Linux From Scratch 7.1 Published 94
Thinkcloud writes "The Linux From Scratch (LFS) project has published version 7.1 of its manual for building a custom Linux installation. The new release of the step-by-step instructions is 345 pages long and uses more up-to-date components than previous versions – for example, the 3.2.6 Linux kernel and version 4.6.2 of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). The update also includes fixes to bootscripts and corrections to the text, as well as updates to 20 packages."
Re:Everyone should do a LFS install at least once (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Everyone should do a LFS install at least once (Score:4, Informative)
Re:eBook formats? (Score:5, Informative)
We use the Docbook XML schema to markup the text of the book. There is support in the Docbook XSL stylesheets for producing ePub output and I tried it once (despite it requiring Ruby which I have no other use for), but the output wasn't particularly good looking. It probably just requires some tweaking to the stock stylesheets, but I didn't have the time to look into it any further than that. I know it's a cop-out, but patches welcome :-)
Matt Burgess (LFS editor + part-time release manager)
Re:bah plain old recipe (Score:4, Informative)
In theory you should be able to build kernel with intel compiler.
You can build it with clang too. And if you wished the entire userland could be non-FSF as it is in Android. Android uses a BSD licenced C runtime called BIONIC. There are other C runtimes which I assume someone could port, as well as the likes of uClibc which is LGPL but isn't owned by the FSF and could be coupled with Busybox for a userland. Depends on what a person is trying to build of course.
Re:no livecd (Score:5, Informative)
LFS can typically be built from any Linux host system - a Knoppix CD or a liveCD for any other distro would probably work.
Or you could just check the host requirements [linuxfromscratch.org].
Re:eBook formats? (Score:4, Informative)
It would be very welcome, and (cop-out alert) had I had the time I would gladly have taken it as an excuse to learn about ebook formats.
An ebook version would be great, simply because it's searchable. But then, you want to take advantage of the format to create a really good, interactive index, perhaps links to a glossary and to external pages for all the included applications and so on. Suddenly it's no longer a quick format conversion but a whole new document.
So yes, I understand why you're reluctant to take it on.
Re:Everyone should do a LFS install at least once (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone who uses Linux should do it at least once.
Did it while I was in school. Glad I did it, but wouldn't do it again. Everything was great, but software got out of date quickly, and upgrading anything in the middle of the dependency tree or higher just required too much time and baby-sitting. Just took way too much time to maintain.
Re:Just in case... (Score:3, Informative)
...I didn't want to see the girlfriend this weekend anyway.
Hmmm. you might be on to something. I'm trying to simultaneously break up with my girlfriend as well as learn more about system administration. Building a LFS box might help me learn to automate a process I'd rather not do manually.
Re:no livecd (Score:5, Informative)
You're coming as close as you can to building Linux on a bare machine without manually inputing machine code - the purpose of the host machine is to give you things like:
* a running kernel
* a shell
* a C compiler
* a linker
* The standard C libraries
* Some very basic text processing tools, like awk and sed
* A way to download the source code
* A way to set up a file system on the disk
IIRC, Linus Torvalds used an existing Unix for most of this when he was first writing Linux.
The first steps involve setting up a completely empty partition, then compiling the C library (glibc), linker (binutils), C compiler (gcc), a shell (bash), and a few other tools. Then you chroot onto the partition you just set up and work in your chroot jail, with the only dependency on the original distro being the running kernel. Once you get to the point of having a bootable system, you leave the original distro completely behind.