How To Create And Use A Personal Linux Distribution?
In this article, we are going to show you how to create and use your own personal Linux distribution based on common distributions.
Before you begin, let’s look at the prospects for this process.
Thanks to the internal flexibility, scalability, and adaptability of open source software, a lot can be done. So that it is possible to decide to build a new product based on your specific needs.
The world of operating systems
We all use computers every day and often have enough information about Windows and Mac. However, are you aware of the capabilities of the Linux operating system?
It is true that Windows and macOS are the marketplace operating systems in the desktop domain and are in the third place of the Linux operating system, but some of the capabilities offered by Linux go beyond these two operating systems.
Microsoft Windows accounts for about 80% of the market and macOS for about 16%, so we see that Linux has a small market share, but wait, the reality is something else.
These numbers only reflect the use of desktop operating systems. Did you know that Android runs on the Linux operating system? When you use Facebook, Instagram or Google, you are actually using Linux.
Interestingly, in the world of server operating systems, Linux is a leader by a small margin.
What is the exact definition of an operating system?
An operating system is a type of software that sits between the hardware you interact with and the software you want to run. When you press a key on the keyboard or look at the screen, you are communicating with the hardware in an intangible way.
When you run your web browser and use the browser to interact with the web, the web browser is executing code on the central processing unit.
However, these processes are not done directly because you interact first with the operating system and then with the hardware. Basically, the operating system translates and manages hardware conversations so that the software can use them.
To better understand this issue, pay attention to Figure 1.
figure 1
As you can see in Figure 1, there are three abstract layers of hardware, kernel mode, and user mode, which combine to allow you to use the system hardware properly. The operating system is the interface between hardware, applications, and system applications.
The operating system allows applications and developers to interact with hardware through the libraries it provides.
What is Linux?
There is a misconception about Linux that some users think Linux is literally an operating system. This notion of Linux is incorrect because Linux is software that communicates directly with the hardware, while a real operating system does far more than interact and includes software libraries, a runtime component, and typically a set of default executable tools.
Most Linux distributions use GNU, designed by Richard Stallman for free and open-source, as the operating system. GNU The title GNU’s Not Unix is a pseudo-Unix operating system developed by the GNU Project and released as open-source software.
GNU includes everything from compilers to system libraries and system applications.
In the world of Linux, we often use the term GNU + Linux, more colloquially than GNU / Linux, to indicate that the Linux operating system is a combination of the two.
There are many Linux distributions today that are often lightweight and used in embedded systems. However, most Linux distributions are based on popular distributions such as Debian and Ubuntu.
Open-source software versus free software
The Linux kernel is known as open-source software in the sense that its source code is available to users. Any user can read the code and make changes to the source code.
In this case, developers can find bugs as a member of the Linux community or add new features to the intended distribution. Open-source software based on the concept of the developer community has more flexibility than proprietary and closed source software such as Windows.
Because developers around the world can view and edit code, which ultimately improves software quality, troubleshooting, and software security.
Open-source software is usually free, the most popular of which are VLC, MediaWiki, and Firefox.
That is why the open-source development model has become a widespread and important ecosystem.
On the other hand, there is more free software than open-source software. Free software provides interesting ways for developers to make money through this software development model.
Developers can make money from the free model by offering advertising-based solutions or in-app purchases.
In contrast to these two models are proprietary software such as the Microsoft Windows operating system, which does not own the software with the user and the user is only allowed to use the software.
In this case, users are not only unable to view the code, but any reverse engineering, editing, or republishing of the code by illegal users. That’s why open-source software and operating systems have come to the attention of developers.
Why do we need to create a Linux distribution?
With so many Linux distributions out there, you might be wondering why we should look to build a new distribution while existing distributions offer different capabilities.
No operating system in the world can be completely user-friendly. For example, some organizations prefer to use an operating system that inherently blocks access to certain ports, or parents prefer to use an operating system that is appropriate for their children, in which case you may have to create your own Linux distribution.
When you use the right tools, you will find that building a Linux distribution is not as difficult as it sounds, but it is a time-consuming process.
There are many tools for this purpose, some of which are well known. In this article, we will get acquainted with eight of these tools.
Linux Respin
Linux Respin is a branch of the popular Remasterys tool that has stopped updating. Remasters was one of the most popular tools for building Linux distributions or backups, however, Linux Respin is a good alternative to this tool, although it offers more limited capabilities than Remasterys, it has acceptable performance in building Linux distributions.
Linux Respin is only available in conjunction with Debian, Mint, and Trisquel distributions, which has made its use somewhat limited. The downside to the above tool is the not-so-powerful documentation provided for this tool.
Linux Live Kit
The Linux Live Kit is a tool that you can use to build a custom Linux distribution or backup system. The Linux Live Kit supports Debian by default, but can be used in conjunction with other distributions, provided the distribution supports aufs and squashfs kernel modules.
And The Linux Live Kit provides the user with a short, efficient tool that is far from the usual complexity to allow the user to create the desired distribution without any problems.
Ubuntu Imager
The Ubuntu Imager is the ideal tool for building Ubuntu-based Linux distributions. Ubuntu Imager is not the only option available to Ubuntu, but because of the good features it offers, it is an ideal option for building Ubuntu-based distributions.
Linux from Scratch
If you want to keep a close eye on the features and applications that are added to a custom distribution when building a distribution, I suggest you do not miss the Linux from Scratch tool. Fortunately, detailed documentation for LFS is provided, and not only is it ideal for building a Linux distribution, but it is also a great resource for learning Linux.
Linux from Scratch lets you build your own custom Linux system entirely from source code. LFS has different functionality than the other tools we introduced in this article, but it is ideal for building a personal Linux distribution.
Slax Modules Tool
If you are looking for a simple Slax-like tool that is a Slackware-based distribution, the Slax Modules Tool is for you. The above tool is especially suitable for people who want to create a live and light version to run a system. Slax Modules Tools are based on Slackware and allow the user to call different modules.
Note, however, that the above approach is somewhat outdated and for newer versions of Slax, it is recommended that you use apt to install software instead of modules.
Live Magic
Live Magic is another tool designed to build Debian-based distributions. However, the tool has capabilities far beyond building Debian-based distributions. Live Magic can create CDs, flash drives, and netboot images. This tool is easier to use than the options presented in this article, however, it is not able to create an image of the distribution you are using.
However, the above tool wizard allows you to apply the configurations you want. This program can fetch packages from repositories and place them in your desired image.
Revisor
It is another powerful tool available to users to build custom distributions. Revisor lets you create personalized Fedora-based distributions.
Revisor allows you to create a Media Installation for the permanent installation of the distribution on the computer, preparing a live version that can boot a system. This solution is especially useful when you want to recover data and solve operating system problems.
Customizer
A customizer is a tool that allows you to create an Ubuntu-based distribution, although it also supports Xubuntu and Kubuntu. The only major drawback of this tool is that when building a distribution, the hosting system you are using must have the same architecture as the operating system you intend to rebuild.
Real experience building TOS Linux distribution
The TOS distribution, which you probably haven’t heard of, is a personal distribution designed by Tom Meyer based on the Ubuntu distribution.
“When I decided to create this distribution, I got a lot of information about how to use Linux and I was able to use a stable distribution,” he says.
The distribution I use today for everyday activities.
When I started the build process, I was curious to test different distributions like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, Arch Linux to see what functionalities are in the other distributions that can be used in TOS. When I installed Arch Linux on my personal laptop, I decided to install it on my desktop computer.
To do this, I wrote a shell script that would automatically install Arch Linux with all the dependencies and applications I needed. I quickly identified and fixed the installation script bugs. During this time I added new features that I needed to the above script. This created a huge amount of usability in a short period of time.
“Eventually I was no longer faced with a script, so I decided to create application components and infrastructure that could communicate with each other, and thus TOS GNU / LINUX was born.”
TOX Linux has a graphical installer responsible for installing the operating system on the hardware.
Is in charge. It installs various processes such as hard disk partitioning / solid-state memory, creating groups and users, installing the necessary packages from the TOS repository, operating system configuration (keyboard, permissions, support repositories, etc.), setting up the boot process, preparing, and validating the environment.
Each of these components has its own configuration. For example, users can specify how to configure the environment, what file system to use, and encrypt data if they wish. To prevent middle man attacks, TOS uses the concept of packet signatures.
In other words, each package is compressed (in a zip file or zstd) and after compression is signed with a private key and placed in the appropriate repository. The desktop environment of the TOS distribution is shown in Figure 2.
The desktop environment is the main part of the operating system, which provides a graphical interface for managing daily activities.
In other words, each package is compressed (in a zip file or zstd) and after compression is signed with a private key and placed in the appropriate repository.
The desktop environment of the TOS distribution is shown in Figure 2. The desktop environment is the main part of the operating system, which provides a graphical interface for managing daily activities.
In other words, each package is compressed (in a zip file or zstd) and after compression is signed with a private key and placed in the appropriate repository. The desktop environment of the TOS distribution is shown in Figure 2.
The desktop environment is the main part of the operating system, which provides a graphical interface for managing daily activities.
figure 2
The most important tasks performed by this desktop environment are managing applications/windows, providing a set of default applications (word processor, file manager, settings, and similar examples), managing communication modes (WiFi, Bluetooth, screen settings, keyboard layout), management Mentioned permissions (request for password or fingerprint), visual effects management of icons, templates, folders, mouse pointer, background image, and login management. The TOX bootloader supports multiple operating systems.
In other words, it can be used with other Linux, BSD, macOS, and Windows distributions. Therefore, it is possible to use TOS Linux alongside the Windows operating system. Figure 3 shows the architecture of this distribution.
Figure 3
last word
These tools help you build personalized Linux distributions by providing a variety of solutions. However, the level of complexity and capabilities they provide are not the same, however, in this article, we have tried to introduce the tools that allow you to prepare a distribution tailored to the needs of the work.
