I am looking to build my own "distro". I am a relative newbie to linux, but an experienced Win and DOS user. What I am looking for is a version of Knoppix that, when installed to the hard disk, has already been stripped down; hence the title of this thread.

Whilst I leave it open to suggestion I feel that this should be a very basic version of Knoppix. Just the core files.

The Kernel - Well DUH (although 2.6 based is good)
The hardware detection - might as well use debian pure otherwise
The re-masterng bits - people will use it to build from
Apt - speaks for itself
Text editor - Being "Naked" it will have no X server, thefore is entirely CLI until you choose which X to use.

There are a few good reasons as to why I feel this route should be looked into...

Wth v4.0 we are now on DVD. Bandwidth still costs money. Whilst people who wish to try a fully fledged system wil want all the bells and whistles and stuff that they will never ever use, the re-master-ers will want a small customiseable download, getting only the bits they want. This thereby A: saves time in the download stage and B: saves time starting to remaster as you have a blank canvas.

I can see this as being a very helpful tool, esp as my bro-in-law has broken his system 3 times trying to cut and splice knoppix to his requirements (size being one of them).

Please feel free to ammend this idea, critisism welcome.