LFS 4.0 Released 180
Tekmage writes "For those of you who have never had the pleasure of rolling your own Linux install from scratch, take a moment to check out Version 4.0 of Linux From Scratch. Definitely for the techies amonst us, there is (IMHO) truly no better way out there to get down and dirty with the inner workings of our favorite OS." LFS organizes its documentation into "books"; 4.0's book is dated yesterday.
Pointless? (Score:3, Insightful)
educational value (Score:5, Insightful)
However I would never recommend it for a production system. Even using it for a personal workstation takes loads of time to manage. One doesn't appreciate package management until they have installed a LFS system!!! Of course one could always use RPM/APT/DEB after doing a LFS installation...
Re:Gentoo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is that everytime someone mentions lfs, someone has to say, "Why not just use gentoo?" It makes us (the users) look like the next generation zealots. I have a better idea - learn what distros do what things and at what difficulty and then choose for yourself. Suit your own needs, dammit.
Re:LinuxFromNotSoScratch.com (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:LinuxFromNotSoScratch.com (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to build ANYTHING you need an existing tool chain. Here that means gcc, bash, ld, etc... LFS starts with creating a bootstrap system using your existing distribution: this existing distribution might just be a bootable ISO cd. LFS DOES go through everything: the kernel, gcc, glibc, ... everything.
LFS will show you how to build your own Linux, step by step. It will tell you everything you need to know to understand the bootup process.
If you want to run LFS on a 486 though, you'd probably be a lot better off getting it going from your main system, and then copying over. glibc alone can take HOUR(S) to compile on a modern system.
Re:LinuxFromNotSoScratch.com (Score:3, Insightful)
> Installing another distro first to install "required tools"
> is in my view not installing from scratch.
If I understand correctly, the other distro you use to build
your LFS is not part of your finished project, and does not have
to be installed on the same drive or end up running on the same
hardware. i.e., you can take the hard drive from your 486 and
pop it in any working Linux system and build LFS on it, then
put it back in your 486 and use your shiny new LFS. At least,
I think that's the theory.
Re:educational value (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, it depends on the purpose of the production system and how often you install/change packages. Often I wind up compiling software from scratch anyway. For instance, I've never been able to use a standard apache. A source RPM isn't all that useful if you need to add compile options and modules, etc., etc.
Where I really miss RPM's or DEB's is when I need to recompile something huge like gnome or KDE--which is more of an issue on desktops.
Keep in mind, too, that it is possible to install a package manager, and use it for the non-base packages.
Re:educational value (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd argue the "never in a production system" point though. For an average end-user, sure. But if you have a particular end use(r) in mind (robot control, wearable computer, multimedia entertainment, home automation, etc) then it may be easier to enhance an LFS recipe than prune back a generic distro.
Re:educational value (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been up and serving for 38 days straight. It was up for a month straight before that, but I had to bring it down to add memory and remove the cdrom drive.
I'm also running LFS on a desktop machine. It's not as pleasant to use as the server (KDE took 8 hours to compile), but it was definitely worth the effort it took to set up in terms of learning, stability, and configuration flexibility.
I appreciated package management a LOT more before I started using LFS. I got into LFS originally because I got sick of Mandrake installing hundreds of packages I didn't recognize or need. I want to know exactly what's on my system and why. And I hate when a package refuses to compile or install due to dependencies which shouldn't be failing. I've never had that happen in LFS.
LFS definitely has a steeper learning curve than pre-built distros. But what it loses in initial ease-of-use, it more than gains in long-term stability and simplicity. I wouldn't recommend that someone do their first (or second or third or fourth) LFS build on a production server, but after experimenting with it and really learning how it works, I can't go back.
YMMV, obviously. Not everyone is paranoid and anal like I am.
Re:Gentoo is a great iso-linux distro (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is it that every time someone mentions any other distro (especially LFS), Gentoo users apparently feel duty-bound to storm out and preach the glories of their distro?
You people really sometimes come across as zealots. I've messed a bit around with both Gentoo and LFS myself (I liked both), but one of the main reasons I don't do Gentoo at the moment is simply that I'm so fed up with the legion of Gentoo fanboys who can't understand thatreason. Grow the hell up. Just because Gentoo is a nice, even great, distro doesn't mean that the rest of the Linux distro scene sucks.
Does the tech community really need all this ridiculous zealotry and misguided "advocacy"? If craftsmen felt the same way about their tools as we computer people do about ours, we'd have screwdriver fans advocating the use of a screwdriver for driving nails and chopping wood, while the chainsaw fanboys are out trying to drill holes and change tires with their chainsaws. Hint: Different distros, different text editors and different programming languages exist for a reason: People are different. "Different" does not necessarily have to become a question of better or worse.
</RANT> -- this might be flamebait, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Re:Gentoo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it's a troll. It gets discussion started...
It makes us (the users) look like the next generation zealots. I have a better idea - learn what distros do what things and at what difficulty and then choose for yourself. Suit your own needs, dammit.
Exactly! Over the past 8 or so years I've used Redhat, Debian, Mandrake, a couple of BSD's, and LFS. Now I use Gentoo because it suits me - and I think it would suit nearly everyone who has an interest in LFS. I can't see why most people, even those who want the flexiblity of a source based system, would spend the time to maintain an LFS based system unless they had nothing on a computer except learn about how the computer works. You have no time left over to take advantage of what the computer can actually do for you -- save you time. How much different are your compile time choices going to be from the ebuild's defaults? And if they are different, then edit the ebuild file.
LFS is just tedious to maintain. Which is part of the reason why it's perfect for an embedded system. You get exactly what you need, nothing more, and you never change it.
As others have said, lfs is great for getting your hands dirty and learning some stuff. Gentoo is for after your hands are dirty and you want to clean them up...
LFS is a wonderful experience to install. I'm not discouraging anyone from going out and installing LFS. I just believe that after you've done it once, you don't need to do it again - and that's where Gentoo comes in. Gentoo essentially is what Automated LFS [linuxfromscratch.org] aims to be.
Re:LinuxFromNotSoScratch.com (Score:3, Insightful)
It means that you need some tools, a cook book tells you the ingredients and what to with them, and you bake yourself some cookies.