Or you could just start with Debian Testing or Debian Sid, as Ubuntu and many other distros do. Still, what you describe is how to make it easy to do respins, not to create an actual distro. What would be the advantage of a distro that only has the packages provided by its base system? None.
I expect from someone creating a new distro to add value to the base system besides having a different mix of packages installed. For example, like Kali, based on Debian, but with custom compiled kernel and software. Or like Mint, adding their tools to the Ubuntu (and Debian) base. Or like Salix, adding dependency based package management to Slackware, ... .
So in short: For providing a respin Ubuntu may be the better base system (though I would not call any version of Ubuntu "well tested"), but for creating a new distro I don't see that it is a better base than Debian or many other distros often used as base.
I expect from someone creating a new distro to add value to the base system besides having a different mix of packages installed. For example, like Kali, based on Debian, but with custom compiled kernel and software. Or like Mint, adding their tools to the Ubuntu (and Debian) base. Or like Salix, adding dependency based package management to Slackware, ... .
So in short: For providing a respin Ubuntu may be the better base system (though I would not call any version of Ubuntu "well tested"), but for creating a new distro I don't see that it is a better base than Debian or many other distros often used as base.
Comment