Debian is a good choice. It is very solid, consistent, and the current openssl version includes support for VIA padlock, very useful for IPSec based firewalls.
Voyage linux is a debian-based distribution designed for embedded, low-power devices. Voyage Linux has a shell script that might be a good starting point for something to convert to a phing build:
http://cvs.voyage.hk/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/voyage-bootstrap/debootstrap.voyage.sh?view=markup
[ListOfDebianEtchPackagesInBaseInstall]
TrickDpkgDebianInstaller
Voyage Linux
When I run the debootstrap.voyage.sh script, I get errors, so I'm editing it to try and track down what's wrong. This is one problem:
E: Couldn't find these debs: libsysfs1
Already I've learned that debootstrap can include and exclude things - thanks Voyage!
NodowsVoyageLinux
Debootstrap installs the base system, what about the kernel? The voyage linux script does this by chrooting to the target install directory and using apt-get to install the kernel. How could this be done on a system without apt-get?
#################################
# Installing Kernel
#################################
install_kernel()
{
if expr $KERNEL_VER : 2.6 >/dev/null ; then
chroot $DEST apt-get -q=2 -y install module-init-tools
fi
chroot $DEST $MOUNT_PROC_SH apt-get -q=2 -y install $KERNEL_IMAGE $MODULE_IMAGE
chroot $DEST depmod -a $KERNEL_VER -F /boot/System.map-$KERNEL_VER
}
This is How to do it
- http://tjworld.net/wiki/Linux/Ubuntu/BuildVirtualMachineGuest
- http://imrannazar.com/Booting-Linux-from-Flash
Image(http://www.nodows.com/trac/raw-attachment/wiki/Debian%20mindeb/kernel-install-no-grub.gif)