bravo scsijon!
I remember a long dialog with an helping devoloper of NuTyx at the time where Thierry Nuttens (the creator of NuTyx and long year along de facto only one developer of the core of NuTyx, where Pierre did add the KDE each time where NUttensThierry did publish a new linux tYX core)
(*1 did give us the desire to build by compilation each release of NuTyx ourself on each PC where NuTyx get installed... Working versions of Sourcery etc. were yet available at some repositories. Only one were not ideal: The origin of the used sources (LFS / BLFS) I did say to that friend.
As the future of Slackware were not known and not previsible, and not so much of sources were ported to LFS / BLFS (at that time less as today!), I did find that LFS is not really the best idea. With LFS sources, NuTyx did build a big core, the compilation time were terribly long (is documented on the forum of NuTyx, Thierry itself did explain how long it was with his own high performance PC...)
(*2 .
The second and third approach I did know at this time were Puppy from Scratch out the time of the first stable Puppy version and the SliTaz from Scratch being especially interesting because all sources of the first SliTaz version are (yet until now, I suppose) on line and the SliTaz from Scratch book an help (in my own language,
(*3 ). Second force of the SliTaz method: Christophe, the at this time French only speaking creator of SliTaz did explicitly name the places where he did download all sources of his small system: always as far as available at the depository of the creator/actual official head maintainer of each application (it makes more activity to get all sources at a different places, but as the system were and continue to be so small, it was not a main problem or difficulty if you did want to rebuild somewhat like that core system but with other stuff (later, in SliTaz 4.0, but SliTaz 4.0 has no book "SliTaz 4.0" from Scratch, it did become a bit easier because of the splitting of the initrd in 4 parts, Russian doll initrd, each part for a next stage of the end stage core! As it is completely easy to list the installed packages, you can easily grown your system...). The process were entirely manually but the way was especially clear because of the compact SliTaz from scratch book
(*4 . Aleksej, the actual main developper in end of version 4. and new version 5. / soon version "next" or perhaps lxqt, did begin to modernise that SliTaz from scratch book for the field of his own work. It is not a real book any more but a part in the new English based SliTaz wiki (it would be wrong to see for important details in the French version: SliTaz is now an English distribution). I don't know if he wants continue his scratch book for the awaiting "next" / lxqt version.
But the main problem stay to be the same: You can only get fast a collection of sources at the central depository from Debian/Devuan (depending of the starting system you prefer): it is the reality and the only one way to build a distribution from source without limit. It is exactly the way that Devuan goes but it is easier as Devuan will to be a clone of Debian without systemd and not change the content, not strip and not preserve some old libraries to shrink the new system. but Devuan will do that for the complete Debian stuff, perhaps!
Ideal would be the system from Thierry Nuttens building each package really from sources, they are no binaries from LFS/BLFS, no way to procede differently... but adding a build receipt to do that in automatic as the differences from version to version of LFS are often not giant: available old receipts are a good start position. The only one detail not optimal is, that he uses the LFS sources, as a lot a packages are not offered by LFS / BLFS: for no freaks but users of Linux having real need of special software it is not good, because you often only can to renounce because of the amount of new dependencies required by those softwares. not only in case of professional software but also software for all people like "gramps" (genealogy based on python, you need a lot of python extensions, and modern genealogy require stuff like geo position etc.), or, comparable "merkaartor" (needs today also a lot of extensions), etc.
good would be a system using Debian/Devuan sources directly, because it is not rolling
(*5 and it is de facto without limit! more: you can get easily DVD collections of each main stable release (and sometime of the last subrelease, so Jessie, with the sources! so you can easily instead "pinning" integrate if you want your goodies of old Debian versions killed by Debian in the new stables
!
you will not be confronted with your discover with sourcery:the stuff is not available any more! or the stuff is retired because of commercial use!
sourcery did not disappear yesterday but years ago (I have probably a version on an old HD, I have all my old HD. But as it is complicate to reactive them, I have to say it would be very difficult to find on which one today...).
NuTyx does about the same... and more,
as it can manage as well building from sources as installing from binaries about in automatic processing (see
http://nutyx.org/en/documentation#3 ) with his new administration software named "cards", an achronym for that what it does. But you will get only the stuff of LSF / BLSF, excellent if you want all that: LXQt, MATE, LXDE, KDE5 and XFCE! For me JWM is always enough
(*6 , but not enough if you needs special applications...
Adds from 14.7.:
(*1 yes, about 10 years along did NuTyx be the work from only 2 men and include a full Linux LFS, only available as book, with the content of the KDE base! It is possible an both people find over that time to discuss problems extensively just in time at the NuTyx IRC channel and in the NuTyx forum. Over that the documentation were always updated, and Nuttens did modernize his site and create and maintain his git ... And no stress. I suppose that, if it was possible, that the method is powerfull
. The main job were always get the new stuff out the LFS book, a book, not a ready to use sources package, to compile the new stuff and set and debug the system, exactly like in Sourcery. The profit to do that using the LFS book is that the LFS community is since years ago a very large community (The Sourcery community were always a small and splitted community, you did describe it correctly at the Puppy wiki!)
(*2 as the core of NuTyx (LFS) itself is absolutely not small! This is the reason, why it is important to see what small distributions like Crux and/or SliTaz offer to arrive to the point to be just sufficient core distribution.
(*3 I can only write what I will, because I use only MY selection of English vocabulary in the method of
BASIC English (you want impose English? Also help the rest of the world to adopt it!!!) from
C. K. Ogden and
I.A. Richards , also in a bad English and read short texts like separate forum messages, because I never did learn English, exactly like a lot of African or Asiatic people (speaking more than one language each day. SliTaz did be created by a Swiss man living in a split country and immediately confronted with this difficulty. More languages were never a problem for the most little of the great stable Linux distributions and 4 languages were always build in in that most little Linux although it were the most little distro
... It continue to be a problem in Puppy! No way to select the US INTernational, yes, international says the "INT" in Puppy. Yet in SliTaz 1.0 stable it was possible to use each official language of Switzerland (except Romansh... but I suppose the Romansh people prefer it so to economize the job to translate as all speak an other of the 3 other Swiss languages German, French, or Italian).
(*4 as well as the 3 great administration's applications Tazpkg, Tazlito (LIveTOol), Tazwok entirely written in bash and completely explained in the SliTaz Handbook...
(*5 we did all see what did happen with the wonderful Arch puppy's : short months after they was published no way any more to use the new Arch stuff: You have to publish new version only to maintain the wheel round and avoid it become quadratish!
(*6 I prefer very much functionality, like Puppy did always offer with his complete environment, as eye candy... Eye candy can be offered as extensions packages (Sourcery, her derivates, or Mandragora Linux were not especially some Eye candy distributions
)
My considerations:
- revitalize the idea of Sourcery, YES
- with the machine of Sourcery, No
- which environment?
- tools from SliTaz in pure bash (and, in the background, remembering the
SliTaz uncommon installation's methods) AS WELL AS
- machine from NuTyx
- adapted for Debian source packages
- plus one added receipt (like NuTyx did do for the LFS sources)!
(you can get all sources packages of a in one of your partition preinstalled Debian version using only a short line of bash (idem for the Debian binaries... ! Install the image of your goal in a conventional Debian or Devuan installation eventually with more stuff you will use after stripping to remplace stuff from Debian, like Devuan does with systemd, stripp, but don't stripp all foreign languages: the Linux system is actually a silly dilly system, the language as to be a separate core being able to be exchanged 1:1 through an other each time and to stay resident in a system with other as long as needing! And let the NuTyx script modified for Debian source do the rest in some kind of Sourcery would do it! Remember: to install Debian from binary packages, you need only 5 elements: a depository, wget, ar, yes, only ar, debootstrap and good setting up manual or software! Debian installer is only needing to install a "political" configuration favorising some kind of software like Commercial Mozilla, or some great inventions like systemd or from the windows world like mono... you are not free any more! The same has to be realized from sources packages, and after that you are really completely free...)