LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

azerty · 2007-08-31 11:10:21

Hey

As I am really interested in GNU/Linux- and generelly spoken Unix, I want to enhance my knowledge about its internals, how things work, how to set up a basic system etc...

So I thought the best way to learn more is to build up a an entire system from scratch, therefore I'm attracted by Linux From Scratch which seems to be exactly fitting for my learning needs..

So before I start playing with LFS I would be interested in hearing some personal experiences using LFS.
Are there any people here which gave LFS a try or even used it for some time?

shining · 2007-08-31 11:22:51

azerty wrote:

Are there any people here which gave LFS a try or even used it for some time?

I setted up a base system twice, and maybe the second time I went on by installing X, a little wm and some others gui apps.
But when you are at this point, it's really dependency hell each time you want to install a new app.
Always a ton of dependencies to install first, it pissed me off very fast, and I switched back to a sane distrib.
Also doing ./configure && make && make install a few times is alright, but when you've to do this 100 times in a row, it's really awful.
There are a few "automated" lfs system because of that, but you might lose the educational purpose of lfs by going this way.
Also, it might be harder to do as a first lfs install.

Anyway, if you've a lot of time to kill, and some free space on a hard drive somewhere, go for it, you might learn a few things.
But I did that a few years ago, and I'm afraid I forgot everything I learned about the toolchain and other related stuff.

Allan · 2007-08-31 12:06:47

I had a go with LFS for a while just before switching to Arch. I learnt about the toolchain etc, and how to get a really slim base system. But I didn't really learn anything about boot scripts etc because you really just get given a file and told to install it.

As shining said, anything more than a base system is really just wasting your time. And if you want to even keep that up to date you are in real trouble unless you went to the effort of setting up a package manage (I tried pacman with some success and it lead me to Arch).

You may also look at DIYlinux (http://www.diy-linux.org/). Although not as complete as LFS it may give you some more info on areas you are uncertain about.

Dusty · 2007-08-31 16:33:32

It was about six years ago when I last tried LFS, so a lot of this may not be true anymore. My first impression was that it was too easy... you can do it by just following instructions without learning anything... if you put the time in to *understand* the instructions, you can learn a lot.

The installed system was pretty much *impossible* to maintain because there is no package management. There were hacks at that time to use check install or other package management systems, but it just didnt work much. Perhaps you could hack pacman in, its been suggested before. ;-) The main issue, though, is that you usually set up the base system before you think about package management, so your base packages are unmanaged. I think it would be neat if someone created an "Arch from scratch" tutorial, that basically helped you write the PKGBUILDs for each package from scratch and then install it. But I digress...

Dusty

Noneus · 2007-08-31 16:55:13

I tried LFS. You have too really read it. Just typing all the commands of the book will just be a waste of time. Really using LFS for a long time sucks. Just too much time is needed to maintain your installation. A good start. But for longer use... Even with a package manager. Getting security updates and new versions with one simple command is so much better than installing everything on your own.

If you try LFS. Really try to understand why this command here and that command there.

azerty · 2007-08-31 17:18:09

Thanks for posting your experiences with LFS.

As far as I know, Archlinux has been made with/through LFS.

So I would be interested in how Archlinux has been made with LFS.
I mean which steps- and which procedures one has to follow to finally get a system approximately like Archlinux-Base. (Just a basically working System with an editor, a compiler and a package manager)

If someone could give me a short overview, not everything in detail of course, it would be greatly appreciated.

Maybe Judd wrote a sort of 'recipe' (or 'howto') about how he made Archlinux through LFS. Is there someone who knows about a thing like that?

skoal · 2007-09-01 15:09:31

Dusty wrote:

My first impression was that it was too easy... you can do it by just following instructions without learning anything... if you put the time in to *understand* the instructions, you can learn a lot.

Genius! Pure Genious! I even threw an extra O in that last spelling for you, Dusty. No charge.

You are right. It really is dirt simple. Shoot, they even have scripts now, much like the whole gentoo install process in fact. But, for me, I would read every word in LFS. Top to bottom. For each package. What does it do? What does it install? Where? And why? But that's just me. I'm pretty anal. So much so in fact, I even use windex on my toilet paper.

My favorite part of LFS, each stage through even, was hitting the manpages on most of the binaries from binutils. A close second was understanding the toolchain. Now, that there's some fancy learnin.

In gentoo, they would say "pimp my glib".
In LFS, "I need to scratch my itch".
And in Arch, "Get 'er done!"

Take your pick!

Dusty · 2007-09-01 15:37:32

azerty wrote:

Maybe Judd wrote a sort of 'recipe' (or 'howto') about how he made Archlinux through LFS. Is there someone who knows about a thing like that?

Judd and documentation don't really mix, lol, and that was a long time ago now. Arch was also based on crux; I don't know if its still maintained, but I believe crux is closer to LFS than Arch is.

I can tell you how I would do it, but I don't know if its how Judd did it. Though Skoal may call me genious, I've got nothing on Judd. :-D

I would have first installed a base LFS from scratch. Then I would have started hacking out a basic form of abs for compiling packages and creating the PKGBUILD format. I would also have had to make an early form of pacman that actually installed the packages.

Then I would have started writing PKGBUILDs for all the packages in LFS base and installed them over the files created by the LFS install using the -f option (my guess is the very first version of pacman didn't do any checking to see if files already existed, so the -f option was implicit). This may break things or leave orphan files lying around. Once I had a PKGBUILD for every package in LFS base, I would have written some kind of find script that located all files that were not under pacman's cotrol (it probably took a long time to run back then :-D) to make sure my new package manager was working.

Then I would have created a new partition and started on the installer. The installer would likely be much like the ALFS scripts, except it would run pacman.static and set up each package using pacman in the new partition instead of compiling them from scratch. Then you could boot into the new system and maybe reinstall all the packages the same way you do on LFS, although I'm not sure that would be necessary if you had been using pacman.

Then I would have created a live CD, probably just a hack on Knoppix, which was pretty much the only one available back then. This CD would have access to the packages, possibly just by mounting the partition on my hard drive that had my "host" arch/lfs system to begin with. It would also have my new not too impressive installer on it.

At this point I would have released ArchLinux 0.1: Homer and hoped I didn't get flamed too much for being an idiot.

Although I'm sure Judd or Aaron or countless others could fill in a lot of details I missed and can flame me for being an idiot for things I got wrong, that would likely be the basic approach you need to follow. :-)

Dusty

juras256 · 2007-10-05 20:15:38

Every spare minute over last two years I spent tweaking my LFS+Beyond LFS system
It works great but without package manager it takes a lot of time.
Arch is what I was looking for.
I have already installed it on my 3 comps.
But I am a little disappointed that there is no directory /usr/share/doc or /usr/doc.
I think it is a part of Arch policy - even makepkg deletes these directories.
But tell my why?
Do you think that this is waste of hard drive?
Or do you think it is useless?
Best regards,
juras256

Allan · 2007-10-06 02:08:46

The FAQ is your friend

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/FAQ … ackages.3F

.:B:. · 2007-10-06 06:37:18

Dusty wrote:

It was about six years ago when I last tried LFS, so a lot of this may not be true anymore. My first impression was that it was too easy... you can do it by just following instructions without learning anything... if you put the time in to *understand* the instructions, you can learn a lot.-

I agree. You can fly through the instructions and just copy/paste everything, you'll be able to tell 'i did LFS' and you might sound l33t, but if it didn't teach you anything, then it's your loss.

onearm · 2007-10-06 07:17:37

I tried lfs (maybe 3 or 4 years ago) and agree with what the others have said. If you use the time to build the system trying to understand what file does what and why are you typing that specific command at that moment, than it'll be useful to learn new things; if not, then it's a waste of time (considering too that the final system is pretty impossible to mantain, it's more an "experiment" for learning or fun).

WyoPBS · 2007-10-07 04:14:09

azerty wrote:

So before I start playing with LFS I would be interested in hearing some personal experiences using LFS.
Are there any people here which gave LFS a try or even used it for some time?

I just this weekend made the jump to Arch after nearly 5 years on various LFS+BLFS systems. Like the others here, I valued the stuff I learned about the nuts'n'bolts about Linux. I know every detail of the (more or less) standard directory layout and what goes where; I know with excruciating detail how the init sequence works and how the various bash startup scripts interact. But, like the others, there came a point where tweaking the compile options and manually keeping track of dependencies and debugging failed builds crossed the line from being fun and educational to being another dreaded chore.

Arch is the perfect compromise between a full LFS and a commercial distro... unlike LFS, I don't have to deal with pages of compile options (and sometimes hours of compile time); unlike Ubuntu et al I don't have to buy into the whole kitchen sink just to be able to check my email. And if I don't like the way Arch builds something, I can make use of what I learned in LFS to easily grab the source code, configure it my way, and install it without interfering with the Arch stuff.

azerty, you'll love it... at least for the first five years :-) The support network for LFS is incredible - the editors have superhuman patience and can help folks like me with stupid questions and smarter folks with seemingly unsolvable technical problems, all with equal ease and friendliness.

To make a long story short (too late!) Arch and LFS aren't competing systems; they're complementary. You can easily use one to enhance the installation of the other.

By the way, with regards to package management... I am really fond of Ingo Brückl's Guarded Installation Tool. Dependency tracking relies entirely on how thoroughly you annotate the package lists yourself, but it makes backing up and uninstalling packages extremely easy. One of these days I'll learn how to use pacman with my own custom builds, but for now git works just as well with Arch as it did with LFS.

phperl · 2007-10-28 09:21:03

Last weekend, I have a try for lfs,before that I approximately have read the doc for two days and read the toolchain part about serveral times.
I install lfs with the Arch,make a directory to put all the files,the process is easy.After build base system, I move them to the Arch's swap partition, use grub to load it.After booting successfully,I delete it right away. I don't think I have learned anything important from the process,It is a waste of time.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-08-31 11:10:21

LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#2 2007-08-31 11:22:51

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#3 2007-08-31 12:06:47

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#4 2007-08-31 16:33:32

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#5 2007-08-31 16:55:13

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#6 2007-08-31 17:18:09

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#7 2007-09-01 15:09:31

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#8 2007-09-01 15:37:32

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#9 2007-10-05 20:15:38

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#10 2007-10-06 02:08:46

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#11 2007-10-06 06:37:18

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#12 2007-10-06 07:17:37

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#13 2007-10-07 04:14:09

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

#14 2007-10-28 09:21:03

Re: LFS - Any Personal Experiences?

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