Distribution developers guide
Relevant specifications
How to Write a Drupal 7 Installation Profile
Based on this article.
Installation Profile Utilities
There are several Drupal projects that can be used to help you create an installation profile.
Managing Drush make files for an installation profile
Drush make is a powerful tool for assembling all the dependencies needed for an installation profile to work as a full Drupal website. It
Usage statistics for distributions
Usage statistics are linked from drupal.org's project and release pages of each distribution, and are the basis for the default Sort by: