

Linux From Scratch 7 Released - kia
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/7.0/

======
kia
Announcement:

[http://linuxfromscratch.org/pipermail/lfs-
dev/2011-October/0...](http://linuxfromscratch.org/pipermail/lfs-
dev/2011-October/065312.html)

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zokier
How do people maintain their LFS installations? Isn't upgrading a pita if you
don't have a central registry of file<->package relations?

~~~
gabriel
Some don't maintain their packages. If you re-install every few months you
keep you system up-to-date. If this sounds strange to you, then realize that
most LFSers are accustomed to running new builds frequently.

Personally, I tracked file/package relationships with a simple script. Easy to
do.

Tracking package dependencies is more difficult, and I usually did this
manually with some help with some specialized scripts.

Plus side is you can avoid dependencies you don't like and add functionality
where you need it. You can make a developers heaven this way. Usually the only
way I do serious Linux development is with an LFS-based system. When I use
distros I usually spend a lot of time creating a specialized environment and
the time saving in using a distro is sort of nullified.

Bad side is obviously if you want to upgrade a vital dependency you'd have to
upgrade all forward dependencies also. Not so difficult if you have it
scripted, but _errors_ are hard to handle. Of course, an LFSer would usually
know how to install different versions of packages and have them co-exist.
However, mostly you just want to keep top-level packages updated, which is
easy to do (e.g. Firefox, developer tools).

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rs
Do people still use/build LFS ? What's the use case ?

~~~
kia
I am using LFS as a primary OS for Linux development and on servers. I can
tell my story how I ended up with LFS in the forest of Linux distributions.

Some time ago when I started to learn Linux I have tried a lot of different
distributions. All of them had their quirks. Some were buggy. Some were slow.
Some had extremely weird and bloated configuration systems. Imagine several
layers of abstraction above plain standard configuration files when you have
to learn everything basically from the beginning with a different
distribution. For example on top of standard config files they may have some
configuration system (like YaST in SUSE) on top of which the GUI sits (so 3
layers just to change the screen resolution). Many distros have their own
"unique" way of configuring the system. And when something will brake you will
have no idea where the problem might be. Is it a bug in the package or in some
layer of configuration system or somewhere else? I understand that they try to
make the system more user friendly. Well, every one has its own niche.

With LFS you just learn the configuration of basic packages once. The way that
package creator intended. Plain text files and nothing more. As an additional
bonus you have great performance and security because you only have the
packages you need. Plus everything is optimized for your architecture. If you
have ever used some distribution in a virtual machine on a slow notebook you
know what I am talking about.

When I built LFS for the first time I did everything by hand. It was a very
useful experience and a nice way to learn. Of course now I don't do it
manually. You can use automated tools (jhalfs for example) which extract
instructions from the book and do everything for you. I don't use any
graphical environment so no need to build a lot of stuff beyond the base
system.

Of course LSF has its own issues. Lack of package management is one of them.
But if you like minimalistic and fast systems you should give LFS a try.

~~~
taudelta
try archlinux, it's like lfs with a package manager and binary packages

~~~
hollerith
Which is why Arch Linux is my favorite distro.

------
agumonkey
And for the enthusiastic crowd reaching boredom after too many LFS instances
(see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3176744> )

\----

<http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/plan.html>

aka Computer From Scratch

aka 'From NAND to Tetris in 12 steps'

\----

10 min video @ youtube.com : <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtXvUoPx4Qs>

1 hour video @ google tech talk :
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7654043762021156507>

------
xxiao
used LFS before to learn Linux. i think it's time for it to add a framework to
build packages, so we can learn that part and use it as well.

~~~
wolf550e
Gentoo is basically that.

