In my Operating Systems class we are looking to modify a Linux kernel with some simple system calls of our own in C.
What would be a good distro suited for this purpose? We don't need any frills, no GUI, a vanilla kernel, etc. The more basic the better.
I was able to modify the kernel pretty easily using a minimal Gentoo install. Just install gentoo, follow the installation instructions, then:
$ emerge gentoo-sources $ emerge emacs $ cd /usr/src/linux