In case it has excaped anyone’s attention, you really ought to check out SUSE Studio if you’re into Linux goodness. Basically it’s a “build your own Linux” website, that even allows you to do test runs before downloading and installing your very own, personalized SUSE based Linux distro.
This allows you to build your own web server with your favourite applications pre-installed and set up, so all you have to do is install it and boot, and you can also use it to make your own desktop distro with your favourite apps installed, configured and ready to go. Pretty nifty, eh?
For further demonstration check out their screencasts.
Sounds cool.
Reminds me of an idea we actually discussed ages ago; utilizing Google’s server park (or any other hardware configuration better than your own) to create custom kernels.
(1) Input your hardware and kernel preferences on the website, (2) let the cloud do the compiling, (3) download, (4) use.
Would it work? I don’t know, but repeatedly trying (and failing) to compile a kernel on a 66MHz CPU, 8MB RAM box sure sparks creativity (and passive aggressiveness).
Sure, it would work, but under the premises that your CPU clocks in at 66 MHz and you only have 8 MB RAM available, it may be assumed that you are back in 1997. Downloading a kernel binary on a 56 Kbps connection may take almost as long as compiling it. ;)
Anyhow, trial and error when compiling kernels does spark a certain aggressiveness — in many cases I would hesitate to call it passive though. :) Fortunately compiling kernels is not as relevant today as it was back in 2000 when I first installed Red Hat.