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Linux From Scratch (LFS)
Not a distribution to download and install, but a detailed book/guide that walks you through building an entire working Linux system from source code, package by package, by hand.
Based on
Independent (you build it yourself)
First released
1999
Package manager
None (no package manager -- everything built manually from source)
Desktop environments
None (the book doesn't cover a desktop by default; BLFS extension covers one)
Linux From Scratch is fundamentally different from every other entry in this directory: there's no ISO to download and no installer to run -- instead, the project publishes a meticulously detailed book that walks a reader through compiling every single component of a working Linux system from source, starting from a bootable but otherwise empty disk, using another running Linux system as the build host. It exists purely as a learning exercise and a way to genuinely understand how a Linux system fits together at a level no pre-built distribution can teach, rather than as something anyone would use as a daily-driver production system. A companion project, Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS), extends the same from-source approach to building a desktop environment and additional software on top of a completed LFS base.
MirrorNest doesn't mirror distro ISOs — installation media should always come straight from the project's own official download page (linked above), so you get the correct checksum/signature to verify against.