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Monday, December 24, 2007

Wannabe Ultra Geek !!

I have been exploring and experimenting with Linux for a while now. When I started as a newbie I was looking for the best distro which suited all my needs. I tried out at least 20 distros before deciding my favorite one's. I don't think one distro can solve all my needs. So depending on the situation I use one of the following distros. The distros which I personally liked are:
Each distro has some unique strength over others. For example,

  • Knoppix comes with a rich set of softwares(7 GB!) and out of the box hardware support. This contains almost all softwares which I need from a Linux distro.
  • As a long time windows(7+ years) user I felt comfortable with OpenSuse. In my opinion this is the best distro for windows users. I use OpenSuse 10.3 at home.
  • Slax is a small and flexible distro. Flexible meaning, I can quickly assemble my own distro without knowing any internals of this distro. With MySlax creator I was able to choose the modules and assemble my own distro in no time.
  • Linux From Scratch(LFS) is not exactly a distro, but I would like to call it a distro. This is for Ultra geeks who want to build their own distro from scratch.

I am not Anti-Windows and having used windows for over 7 years, I should admit that I am really bored of Windows OS. Even though Linux is being widely used by non-geek users, I personally believe that Linux is for geeks. The reason why Linux is for geeks is: We can explore the internals of the OS and experiment with it, which makes Linux more interesting.


Linux from scratch is for ultra geeks who want to build their own distro from source code. In the beginning, It requires many days to build a complete distro(i.e. LFS + BLFS) and it is very challenging to build from source. Even geek's find it very challenging and thats why I called LFS as a distro for Ultra geeks.

With every challenge lies an opportunity, and LFS is not an exception. Even though building LFS from source is challenging for a geek, the opportunity to learn the internals of the OS and building our own distro is rewarding. I am really excited about LFS and planning to build Linux from source. Let me get my hands dirty with LFS and let you know when I become Ultra geek!

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