Several Staff and Members of Neowin have joined together to produce a Neowin version of Linux called "Shift". This was conceived as a means to not only learn new skills in producing a viable distribution in the world of Linux, but to help draw members of the community together in a shared goal.
Shift Linux is in its infancy. Currently we are working to get the initial Alpha version (Shift 0.1) out. The expected release will be in a couple of days. It is based on Morphix Linux and will be a live CD that is installable (but not recommended at this time). We plan to start with a simple, uncomplicated version, then add packages and desired utilities until it is a more robust distribution. We plan to add scripts for downloading drivers, auto packaging, RSS feeds, and a variety of other desirable features. We will start with a lightweight desktop manager (ICEWM) and later integrate Gnome and KDE4 when it is available.
The project is indeed ambitious. We have many folks who have volunteered to help and contribute in any way that they can. Our associated sites and sign-up areas are:
We are particularly looking for programmers and developers to help create new packages and fix bugs. At some point in the future, we will probably build our distro from scratch using Linux From Scratch) but we want to get this concept distro out the door to show everyone that we can do it!
