[HN Gopher] Linux from Scratch
___________________________________________________________________
Linux from Scratch
Author : Alupis
Score : 313 points
Date : 2026-01-21 18:44 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.linuxfromscratch.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.linuxfromscratch.org)
| steve1977 wrote:
| It's been years since I went through this, but whenever someone
| asks me what they should read to get a deeper understanding of
| what a Linux distribution is, I point them to this.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Yup, it's where I got a lot of my linux knowledge.
|
| I think that Gentoo or even Arch would provide pretty close to
| the same education level, though, with a lot less time to
| install.
| Chilinot wrote:
| Having installed Arch myself a couple of times, i think i
| would disagree. Not really much in that process that teaches
| you how linux actually works. It's more just about managing
| disk partitions and moving files around than anything else.
|
| LFS is just on a whole different level, and is on my bucket
| list to complete the entire process one day.
| jdc0589 wrote:
| agreed. I haven't done LFS, but ive done arch and plently
| of other distros for a good while and I definitely wouldn't
| say I have a rock solid understanding of the fundamentals.
| necovek wrote:
| Agreed!
|
| As an addendum, you have to do it for your actual working
| computer, otherwise, doing it on a VM or a machine you
| don't use, you won't be learning nearly as much as there is
| no pressure to make it truly work for you (this is where
| learning happens, when the thing you wanted to configure,
| and LFS docs or web docs are out of date on, so you have to
| dig deeper).
| cogman10 wrote:
| I've completed it along with BLFS and I just don't really
| agree.
|
| Like, yes you get pretty familiar with autotools, sed, and
| patch. However, a lot of LFS is in fact just managing disk
| partitions and moving files around.
|
| LFS also glosses over a lot of pretty important parts like
| kernel configuration.
|
| The docs from both Gentoo and Arch, on the other hand, are
| much more complete and practical in explaining things and
| also troubleshooting problems. And at the end of the
| process you're left with a system that can be easily
| maintained.
|
| LFS is harder, but that doesn't really mean you end up
| learning more. Especially since it's pretty easy to lose
| focus and just rely on copy/pasting the next command to
| run.
|
| Edit: Just an example of what I mean.
|
| Here is the LFS discussion of filesystems.
|
| https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/chapter02/
| c...
|
| And here is the same Gentoo discussion.
|
| https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Installation/Di
| s...
| shevy-java wrote:
| Gentoo I understand but Arch? Does Arch go into
| compilation that much?
| cogman10 wrote:
| Not so much compilation, but it does delve into system
| management in a way that other OSes don't. Arch has few
| defaults setup for the user, so if you do it from scratch
| you'll end up needing to go through several of the
| general setup recommendations [1].
|
| That's where you end up learning a lot about linux which
| is particularly practical. Other Linux distros,
| especially for the desktop, hide a lot of this
| information behind nice guis.
|
| [1]
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/General_recommendations
| ilvez wrote:
| Other point is long time maintainability as well.. Like
| unistalling stuff you don't need etc. Or LFS solves it?
| cogman10 wrote:
| Yeah, that was a real lesson for me when I did LFS.
|
| It was super neat when I got it running for a while, but
| young me that did it really didn't understand the concept
| of "Ok, but now you need to upgrade things". That was some
| of my first experiences with the pain of a glibc update and
| going "ohhh, that's why people don't run these sorts of
| systems".
| shevy-java wrote:
| I used versioned AppDirs for that, e. g.
| /Programs/Python/3.13/. If I don't need it anymore, the
| directory is removed and a script runs. Similar to
| GoboLinux. I do however had not use GoboLinux right now;
| GoboLinux unfortunately lacks documentation, LFS/BLFS has
| better documentation. Finding information these days is
| hard - google search has become sooooo bad ...
| rascul wrote:
| > I think that Gentoo or even Arch would provide pretty close
| to the same education level, though, with a lot less time to
| install.
|
| it only takes three commands to install Gentoo
|
| cfdisk /dev/hda && mkfs.xfs /dev/hda1 && mount /dev/hda1
| /mnt/gentoo/ && chroot /mnt/gentoo/ && env-update && .
| /etc/profile && emerge sync && cd /usr/portage &&
| scripts/bootsrap.sh && emerge system && emerge vim && vi
| /etc/fstab && emerge gentoo-dev-sources && cd /usr/src/linux
| && make menuconfig && make install modules_install && emerge
| gnome mozilla-firefox openoffice && emerge grub && cp
| /boot/grub/grub.conf.sample /boot/grub/grub.conf && vi
| /boot/grub/grub.conf && grub && init 6
|
| that's the first one
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230601013339/http://bash.org/?.
| ..
| djhworld wrote:
| I remember playing with Gentoo back in 2004-2005, going
| through the installation procedure from "stage 1" all the
| way through to the working system [1]
|
| It looks like nowadays the handbook says just go from stage
| 3, which makes sense - compiling everything was kinda
| stupid :D
|
| [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20041013055338/http://www.g
| entoo...
| agumonkey wrote:
| I'm still thinking that LFS taught me more about sed, gcc
| CFLAGS and bootstrapping than the underlying OS sadly
| edu_do_cerrado wrote:
| Had to go through it 4 times to reach a stable distro, I learned
| so much doing it
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| for as long as i've been running and tinkering with linux, i
| really need to run this marathon before i get much older. i don't
| think it'll happen til i quit my job and have more time to
| actually enjoy using my computer :(
| shevy-java wrote:
| If you lack time, just go to the first part where you have an
| actual cross compiler. Back that up, re-use it later when you
| have more time.
|
| If you have scripts that help then it is very simple. And it
| can be done on a weekend or two.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| thanks, i'll take that into consideration when i finally get
| to it :)
| webdevver wrote:
| Making bespoke linux distros should be quite a good fit for LLM
| agents, especially given the recent results with the LLM-authored
| web browser.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| Why? If you really care that little about the properties of the
| Linux distribution, just run one of the many that already
| exist.
|
| Linux From Scratch was never really about running the system
| anyway -- Most people go through it as a learning exercise and
| then run a maintained distribution anyway; I would think it's a
| tiny minority that maintains an LFS system for a long time.
| shevy-java wrote:
| > Linux From Scratch was never really about running the
| system anyway
|
| It definitely is. See the bootscripts:
|
| https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/development/chapte.
| ..
|
| Admittedly the main problems I had was with configuring the
| linux kernel. I have no good solution to make this simpler.
| That config file is sooooooooooo huge ... no clue how to
| handle this. There is no way I have enough time to sift
| through all the options. Or compare what changed from kernel
| to kernel version. Anyone has an idea how to handle this on
| your own?
| webdevver wrote:
| starting from a 'known good' config file (olddefconfig,
| allnoconfig) and then carefully iteratively switching
| options around is the only methodology ive had any success
| with.
|
| I've had some good experiences with using Gemini to help me
| explore Kernel config options (e.g. "whats the minimum set
| of config options i need to have enabled to faciliate
| feature X?")
|
| LLMs in general are very knowledgeable about the Linux
| kernel (unsurprisingly!) which is why I made my original
| comment. You can ask them about relevant places in the
| kernel source tree to look at for a given mechanism, and
| they'll point you to the file and function without having
| to 'look'.
| lfsss wrote:
| Creating is easy, maintaining is difficult.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Agreed. Even with scripts, I have no idea how to maintain
| different linux kernel versions that are newly released.
| lfsss wrote:
| I'm focusing only on graphics, graphics buffering, and EFI
| booting (and NVME if needed).
| Alupis wrote:
| LFS is a teaching/learning tool. Asking an LLM to generate one
| for you would be fairly pointless. Just read the book and
| follow along...
| worksonmine wrote:
| You mean the browser where the result was mostly faked and
| exaggerated?
| charliebwrites wrote:
| Every time I see this, I upvote it
|
| I'm sure it's different than it was when I was a teenager but
| building Linux from scratch was the thing that got me into
| computers as a kid
|
| It shows that computers can be accessible _and modifiable_ at the
| lowest levels
| necovek wrote:
| Having done it as a teenager as well when it showed up in 1999
| myself, that's probably the sweet point when we are smart (and
| persistent) enough to figure problems out, but also have enough
| time to see it through! :D
| shevy-java wrote:
| It is a bit different indeed - more things to compile nowadays.
| Things such as LLVM take quite some time to compile too. cmake
| and meson is also needed these days.
|
| Other than that it still works fairly well.
| necovek wrote:
| This was probably the best thing I've done to learn the ins and
| outs of a running Linux system: I think it would be amazing to
| re-do it with a modern Linux stack (systemd + Wayland), but it
| can really remove all the "magic" from the full OS implementation
| for you.
|
| However, I've done it in 1999 and ran that system until 2001 when
| it became too much of a trouble to recompile everything and
| battle dependencies manually -- note that LFS was not as detailed
| then either, so many dependencies you had to track yourself, and
| some were very obscure!
|
| Yes, the time investment was high, but I was a high school
| student starting college with too much interest in something like
| this and obviously enough time on my hands (after which I was so
| "smart" to switch to Slackware, a one-man show where I also ended
| up having manually compiled versions of "small packages" like
| XFree86 and GNOME, which I was contributing to: when "GARNOME"
| showed up, that was a revelation! etc)
|
| So if you can afford it, do it: using Linux will never be the
| same again!
| coldpie wrote:
| Agreed, I also did it in high school, circa 2005, and it was a
| fantastic experience. Learning how to build dozens of different
| projects and see how they all fit together really set me up for
| my career doing systems programming. I never actually used the
| system I built (I'm not even sure I got to a graphical desktop)
| but it was still a fantastic use of a handful of evenings.
| Alupis wrote:
| They do offer a systemd version[1], along with a variety of
| other versions, including Gaming Linux From Scratch (X11 and
| Wayland), and Automated Linux From Scratch (with a build
| system)[2]
|
| [1] https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable-systemd/
|
| [2] https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/index.html
| kwanbix wrote:
| I actually tried this back around 1999 as well.
|
| At the time, it felt like I was just being told "type this" and
| "type that", with very little explanation of what anything
| meant or why it was done one way instead of another.
|
| Maybe after all these years it's worth giving it another shot?
| Does it work on a VM?
| fugalfervor wrote:
| Yes, you have to supply the curiosity yourself ;)
| worksonmine wrote:
| Last time I did it in around 2020 the reasoning behind every
| package, and the meaning of most compilation flags was
| explained. It was a good experience. Yes it works in a VM. A
| tip is to create regular clones as checkpoints if you fuck
| something up along the way.
| techjamie wrote:
| I did LFS on hardware for advanced operating systems in
| college. After messing up an early step and having to torch
| it midway and start over, I made the entire LFS build
| directory into a local git repo. It was not the best use of
| git and there are better tools, but it did allow me to
| revert a mistake later and saved me time. So I call it a
| success.
| shevy-java wrote:
| > Maybe after all these years it's worth giving it another
| shot? Does it work on a VM?
|
| I think it works in a VM just fine. I would recommend having
| some scripts to aid with compilation though. Even simple
| python scripts should suffice and probably others already did
| so. For the most part everything compiles well; if you have a
| few scripts that automate some parts, you could do this on a
| single weekend or two. It is quite straightforward, the
| explanations can be copy/pasted for the most part. One should
| know the basics of *nix very well though.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Automated Linux From Scratch (ALFS) is that set of scripts:
|
| https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/alfs/
| shevy-java wrote:
| Wayland is quite simple actually. Nowhere near as much to
| configure compared to systemd.
|
| Even systemd can be kept simple - I did this on manjaro.
|
| Either way the power of LFS/BLFS is to adjust the system to
| your use case.
|
| > it can really remove all the "magic" from the full OS
| implementation for you.
|
| To some extent. Many things are missing IMO, in particular if
| you go to BLFS. But for the most part I agree with you - it is
| great that we have it.
|
| We should extend it though.
|
| > until 2001 when it became too much of a trouble to recompile
| everything
|
| I use ruby scripts for that, tracking almost 4000 projects.
| Once gem-coop offers us an alternative to corporate-controlled
| rubygems.org, my main ruby projects will be republished (I
| retired in 2024 when RubyCentral tried to force everyone to
| cater to the new corporate rules as well as disown gem owners
| after 100.000 downloads).
| xattt wrote:
| > note that LFS was not as detailed then either, so many
| dependencies you had to track yourself, and some were very
| obscure
|
| Why didn't you just use Chat GPT to get your answers? /s
|
| In all seriousness, I think the recent growth of Linux has been
| because information has become so accessible. Instead of having
| to peruse years of newsgroups posts, you can just ask a
| question and get an answer (that you should really fact check).
| petcat wrote:
| I bought the dead tree version of this book back in ~2006 or so.
|
| I used to work in a business park in Seattle and the company next
| door to us operated a PC recycling warehouse. There were _piles_
| of old 386 /486-era PCs in various states of disrepair just piled
| up behind their building. I'd go out there once in awhile and
| pick-through their piles looking for Intel CPUs, sticks of RAM,
| and hard drives. Find a good chassis with intact motherboard.
|
| I loved putting that stuff together and installing Linux on those
| machines. I cut my teeth on Linux and LFS building computers out
| of those Frankensteins.
| self_awareness wrote:
| Years ago, installing Gentoo from an early stage was also a good
| experiment.
|
| Nowadays they've deprecated all stages but stage3. It's still
| fun, but bootstrapping Gentoo from stage1 was a Linux-from-
| scratch-like experience (not quite, but similar).
| cbdevidal wrote:
| I did this in 2001 on a 200MHz Pentium with 128MB RAM. Took about
| eight hours. Great experience.
|
| I understand it still takes about eight hours. Faster CPUs but
| busier software cancelled each other out.
|
| Some things never change.
| noosphr wrote:
| I did it in 2011 and it was 8 hours then too.
| shevy-java wrote:
| > I understand it still takes about eight hours. Faster CPUs
| but busier software cancelled each other out.
|
| > Some things never change
|
| Yeah. Mostly the software stack is now much bigger.
|
| Getting all of LLVM mesa linux cmake ninja glibc gcc binutils
| xorg KDE to work is more work than in 2005 or 2010. Also GNU
| configure feels as if nobody maintains it anymore. I still keep
| libtool around for legacy reasons but I don't like that.
| Rauchg wrote:
| This was a pivotal project for me as a young lad learning Linux
| and software engineering back in the day. Can't recommend it
| enough. So many little frustrations and painpoints to overcome,
| wasn't easy , and shows you the ropes of what's to come.
| theideaofcoffee wrote:
| So many good memories I had running through this way back when
| and it gave such a good and deep look into how a fully
| functioning system worked. It removed a lot of the mystery of
| this distro vs that distro and how all the pieces fit together. I
| still use some of the knowledge I gained from this in my day-to-
| day work, some of which is sorely lacking by others doing
| seemingly the same job as me.
|
| I remember going through this and there was a point where you
| were running a stock, generic kernel before having built a
| specialized kernel with modules and options you wanted. I
| apparently ran up against thermal limits on this laptop because
| power management was one of the options for you to configure. I
| had to zoom through that section with a box fan pointed at that
| laptop so I could get power management and throttling to work so
| it wouldn't randomly shut down. Good times.
|
| I used the same laptop I went through the first time with the
| same LFS install for a number of years after that until my day
| job killed my interest in doing this stuff in my free time. I
| switched to Debian after that and never looked back.
|
| Like others are saying, I always recommend going through this for
| those that want a deeper understanding of linux, the kernel, and
| all its accoutrements.
| lfsss wrote:
| One of the most incredible computer experiences.
| macrocosmos wrote:
| Is it educational to do this on a VM or should I break out my old
| thinkpad?
| Alupis wrote:
| Both. Whatever works for you I'd say. I targeted the Raspberry
| Pi (Cross-Linux From Scratch variant), and a fake root (via
| chroot) and qemu. This was circa 2014 though.
|
| These days the ARM64 processor on the Raspberry Pi 5 is
| probably fast enough to just build natively on it, no cross-
| compilation necessary. Cross-compiling adds a metric ton of
| complexity.
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| Having done this way back when on both: go with a VM first.
|
| Targeting a known set of virtual devices makes a lot of things
| much easier when building LFS. Dev ux is also much nicer:, you
| get faster restarts, a socket and optional snapshots to go back
| to a known less broken state.
| shevy-java wrote:
| In my opinion having it on a separate computer is easier, but
| you can also run this in one or three KDE konsole tabs, for
| instance, on an external hdd/sdd.
| Alupis wrote:
| I completed my Cross-Linux From Scratch distro in 2014, targeting
| the original Raspberry Pi since I was frustrated with the lack of
| (at the time) minimalist distros.
|
| It was extra-hard, due to the cross-compiling nature of targeting
| the ARMv6 cpu family - but I learned a massive amount along the
| way.
|
| Even though CentOS-minimal was released for Raspberry Pi by time
| I completed the project, I had so much fun it didn't matter. I
| ended up making a custom build system, consisting of a hodgepodge
| of bash scripts all wrapped together with a Makefile. My self-
| hosted Jenkins build server (old mini computer shoved on my book
| case) would run builds and produce the image artifact - those
| were the days...
|
| The final distro image was ~40MB, which was impressive to me on
| it's own.
| lfsss wrote:
| In the next part, I hope I can write a kernel from scratch, haha.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| Grab Tannenbaum's "Operating Systems, Design and
| Implementation" - aka "The Minix book" - you will LOVE the
| book, and walk away having an genuine understanding of what's
| going on under the hood in a kernel, and be able to write your
| own
|
| Amazon link https://www.amazon.com/Operating-Systems-Design-
| Implementati...
| awesome_dude wrote:
| I too did this, around 2003/4
|
| It was during my great "Try all the Linux" period, and I had
| trouble with it compiling on my slackware system, but it compiled
| just fine on my red hat system (before RHEL)
|
| It was a toy for me, I built it just to see if I could, built it
| a few times, but was running red hat or slackware as my daily
| driver.
|
| During that period I also tried the BSDs, Free, Dragonfly, Net,
| and Open
|
| It was so much fun getting the hang of how each OS differed, the
| nuances, the ins and outs.
|
| (FTR, I switched to Ubuntu late 2005, and haven't moved since -
| apt is/was the best thing since recycled electrons)
| pizlonator wrote:
| This is such an awesome project.
|
| I had a lot of fun doing LFS plus a bit of BLFS and then I
| adapted it to my memory safe linux project
| https://fil-c.org/pizlix
| 533474 wrote:
| nice work
| nickjj wrote:
| I haven't gone through this but now I really want to.
|
| Moved to native Linux on the desktop a few weeks ago after 15+
| years of using Linux on the server and spending a majority of my
| time in WSL in Windows for the last decade.
|
| I've learned so many new things in this short period of time.
| Tracing down memory leaks with GPU processes, misbehaving GPU
| drivers, power saving modes, etc..
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _Linux from Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41747966 - Oct 2024 (159
| comments)
|
| _Beyond Linux from Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39547118 - Feb 2024 (17
| comments)
|
| _Linux from Scratch Version 12.0_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37648808 - Sept 2023 (28
| comments)
|
| _Linux from Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33734685 - Nov 2022 (9
| comments)
|
| _Linux from Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30496018 - Feb 2022 (96
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|
| _Linux from Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29949311 - Jan 2022 (9
| comments)
|
| _Linux from Scratch with Training Wheels_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28820602 - Oct 2021 (41
| comments)
|
| _Linux from Scratch 10.0_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24350738 - Sept 2020 (49
| comments)
|
| _Linux from Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24238015 - Aug 2020 (86
| comments)
|
| _Major Proposed Changes to Linux From Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23787526 - July 2020 (93
| comments)
|
| _Linux from Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20168343 - June 2019 (15
| comments)
|
| _Ask HN: Is the Linux From Scratch project still relevant?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20149111 - June 2019 (7
| comments)
|
| _Linux from Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16823110 - April 2018 (1
| comment)
|
| _Linux from Scratch Version 8.2 released_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16510333 - March 2018 (2
| comments)
|
| _Linux from Scratch - build your own Linux distro_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11829373 - June 2016 (57
| comments)
|
| _Linux from Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8392057 - Sept 2014 (1
| comment)
|
| _Welcome to Linux From Scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4488162 - Sept 2012 (71
| comments)
|
| _Linux From Scratch 7.1 Published - 3.2.6 Kernel + GCC 4.6.2_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3677350 - March 2012 (13
| comments)
|
| _Linux From Scratch 7 Released_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3171448 - Oct 2011 (27
| comments)
|
| _Ask HN: Linux from Scratch.. Should I try it?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1779665 - Oct 2010 (58
| comments)
|
| _How to build custom Linux from source code_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=743843 - Aug 2009 (1
| comment)
| drnick1 wrote:
| This and "Ray tracing in one week-end" are HN classics that I
| wish I had completed long ago.
| BeetleB wrote:
| From "20 Years of Gentoo"
| (https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2023/May/20-years-of-gentoo/):
| "Even more common: "Oh, I'm not going to use Gentoo. I want to go
| all the way and use LFS!" They never heed my
| warnings about it. Every one of them either quits in the middle
| of the install, or soon after, and swears off source based
| distributions for life. Slackware and LFS are the
| Haskells of the Linux distribution world. People jump to the
| extreme end of the spectrum, and either get burnt or remain
| unproductive for life, when they should have just used OCaml or
| F# instead."
| agumonkey wrote:
| I got a partial burn, in that I realized how a working OS is an
| alignment of planets and if you fiddle with the physics wrong
| you get all kinds of magical phenomenon
|
| My network stack was partially working depending on the program
| which initiated the TCP connection.. never again :)
| shevy-java wrote:
| > Slackware and LFS are the Haskells of the Linux distribution
| world.
|
| Haskell is hard. Both Slackware and LFS are simple. I don't see
| the comparison.
|
| LFS is even better in that it provides a ton of documentation.
| Slackware unfortunately lost out to the modern world. But
| heroic effort by Patrick.
| dokyun wrote:
| > Slackware unfortunately lost out to the modern world. But
| heroic effort by Patrick.
|
| I dunno man, a lot of people still use it! Been on it every
| day about 4 years now, there's a modern ARM port in
| development, so it might not end up going away for a long
| time.
|
| That Slackware is difficult to use on the level of Gentoo or
| LFS I think is mostly a meme and an overstatement; it's just
| very old-school. It has a nice installer and a good wiki.
|
| Many of the gripes that I hear of managing other linux
| systems I seldom or never have experienced on Slackware. It
| doesn't get in your way or flippantly change things from one
| release to the next. It's a rock-solid choice.
| nineteen999 wrote:
| The funny thing is that a lot of us older people started
| with Slackware back in the late 1990's, only because early
| Debian and Redhat builds on the Infomagic CD's were too
| broken to install or run reliably. Slackware 2.0 was pretty
| rock solid by comparison and installed out of the box on
| most PC hardware I could find at the time.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Haskell is hard. Both Slackware and LFS are simple. I don't
| see the comparison.
|
| LFS/BLFS is hard to maintain as a primary OS. Gentoo is
| practical and easy in comparison. How many people do you know
| stick to LFS?
|
| The point isn't so much about hard/simple, but jumping to the
| extreme instead of the pragmatic approach.
| neptunicmess wrote:
| Linux from Scratch is great for building a deeper understanding
| of how the different parts in linux systems work together at
| their foundation. Working through it also made me appreciate what
| distributions and package managers actually provide to me even
| more. However, i do often read people stating it helped them to
| "understand linux". Not sure what that means to be frank. Because
| you do not learn much about actually doing things with or on
| linux. You learn, essentially, how to knock together a linux
| system from the various components, the core part being, setting
| up a compiler (if i remember correctly, you rebuild gcc three
| times in the process to get an "untainted" compiler), i.e. build
| something like a distro pre-cursor if you will. These are great
| skills to have, but also very specific ones. They aren't helping
| you much in your day to day use of linux. I think everyone
| serious about linux should do LFS at least once in their career
| (and, contrary to some popular statements, you actually can do it
| quite early on, if you can read and follow a manual), just maybe
| don't have false expectations about what it will actually be
| teaching you.
| rustybolt wrote:
| Yeah I've gone through Linux from Scratch twice, but at some
| point I found myself just copy-pasting and to be honest I've
| never really understood how one would go from here to a modern
| distro (besides compiling a helluva lot more software).
| shevy-java wrote:
| > understood how one would go from here to a modern distro
|
| Well, after LFS you go to BLFS. Compiling KDE isn't that hard
| if you use scripts that help you. The big problem I see is
| that a lot of information is missing. People need to know a
| whole lot. But if you managed to compile it, a simple
| "startx" should work fine. I even got KDE plasma to work on
| wayland. Wayland gives me fewer options than xorg though, so
| I went back to xorg.
| yread wrote:
| https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/chapter08/g...
|
| > the test suite for Glibc is considered critical. Do not skip it
| under any circumstance.
|
| > Generally a few tests do not pass. The test failures listed
| below are usually safe to ignore.
|
| I felt a bit uneasy writing something similar into my software
| e2e test suite, but hey if glibc can do it, why not!
|
| > It's imperative to strictly follow these steps above unless you
| completely understand what you are doing. Any unexpected
| deviation may render the system completely unusable. YOU ARE
| WARNED.
|
| Is this the Dark Souls of linux distros?
| guerrilla wrote:
| > Is this the Dark Souls of linux distros?
|
| haha Yes. That's a bit what it feels like.
| kanbankaren wrote:
| As someone who has been using Linux as a daily driver for 25+
| years and also used linuxfromscratch.org for building some
| packages, I would say, don't waste you time building from
| scratch. There is very little utility unless you are maintaining
| some arcane system professionally.
|
| Stick to RPM based systems as dnf supports transactions. The
| ability to look at history of package installation and rollback
| to a known state solves most admin issues.
| zomiaen wrote:
| You're looking at it incorrectly. LFS is an exercise in
| learning for the sake of it, and therefore, not a waste of
| time. This isn't intended to be easy, but to expose and teach
| you the lowest levels of creating a functioning install.
| alt187 wrote:
| Thank heavens I have you to stop me from trying to step out of
| my comfort zone.
| totallymike wrote:
| I don't think anyone is suggesting one build Linux from scratch
| and then use it as their primary OS.
|
| The value of LFS is not in _having_ the system you build, it 's
| in _understanding_ it. After you 've read and worked through
| the book, you've managed to produce a functioning GNU/Linux OS,
| and presumably you know what all the parts are.
|
| From there, understanding any published distribution is a
| matter of understanding what makes it unique, maybe a different
| package manager or init system, or different userland packages.
| Regardless, the fundamentals still stand, and your ownership of
| the system is improved by having worked through the book.
| shevy-java wrote:
| > Stick to RPM based systems as dnf supports transactions. The
| ability to look at history of package installation and rollback
| to a known state solves most admin issues.
|
| There are many ways to do this without RPM too. I used
| versioned AppDirs. NixOS uses hashed directories names and nix
| for description of states that are guaranteed to work. No need
| to have to cater to RPM.
| shevy-java wrote:
| LFS/BLFS is great. I am not saying all of it is perfect; some
| parts could and should be more extensive. I am having issues with
| compiling a new kernel from scratch (so many options ... what do
| I need) and some options related to video cards and what not. But
| by and large, this is an example of what makes linux great:
| knowledge and application of knowledge. You rarely see this in
| other operating systems - definitely not windows really but also
| mostly not in other operating systems. Anyone knows the BSD
| version of LFS? Well ...
| gigatexal wrote:
| I wanted to set this up but then the thought of all the useful
| dbus stuff and device stuff and just all the nicities I take for
| granted with a mainstream OS ... it seemed too daunting and I
| bailed. I'm 39 still haven't done it yet and I saw this project
| maybe 20 years ago or something like that.
| oumua_don17 wrote:
| Quite a few comments refer to BLFS which is Beyond Linux from
| scratch https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/stable-
| systemd/in...
| Akronymus wrote:
| There's a quite fun, related, series about doing "Linux from
| nothing" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkoRSCZZILDO-
| YU9Ct-Ke...
|
| Sadly only 4 videos so far.
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