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PLD is a free RPM-based Linux distribution which is aimed at the more advanced users and administrators who accept the tradeoffs of using a system that might require manual tweaking in exchange for significant flexibility.

History


PLD started in 1998 as a package repository for Red Hat Linux. It soon grew enough to become a self sustaining distribution and has acted as one for the past couple of years. PLD has Polish roots, but it's currently developed and used by people all over the world.

Name


PLD is an acronym which stands for "PLD Linux Distribution", making it a recursive acronym. Originally, PLD stood for "Polish(ed) Linux Distribution", due to the distribution's specificity to Polish, but the meaning was changed to attempt reaching a wider audience. PLD often calls itself PLD Linux, despite the redundance.

Features


One of major features distinguishing PLD among other distributions is fine-grained package system. Individual plugins and modules are separate RPM packages, making it possible for administrator to control every application's functionality and save disk space.

Releases


Although PLD is a very active project, developers do not focus on providing complete releases. Instead, PLD is evolving. On FTP site there are always very fresh packages, but consistiency of whole package set is never guaranteed. Everybody is strongly encouraged to use builder script to make own packages.

The releases of PLD distribution (available and planned) are:
* 1.0 Ra - released in November of 2002, support ended in April of 2006
* 2.0 Ac - final stages of development
* 3.0 Th - initial development

Builder script



This is a main developer's tool, used to generate RPM packages. It can be found in CVS repository under SPECS/builder.
Builder operates on SPEC files and is responsible for:
* fetching particular SPEC file revision
* fetching source packages
* checking build dependencies
* compiling the sources
* creating final RPM package

The simplest example of creating and installing PLD package with builder: 


$ cd ~/rpm/SPECS

$ ./builder mtr.spec

$ sudo rpm -i ../RPMS/mtr*.rpm
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