Can you customize a Linux OS by editing files to make it your own design?
- Thread starter Xavi3rify
- Start date
Solution
Well it's open-source so it's not really stealing work.
I don't just want to change the name, I want to change absolutely everything but keep the main benefits of the original OS in there. Something like this: http://laughingsquid.com/anonymous-releases-their-own-operating-system-anonymous-os/
That's what I want to do, kind of...
1991ATServerTower
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- May 6, 2013
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Ignore the riff-raff...
Sure you can change any linux distro to make it your own. That pretty much defines what's so great about gnu/linux! That said, you're going to have to learn how your distro works to have any shot at rolling your own customization of it. This forum is not the place to see that sort of help I am afraid.
I don't know anything about your distro of choice, backtrack, so I would advise to, at the very least, read and understand their documentation. Only a handful of people, usually savants, intuitively know and understand their topic of choice. Everyone else learns it the hard way, through study and effort. Read, learn, try, fail, try harder, fail some more, keep trying, succeed.
All that said, judging from my visit to their website the biggest piece of advice I can give you is, "don't be an idiot". Nuf said.
Sure you can change any linux distro to make it your own. That pretty much defines what's so great about gnu/linux! That said, you're going to have to learn how your distro works to have any shot at rolling your own customization of it. This forum is not the place to see that sort of help I am afraid.
I don't know anything about your distro of choice, backtrack, so I would advise to, at the very least, read and understand their documentation. Only a handful of people, usually savants, intuitively know and understand their topic of choice. Everyone else learns it the hard way, through study and effort. Read, learn, try, fail, try harder, fail some more, keep trying, succeed.
All that said, judging from my visit to their website the biggest piece of advice I can give you is, "don't be an idiot". Nuf said.
stillblue
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- Nov 30, 2012
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While it is allowed to use opensource in your own work it is proper and under many/most opensource licenses required that you give credit to the original authors. A good example would be Linux Mint. They always point out "based on Ubuntu" in their description.
Ijack
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I think it would certainly be unacceptable (albeit legal) to take someone else's distribution, just change the name, and then claim it as your own. Mint alters, and adds to, Ubuntu substantially. But to make this sort of change requires a fairly deep understanding - it's not just a matter of editing a few files - hence my recommendation to look at LFS. If that makes me "riff-raff" then so be it. 
Ijack :
I think it would certainly be unacceptable (albeit legal) to take someone else's distribution, just change the name, and then claim it as your own. Mint alters, and adds to, Ubuntu substantially. But to make this sort of change requires a fairly deep understanding - it's not just a matter of editing a few files - hence my recommendation to look at LFS. If that makes me "riff-raff" then so be it.
I would credit all the authors and everyone else involved.
Ijack
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I don't doubt that you would credit those authors whose work you used. (You are legally obliged to do so, and also to release all source code with the system.) Nevertheless, to make just a minor change to a distribution - such as just changing the name - and then releasing it as your own work (with or without credit) would not be a useful addition to the Linux community. Look at the project that I recommended (Linux From Scratch) to see how a basic distribution is built and how the various components relate to each other; you will learn a huge amount if you do this and will end up more expert in Linux than most people you will meet on this forum.
I would encourage you to create your own distribution but you should be under no misapprehension. This is not a simple task and requires you to understand how Linux works, how the various files work together, and what you can safely change. This is orders of magnitude more complicated than simply editing a few configuration files. And such a simple modification would be, IMO, fundamentally dishonest.
Perhaps the most difficult part of producing your own distribution is devising a method to keep the various components of it updated.
I would encourage you to create your own distribution but you should be under no misapprehension. This is not a simple task and requires you to understand how Linux works, how the various files work together, and what you can safely change. This is orders of magnitude more complicated than simply editing a few configuration files. And such a simple modification would be, IMO, fundamentally dishonest.
Perhaps the most difficult part of producing your own distribution is devising a method to keep the various components of it updated.
stillblue
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Xavi3rify :
Ijack :
I think it would certainly be unacceptable (albeit legal) to take someone else's distribution, just change the name, and then claim it as your own. Mint alters, and adds to, Ubuntu substantially. But to make this sort of change requires a fairly deep understanding - it's not just a matter of editing a few files - hence my recommendation to look at LFS. If that makes me "riff-raff" then so be it.
I would credit all the authors and everyone else involved.
There you go. It'd be like if I chose to create a variety of Ubuntu in the language where I am, and sent it to them they'd add it to the repository of languages and give me credit. This is one of the things that I love about the Linux community, share and share alike which makes great things possible.
As to the how, you basically have to download a copy of the source code and make your changes there then recompile the new copy. If you want just a custom version then you could start with Ubuntu and use remastersys to create a custom image. A new language is easier though because it's only one file to modify unless you offer up the help files as well.
Or you could try what Ijack said, Linux from scratch.
I am not a lawyer, but I think one of GPL requirements is that whenever you make a derivative work (like in your case), you _must_ make the results public as well - including sources. Still, I am puzzled why you would need to make that.
1991ATServerTower
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There are lots of different licenses out there though, some of which do not require sharing the code for derivative works, such as the BSD license.
General rule of thumb though, if you're not sharing your project with the public at all, then do what you like - no one cares.
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