“Gerard Beekmans started Linux From Scratch, his guide to
building a Linux Operating System from the bottom up, for two
reasons. First, because he didn’t like the way existing
distributions dictated organization and ultimately had more control
over his operating system than he did. Second, because he had just
moved from Holland to Toronto, Canada, to marry the woman he fell
in love with online. His working papers hadn’t come through yet so
he had some extra time on his hands….”
“That year at college was a doozy. Not only did he meet his
first love, but his second too. He says there were a lot of geeks
there and that they introduced him to Linux. But that relationship
didn’t go quite as smoothly as his first one did. When he got up to
speed with the distributions, he became less pleased.”
“If you use Red Hat or any of those general distributions you’re
stuck with the way they want you to work. Like the way the files
are organized or the way the programs are installed and the package
management. I just want more freedom and the distributions, they
limited that and if I were to implement my own I could really do
everything exactly the way I wanted, organize everything exactly
the way I wanted to so I would know how everything was installed
and where to find everything. I want pure control over the system.
I like knowing what is where and what is happening behind my
back.”