Arch Deriative OS

toastygoodness · 2005-09-11 19:53:32

Under whatever license Arch is in, is it possible to make an Arch-derived OS?

I run sort of a pc shop and recommended Arch to most people, and they love it. So a regular from my shop asked me if there was some kind of os like Arch but newbied.

So basically I just want to make an Arch-derived OS and distribute it. Of course, not for money.

Dusty · 2005-09-11 19:58:30

yes, this would be allowed

for example frugalware is based on Arch
so is archie.

You can distribute it for money if you like. I would recommend you join the Archie team instead of going off on your own. Archie is a live CD, but they have (or will have) an install script to install an eas arch linux.

Dusty

dtw · 2005-09-11 20:04:39

Arch is GPL and under the GPL all derivatives must be GPL - everything Dusty says applies - that was a clarification of the key issue

iBertus · 2005-09-11 20:38:05

Arch is pretty easy to manage once it's configured and working. Like Dusty said, you should just use Archie for your newbies..

toastygoodness · 2005-09-11 20:40:10

Actually I wanted a much less live-CD derived one. Just one more basic, so I could implement some tools.

What if I included Jacman in my deriative?

Dusty · 2005-09-11 20:46:31

jacman is licensed under apache, so it should be redistributable.

Even if you don't want a liveCD, I'd suggest you borrow some of the tools from Archie (such as lshwd) that make it easy to use. Keep in mind that you can make your own custom liveCD based on Archie and that it is very easy to install this to a hard drive.

Also take a look at frugalware. Its supposed to be userfriendly. I never tried it. They seem to think they are in competition with ArchLinux, but over here we think of them as being on the same side as us. ;-)

Dusty

toastygoodness · 2005-09-11 21:20:11

Frugalware in competition? Are they based on arch or something?

Sure, lshwd would be a good addition. Would my deriative have to be GPL?

Dusty · 2005-09-11 21:45:23

http://frugalware.org/

I don't think its derived from arch, but it uses pacman:
Question: What package manager does Frugalware use?

frugalware about wrote:

Answer: We don't have our own package manager, we use Judd Vinet's great work, the pacman package manager. It's a tar.gz based package manager, similar to Slackware's .tgz. Our packages' extension is .fpm to differentiate them from regular tarballs. Unlike Slackware's scripts, pacman is written in C, so it's much faster.

I don't know if they use rc.conf or anything like that. There's plenty of room for Arch derivatives.

whether or not you have make it GPL is a hard question... any GPL programs you include or modify have to be GPL. This includes the Arch installer, pacman, initscripts, etc etc. So basically, yeah, your distro would have to be GPL. Its hard to really say an entire distro is GPL or not, since its more a conglomeration of programs, some of which are GPL and some aren't (ie: jacman is licensed under the apache license. If you modify it, you can release it under any license, including GPL!!)

Dusty

toastygoodness · 2005-09-11 22:06:21

So I would have to package my arch deriative with a GPL + Apache / other licenses, right?

I dont' really understand all this licensing stuff...

Dusty · 2005-09-11 22:26:35

Its not that tough... you redistribute the licenses with the programs (the same way Arch does it). You don't release the whole distro under any one license, because a distro isn't really a 'thing'; more like a 'bunch of things'. So don't worry about it too much. THe key is that yes, you are allowed to take parts of arch and redistribute them. If you aren't going to edit any software, you don't really have to worry about the licensing at all. If you do edit software, then you have to conform to the specific license.

Dusty

toastygoodness · 2005-09-11 22:39:01

So basically if all I want to do is bundle Arch with a bunch of my own settings/applications I don't really need to care about licensing?

Dusty · 2005-09-11 23:17:26

I might get in trouble with a lawyer if I suggest that you don't need to care about licensing, but basically, I don't think you need to worry about it right now. Just don't do anything that is against the spirit of free software and you should be ok.

Dusty

Riklaunim · 2005-09-19 19:20:32

I'm testing Frugalware now and it has few advantages:
- DVD or 2CD ISO + small network (so I can get a full 2.6GB distro with one download)
- Polish-lang packages for packages like OpenOffice, Firebird/Firefox etc.
- Packages like alien (convert rpm<->deb<->tar.gz), also things like localepurge/xen etc in 0.3.0rc1 DVD
- a bit more "stable"/older packages in stable (some of them).

Bad thing: no noobish tools to make partitions...

phrakture · 2005-09-19 19:38:20

Riklaunim wrote:

- a bit more "stable"/older packages in stable (some of them).

/me wonders why you chose a "bleeding edge" distro is this point is important to you

xerxes2 · 2005-09-20 21:20:01

in arch bleeding edge is stable,
i'm running frugalware on my laptop now, i just wanted to make libpypac work on it which it does now, they have patched both pacman and makepkg and added some more stuff, a .CHANGELOG file and some other stuff and they're using tar.bz2,

it seems to be based on slackware which is kinda complicated compared to the ultra kiss arch system, thank god they also have a base package set just like arch which gives you a working minimal system, they also use default runlevel 5 , it was fun to try it though,

arooaroo · 2005-10-10 22:40:02

toastygoodness wrote:

Actually I wanted a much less live-CD derived one. Just one more basic, so I could implement some tools.
What if I included Jacman in my deriative?

Jacman is fine for redistributing as it's released under the Apache license as others have said.

However, you need to check the current status of the Java Runtime as I'm not sure you can (legally) bundle the JRE with your OS by default. (This is clearly an issue if you're making a liveCD, not so much a problem for desktop OS offerings.

Arch Linux

#1 2005-09-11 19:53:32

Arch Deriative OS

#2 2005-09-11 19:58:30

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#3 2005-09-11 20:04:39

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#4 2005-09-11 20:38:05

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#5 2005-09-11 20:40:10

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#6 2005-09-11 20:46:31

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#7 2005-09-11 21:20:11

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#8 2005-09-11 21:45:23

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#9 2005-09-11 22:06:21

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#10 2005-09-11 22:26:35

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#11 2005-09-11 22:39:01

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#12 2005-09-11 23:17:26

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#13 2005-09-19 19:20:32

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#14 2005-09-19 19:38:20

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#15 2005-09-20 21:20:01

Re: Arch Deriative OS

#16 2005-10-10 22:40:02

Re: Arch Deriative OS

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