OK, to a can of worms first...
After a bit of research chasing people and asking questions on the net, I found that:-
Sourcerer was origonally called Sorcerer GNU Linux (SGL). Nowadays SGL doesn't exist anymore because the original author (Kyle Sallee) retracted his GPL code and distributes it under a non-OSI approved license and is a commercial product.
Sorcerer Linux was, and I quote.
Sorcerer is a simple yet powerful source based Linux distribution. Simple and powerful sounds like an oxymoron but in this case it is a reality that you can enjoy on your computer(s). Why is that? Sorcerer provides handful (simple) of commands that give you the total control over the installation, tracking and management of software on your Linux computer (powerful). However, Sorcerer is not intended for beginners in system administration because it assumes that the system administrator (SA) knows how to (and wants to do it) configure and tweak the system and installed software to suit his/her needs.
I was able to find on the wayback machine an old gpl build, it's basically a puppy2 level. I verified it is complicated to build and not for our wants.
I parallel with sourcerer was gentoo, which looks at building from another direction. It still exists but it is too tied into itself for our purposes. I had looked at it in detail some time ago.
Sourcerer had a number of offshoots when it went non-gpl. At least two of these, Lunar-linux and Source Mage survived into time, a lot didn't.
Starting with Lunar, it's just as easy to quote them even if it's a little long, rather than paraphrase, so I do.
Lunar-Linux is a source based distribution. This means that lunar is just like any other distribution, except that you compile packages instead of installing precompiled packages. That really is the only difference with so-called "binary" distributions.
This means that you have the control over how you compile packages yourself, instead of relying on the willingness of others to provide you the features of software that you need or want. This control is what allows you to do the following with lunar that other distributions typically don't allow you to do:
* optimize your entire system for speed, or size
* sacrifice stability for speed or vice versa
* insert or remove features of packages that require recompiling
* upgrade core system components without reinstalling
But this is just an incomplete list. There are many more benefits that are not mentioned here.
The downside is that you need to spend time compiling packages. However, with the current power of systems, this hardly stops people from choosing such an approach!
A little history about lunar: Lunar-Linux was born as a fork from Sorcerer GNU Linux (SGL). Nowadays SGL doesn't exist anymore because the original author (Kyle Sallee) retracted his GPL code and distributes it under a non-OSI approved license, and renamed it "Sorcerer". Another group of people also forked SGL into SourceMage GNU Linux, and they work side by
side Lunar-Linux, often sharing concepts and ideas. Lunar exists since early 2002.
Lunar will provide you with an excellent platform for the following tasks:
* server oriented systems
* development and programming systems
* high-performance computing and clustering
* High-end gaming
* Desktop computing
But be warned: depending on your needs you might need to invest a large amount of time into your system. Lunar is not a hands-off distribution per se, although it can be under specific circumstances.
Looking into it, a lot of lunar is dead and unreachable. I believe also believe that for our purposes it was unsuitable for what I was chasing, it's build process is just not puppyable, which is a shame as they did have a good set of package build tools.
EDIT1:I may revisit this later as i've just received a url for a later iso.
EDIT2: Lunar has gone mixed/proprietory foir a licence so it's now OUT!
On to Source Mage, and I won't keep you long at present.
Source Mage has been in the main systemd'd, but it looks like a non-systemd version is coming using openRC instead. Source Mage has two mediums to work from. One installs via a iso, supposedly a 20min task, but you need to know details including what packages are called, etc first. I left it alone. It was, even with it's instructions complicated. The second and seemingly more popular is a chroot version, this has both systemd versions and a new non-systemd version. Being chroot (think switchroot), it can be loaded on top of an existing linux vaersion and run from there. Their only real problem seems (and they admit it) is documentation is out the door while a few dedicated people have been working and using it, so it's not dead. I had a quick run, enough to make me intend to dedicate one of my test boxes to do a propper workthrough too see what it can do. However, I don't think it will be suitable as once more it's build system seems like it's too integrated for puppying. A shame as I do like the grimmore auto-build system as it's created to build packages with, and it can even rebuild existing packages with configuration changes when needed as part of the process of building and installing anew package.
I'd love to be able to use Source Mage's build system, but it doesn't seem 'splitable' from Source Mage itself. However I shall see, maybe using puppy as a base, chroot'ing into a Source Mage Puppy and working from that will be possible. They seem to mainly use ldxe as desktop at least but i'd like to jwm them.
I do consider them a contender!
and I was working with that WHEN THINGS STARTED GETTING MESSY........
Some of my email replies brought in good comments, some just horid, and a strange reply or three!
However, out of this came a list of other build systems to try out that also build 'dynamically'.
A few were clearly just ideas that were a variation on other existing ones.
Others just a first try to do...
And, a very few, are actually worth following through and looking at.
It all made me go back to consider what I was really attempting to do and to write it all down on a whiteboard and sort it out rather than just in my head.
My next missive will contain a "Proposed Mission Statement".
And so I/we will go on into March with something to do, and a clearer idea of what I want out of this whole idea!
And THEN I shall open the thread up for comments.