jump to the middle of the file and write some data there, only blocks covered by that data will materialize and actually consume disk space, the rest of the file stays virtual.

[hgilbert]

my dream of creating my very own linux distro one day, is a step closer. thanks!
i tried LFS a long time ago, but gave up half way through did something wrong didn't know what.
but yeah a full distro from scratch how cool is that. for educational purposes too.

[TSPxEclipse]

Oh wow, my genius brain clicked on this video thinking you were about to build a basic operating system written in Scratch. And now I want to see someone actually try to do that.

[MadMathMike]

You did this in 12 minutes?! That's crazy! 🤯

[OooooooOoo]

Funnily enough this is also exactly how Linus Torvalds created the first version of Linux back in the days. He just fired up docker and booted some Ubuntu image

[nabir]

I am working on a linux distro and your video helped a lot. Thanks.

[learnwithcode]

Thanks, Nir. It was my dream to build my own distro. I printed my name on the distro. Thanks again!

[JonathanNelson-nelsonj]

Thank you this video! I have been using Linux for years, but I am interviewing with a company that builds their own kernel for their product and I wanted to know something about the process. This helped me so much!

[janjuliusvannieuwenhuyze]

Following this tutorial was easier than installing arch Linux

[fabiosarts]

That's so cool :O
I did LFS like three times and i always wondered how could i simplify the process to the maximum

[Strong]

May God bless you bro😂 I needed this tutorial. I tried this at first but since i knew nothing about where to place the kernel, or about how to create and use a bootloader, the best i could do was only to make a chroot folder (and i became really good at it lol i even forged my own "terminal" and got it to work in chroot) but now im gonna be practicing this new knowledge everytime i get a chance.

Thanks a Lot. For now all i can do is add you a new sub. 🎉

[KryllyxOfficial]

Really cool to see this, thank you for the simple and easy to follow tutorial. I look forward to diving deeper into how this works.

[shirojuancarlos]

This is the absolute best tutorial on this topic. Please do a tutorial on compiling more packages for the custom operating system. Packages like GCC, sudo, nano and whatnot. And please also do videos on setting up ttys that work hand in hand with key configurations, I've set up my ttys but they don't work with key configurations. A lot of demands here but please also do a video on setting up the root user, sudo (root access) users and normal users, as well as, how to compile and set up wayland, xorg, sddm and possibly even KDE Plasma.