OStatic

While not a completely new concept, the Debian team introduced what it called a couple of new architectures over the weekend. Except the new architectures aren't really new, per se -- i386 and amd64 are already supported in Debian. They're already supported in the Debian Linux kernel. The new additions are FreeBSD kernels compiled for the aforementioned architectures.

Since the dawn of the distribution, there have been ways to remaster, re-spin, and otherwise rework a Linux flavor into something slightly different -- something that could be replicated and installed across multiple machines. These remastering tools are usually distribution specific (I first tried my hand with this several years back with Knoppix and the Debian live-magic live image creator) and vary in how forgiving (and permissive) they are when new users get too enthusiastic in choosing packages to add and remove.

TechRadar recently featured InstaLinux, a web interface utilizing the Linux Common Operating Environment (LinuxCOE) SystemDesigner. This application allows for the creation of network and media (including USB) installation images using a number of core Linux distributions as a base.