The easiest way to build "Minimal Linux Live" is to run the following script:

sh build_minimal_linux_live.sh

Note that the build process requires proper toolchain already installed and
configured. Check the project's website for more information:

http://minimal.idzona.com

Once you have your ISO image up and running perhaps you'd like to play with the
configuration file ".config" and see what options you have there. For example
you can enable the property "OVERLAY_BUNDLES". If you do that you will have
additional software being downloaded, built and installed on the ISO image.

Currently available overlay bundles:

* GLIBC      - Set of all core GNU C libraries packaged together. Requires ~3MB
               additional space. This overlay bundle is not host specific and
               can always be built. The libraries are useful if you plan to use
               more software after boot.

               This overlay bundle depends on the GLIBC build process.

* Links      - text based browser. Requires ~1MB additional space. Use the
               "links" command to activate the browser.

               This overlay bundle is self sufficient and doesn't require other
               overlay bundles.

* Dropbear   - SSH server/client. Requires ~1MB additional space. The build
               process creates user 'root' with password 'toor'. These are
               sample commands which demonstrate how to use Dropbear:

               SSH server (Alt + F1): dropbear -E -F
               SSH client (Alt + F2): dbclient 10.0.2.15 -l root

               This overlay bundle requires GLIBC.

* JRE / JDK  - Oracle's JRE or JDK. Requires ~366MB additional space for JDK.
               This overlay bundle requires some manual preparation steps. Refer
               to the "JAVA_ARCHIVE" property in the ".config" file for more
               detailed information.

               This overlay bundle requires GLIBC.

* Felix OSGi - Apache Felix OSGi framework. Requires ~2MB additional space. Use
               the "felix-start" command to run the Apache Felix OSGi framework. 

               This overlay bundle requires JRE or JDK.

###   ###   ###

I only provide the build scripts. It's entirely up to you to configure and
prepare your build environment. I use "Linux Mint" both 32 and 64 bit editions.
Your distribution might have different build dependencies but most of the time
there is a single meta-package which installs most of the stuff that you need.

The build proces is slow, so be prepared to wait. In the end you should have
the ISO image file "minimal_linux_live.iso" in the same folder where you
executed the build process. You can burn the ISO image on CD/DVD or (better)
run it with PC emulator like QEMU or VirtualBox.