I think it's a good idea, especially if you could do visual aspect changes as well (custom installer, desktop environment, backgrounds, icon placement, menu's, etc.). On Fri, 2004-03-26 at 11:20, Adam T. Gautier wrote: > I had the need to build custom installs of Fedora. So, I have developed > a series of python scripts that greatly reduce headache of building and > maintaining a custom distribution. Obviously I just use Anaconda and > it's utilities to produce the distribution. But, to me, even with lots > of scripts to automate tasks such as package dependency resolution and > comp file generation the real problem is assembling the packages from > around the Internet and starting from pre-built solutions. > > I was curious if anyone would like a service that could easily produce > custom Linux distros. I did some searching and there seems to be a > defunct company that offered for $250 + $/hr to produce a custom Linux > distro, I think that was a bit too high a price. I was thinking of a > webservice that would allow the user to choose packages from various > repositories around the Internet to build a distro-spec. This distro > spec would be public to all who wanted to start from that point and > customize their own distro. To build the distro a GUI client would be > downloaded and installed that downloads the distro spec and assembles > the packages on the local HD, customizes images, allow for custom > packages, etc... > > I was thinking that this could be a subscription based service > $10-$15/year which allows a user to download and create as many distro > specs as wanted (probably some limitation like, user can only have 5 > distro specs in development at any one time, A user would publish the > distro to the world to free up space). The pricing is just to cover the > costs of hosting and bandwidth (big bandwidth hog). My estimates are > for a break even at 25 users/month @ $10/year or 17 @$15. Anything, > above that gets pumped into development which will all be open-source > anyway. I am not thinking this is a million dollar idea because of the > small market, I would like to get some consulting out of this so I can > quit my real job :) > > > The features that I could build into the service in about 6 months are: > > *.) Website to host system > 1.) Full RPM package library to choose packages from > 2.) Distro spec rating system > 3.) Pre packaged distro specs such as: > email server distro: > windows file server distro > CMS distro > Gaming system distro > ... > 4.) expand to other distros like Mandrake, Suse and Debian > 5.) Include support for apt packages > > > If I choose to do this project it will be Fedora based in the beginning > so that is why I am posting here. I just wanted to get some feedback on > the idea, I could have this service test launched by end of April since > I already have most of the pieces developed for myself. > > So what does everyone think? -- Adam Voigt adam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
