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Folks I was looking fora platform for my master thesys and I would be interestd in the smallest distro avaliable. I know there are embedded systems designed for small space but for publishing work linux is better. So I was thinking about which is the most chopped linux around? Just gcc,g++ and the smallest kernel possible?
Smaller isn't always better. Usually the extra MiB is well worth the extra usability!
A couple that come to mind are Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux.
I advise checking Google out on the matter.
LFS Project Homepage could be of some help.
I haven't done lfs myself, but it is one my future goals. :D
I've done LFS and I would highly recommend at least reading the guide (even if you don't attempt the process) to gain an understanding of what constitutes a normative linux system and how it fundamentally works.
The point being: if you want to "chop" it, you are being silly and wasting your time by looking around at small distros. You can take "just the essentials" from any distro and make them work on any scale: I've built systems that ran off a pair of floppy disks (that is, less than 3 mb, which isn't even a standard issue kernel :p), complete with (console based) file browser, editor, networking, and web browser. They were source built, but the starting framework was fedora (which ain't considered lite or small). Adding gcc and development libs is more space, of course, but if you move up to a CD you can have whatever you want.
Anyway, two important things:
1) get comfortable rolling your own kernel.
2) learn some bash scripting and get a grip on how the /etc/rc (or /etc/init) scripts work. They're called runlevel scripts -- for that floppy deal, I had to write them all myself.
Again, just to emphasize, LFS is a totally excellent guide to all this. The idea behind LFS is NO DISTRO -- ALL SOURCE.
Tiny Core Linux. 10 Mb.
Here's the smallest linux computer in the world: picotux - smallest Linux computer in the World
:D
I suppose you could ssh into your wireless access point, chances are it's running Linux.
Having gcc and g++ is going to inflate the size a fair bit, especially if you suck other headers and libraries with them.