I can't think of anything that would fit what you're after. Interesting concept though.

Would the place to start making it be Linux From Scratch?

I am a bit of a consumer, I don't know much about making distros. I only get giddy at the thought of the opportunity to write every piece of software for an OS.

What major components would one need to get some OpenGL and OpenAL going?

Would the place to start making it be Linux From Scratch?

Acceptable.
Any major distro has a contributing page where they explain how to make their distro.
You can learn a lot about making your own distro there.

What major components would one need to get some OpenGL and OpenAL going?

The official answer is the linux kernel and the relevant userspace drivers.
OpenGL and OpenAL are build into the drivers, but if you want to use them you're probably also going to need the (g)libc libraries and possibly the entire gnu core utils set(dependency hell).

You also probably want an interface for your editing.
You can use a terminal text editor like vim, nano or emacs to dodge the need for a full fledged graphical interface.
Git is an crucial tool for any developer.

If you're going to do this please keep us updated this sounds like an interesting project.

So perhaps diving into how Raspbian is made would be good.

Thanks for the info. It is just a dream of mine, and I happened to find the best place to ask.

I suppose to get this project crowdfunded one would need to be almost done with it before anyone would want to support it, right?

I suppose to get this project crowdfunded one would need to be almost done with it before anyone would want to support it, right?

Definitely! You never know what you might run into with any sort of project (not just a gaming-related one), and there have been plenty of crowdfunding disasters that resulted from folks who went in without much (or anything) to show and without knowing the potential pitfalls.

So perhaps diving into how Raspbian is made would be good.

Thanks for the info. It is just a dream of mine, and I happened to find the best place to ask.

I suppose to get this project crowdfunded one would need to be almost done with it before anyone would want to support it, right?

Good idea.
Another project I just thought could be productive looking up the contributing page from:
libre elec.
libre elec is "just enough os for kodi"
You don't want to run kodi, but have at least a just as narrow scope.
It could teach you about kernel pruning and unmissable dependencies.

Another project I just thought could be productive looking up the contributing page from:
libre elec.
libre elec is "just enough os for kodi"

RetroPie might be worth looking at too, since it's in much the same vein, and is already set up to be gaming-specific (though for emulation and source-ports, rather than running a game in a similar manner to a live distro).

libre elec

I had just thought of this one myself.

RetroPie

I had forgotten about this one.

Another thought I had is making a distro that can run ScummVM. As far as I know, they have turned it into a game engine all its own. Part of the motivation to make this though is to make something exactly fit to its purpose. I suspect ScummVM might have quite a few nasty bits of code and conventions that no-one likes, that have to be there because of a number of tricks they used to do in the 80s and 90s.

Do you think I could get it crowdfunded a month at a time? Fund the first month, then people can judge if they want to fund the second, and so on.

libre elec

I had just thought of this one myself.

RetroPie

I had forgotten about this one.

Another thought I had is making a distro that can run ScummVM. As far as I know, they have turned it into a game engine all its own. Part of the motivation to make this though is to make something exactly fit to its purpose. I suspect ScummVM might have quite a few nasty bits of code and conventions that no-one likes, that have to be there because of a number of tricks they used to do in the 80s and 90s.

Do you think I could get it crowdfunded a month at a time? Fund the first month, then people can judge if they want to fund the second, and so on.

The thing is people crowdfund the final product(, because they want to use it) and you have no reputation that you can deliver the product or product.
It's why most Kickstarter pages read as ciriculum vitales, with things as: "made by the developers of [random game]".

Edit: also after typing this I feel old and grumpy.

Last edited by LoudTechie on 17 August 2024 at 4:07 pm UTC

Another thought I had is making a distro that can run ScummVM. As far as I know, they have turned it into a game engine all its own. Part of the motivation to make this though is to make something exactly fit to its purpose. I suspect ScummVM might have quite a few nasty bits of code and conventions that no-one likes, that have to be there because of a number of tricks they used to do in the 80s and 90s.

You might be able to tweak the likes of RetroPie/Batocera/etc. to carry this out - ScummVM is already a part of those!

What about Gentoo?

And my Anbernic runs something called EmuELEC.

What about Gentoo?

And my Anbernic runs something called EmuELEC.

Just as good idea as Linux from scratch, both work to learn the process of distro building.
Gentoo is slightly more abstracted.

I don't think EmuELEC will add much, because it's aarch64 specific and you'll probably want to run your distro on a x86 device.

Do you guys think there would be enough interest from this site to fund the initial development? A few hundred dollars for the first month would suit me just fine, since I live in South Africa.

I think the best approach would be to start with making a simple game engine, which would be a normal Linux/Windows/etc application. The following step would be to get it bootable.