Linux from Scratch • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux from Scratch

#41

Post by creatonez » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:28 PM UTC

rkagerer wrote: post #35

How up to date is this? When trying to learn by copy-pasting from the internet, I sometimes get tripped up over older/newer Linuxes using different versions of commands or best practices. (e.g. ipconfig vs. ifconfig, iptables vs. successors)

It was last updated in September 2024. Distrowatch's package list can give you an idea of what version numbers to expect: https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=lfs

Once you get to the BLFS part, you have more choice on whether you're going to innovate or use something that old and in maintenance mode. For example, it has instructions for both Pulseaudio and Pipewire, Xorg and Wayland, SysVinit and systemd. The instructions will rarely be outright incorrect on modern distros unless something is very strange about your environment, since a bulk of the work is done after establishing a more predictable build environment.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#42

Post by wezdog1 » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:30 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #22

keyle wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, basically. At some point you realise you could do it, but do you really want to go through it all... It's a slog. It is a fun experience though!

> It's a slog. It is a fun experience though! Aren't those two opposites?

Type 2 fun

Re: Linux from Scratch

#43

Post by notorandit » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:36 PM UTC

sieste wrote: post #3

I really like the idea, really tried following the process several times. But each time it just turned into a copy-incomprehensible-commands-into-the-terminal exercise at some point, and I lost motivation. Did anyone experience the same?

Nope. I never execute commands without understanding its meaning. Maybe you expect to complete a LFS installation in very little time. Which cannot be the case in general and in this very case in particular

Re: Linux from Scratch

#44

Post by coatmatter » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:39 PM UTC

harha_ wrote: post #6

What's the fun in this? I once looked into it briefly and it's what I guessed: mostly about building and installing the required software individually. That's boring, I guess the fun would be in building an actual usable distro "from scratch".

I think it depends on one's true goals and the way it's approached. Compare with http://www.greenfly.org/mes.html (which affects many Arch users too, I feel)

Re: Linux from Scratch

#45

Post by astrobe_ » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:41 PM UTC

sirsinsalot wrote: post #10

Ah yes, I remember the year I lost to this and the pain of cross compilation. Reader beware.

I've crossed-compiled things from time-to-time along the years, and it seems to me that support has improved a bit. Some time ago it was "cross..wut?" but now it is fairly commonly supported and tested. I think it's thanks to Raspi and other popular ARM-based things.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#46

Post by dark-star » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:48 PM UTC

I have used CLFS (Cross-Linux From Scratch) in the past a couple of times to build a Linux system for Sun UltraSPARC and SGI Octane systems.

The things I learned, especially about cross-compiling, were invaluable, but you do have to invest some time understanding everything (even reading patches that you have to apply on top of build tools, for example) to get the most out of it. If you just copy/paste commands, well then there are faster/easier ways to get Linux up and running

Edit: I just noted that CLFS has been dead for a couple of years now, which is sad. I would have loved to try an updated CLFS

Re: Linux from Scratch

#47

Post by kobalsky » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:49 PM UTC

sieste wrote: post #3

I really like the idea, really tried following the process several times. But each time it just turned into a copy-incomprehensible-commands-into-the-terminal exercise at some point, and I lost motivation. Did anyone experience the same?

I grabbed a random page from the manual:

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable-systemd/cha...

Every step is explained and every used parameter is documented.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#48

Post by cloudripper » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:54 PM UTC

I gave LFS a go earlier this year. I learned a lot through the process - but I definitely went outside the guardrails. I use NixOS as my daily driver and found myself curious of whether I could complete LFS using a "Nix" approach. I was only a basic Nix user at that time and that choice made a difficult process much more difficult. However, the declarative nature of Nix meant that I had clear notes of every step of my process - and if something didn't work, I could backtrack and troubleshoot to find the root of the cause. The end result is here [0].

My understanding of Linux, of bootstrapping, cross-compilation, and Nix has grown tremendously as a result of the time I took on this project - and I still go back and reference the work from time to time. When I get some time to revisit the Nix-based LFS project, there are quite a few things I would like to clean-up, including setting kernel configs and handling post-build permissions.

Nix-complexities aside, I highly recommend LFS if you like to understand how things work and don't mind a little suffering along the way.

[0]: https://github.com/cloudripper/NixLFS

Re: Linux from Scratch

#49

Post by johnisgood » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 1:59 PM UTC

vbezhenar wrote: post #26

sieste wrote: post #3

I really like the idea, really tried following the process several times. But each time it just turned into a copy-incomprehensible-commands-into-the-terminal exercise at some point, and I lost motivation. Did anyone experience the same?

I built my LFS around 20 years ago. While I followed instructions most of the time, I built some components myself. I remember that I wrote by own init scripts and I think I wrote my own initramfs (not completely sure about it, but I definitely remember tinkering with it and it probably was LFS). I also wanted to implement an isolated build system and my own package manager (basically tar wrapper with file database t…

Wanting to (and doing it) make my own package manager because of LFS and minimalism in general, good times.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#50

Post by tonyarkles » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 2:08 PM UTC

devilkin wrote: post #5

I did this, once, on a 386. Did I learn things? Definitely. Will I ever do it again? Definitely not ;)

Heh, I did this back in about 2000 or 2001 with the intent of taking an old 486 I had mounted in a relatively flat case to fit under the seat of my car and turning it into an MP3 player. The process was a lot of fun, I learned a ton, and then... I discovered that I didn't realize I'd done the entire build targeting a Pentium CPU and all of the binaries contained instructions that the 486 couldn't run.

I did not repeat the process :)