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LFS 4.0 Released

Posted by timothy on from the for-the-adventurous dept.

Tekmage writes "For those of you who have never had the pleasure of rolling your own Linux install from scratch, take a moment to check out Version 4.0 of Linux From Scratch. Definitely for the techies amonst us, there is (IMHO) truly no better way out there to get down and dirty with the inner workings of our favorite OS." LFS organizes its documentation into "books"; 4.0's book is dated yesterday.

5 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Why LFS indeed? by ageitgey · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm sure people are going to reply saying that LFS is a niche product and not news that many people care about.

    Well, though most of you are probably exposed to Linux through the desktop, Linux is winning it's in-roads in the industry through embedded systems and handheld devices (not desktop). Functional LFS installs can be as little as 5 megs or so and completely customized. Perfect to compete with several-thousand-dollar offerings from MS, Palm, etc.

    So if embedded systems are driving commercial linux support, in a way LFS and systems like it are more important in the short term than Mandrake and SuSE.

    So why not write your local LFS contributer and say thanks?

    --
    Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
  2. educational value by mrm677 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    LFS is a great way to learn Linux. It truly helped take me to the next level of my personal understanding of how things work.

    However I would never recommend it for a production system. Even using it for a personal workstation takes loads of time to manage. One doesn't appreciate package management until they have installed a LFS system!!! Of course one could always use RPM/APT/DEB after doing a LFS installation...

    1. Re:educational value by adam613 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I beg to differ. I'm running LFS (a CVS version from early August) on a small-time production web/email server. It was much simpler to set up than RedHat because I knew exactly what was being installed where, and I had configured everything myself. It took the better part of the day to compile LFS and the other packages necessary to set up the server, but it was ready to go the minute I was done compiling.

      It's been up and serving for 38 days straight. It was up for a month straight before that, but I had to bring it down to add memory and remove the cdrom drive.

      I'm also running LFS on a desktop machine. It's not as pleasant to use as the server (KDE took 8 hours to compile), but it was definitely worth the effort it took to set up in terms of learning, stability, and configuration flexibility.

      I appreciated package management a LOT more before I started using LFS. I got into LFS originally because I got sick of Mandrake installing hundreds of packages I didn't recognize or need. I want to know exactly what's on my system and why. And I hate when a package refuses to compile or install due to dependencies which shouldn't be failing. I've never had that happen in LFS.

      LFS definitely has a steeper learning curve than pre-built distros. But what it loses in initial ease-of-use, it more than gains in long-term stability and simplicity. I wouldn't recommend that someone do their first (or second or third or fourth) LFS build on a production server, but after experimenting with it and really learning how it works, I can't go back.

      YMMV, obviously. Not everyone is paranoid and anal like I am.

  3. Re:LinuxFromNotSoScratch.com by amccall · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What do you want them to start from? Flip 0's and 1's on a front panel?

    In order to build ANYTHING you need an existing tool chain. Here that means gcc, bash, ld, etc... LFS starts with creating a bootstrap system using your existing distribution: this existing distribution might just be a bootable ISO cd. LFS DOES go through everything: the kernel, gcc, glibc, ... everything.

    LFS will show you how to build your own Linux, step by step. It will tell you everything you need to know to understand the bootup process.

    If you want to run LFS on a 486 though, you'd probably be a lot better off getting it going from your main system, and then copying over. glibc alone can take HOUR(S) to compile on a modern system.

    --
    ------ 24.5% slashdot pure
  4. Re:Too many todo's by HIghoS · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hey fear not. Getting KDE running on an LFS system is not *that* hard.

    There's a subproject of LFS, that isn't as well known as it should be, that's documenting the process of installing software after (or I should say 'beyond' :) the completion of the lfs-book.

    http://beyond.linuxfromscratch.org/view/cvs/

    In there, you will find all the information required to install the graphic libraries, X11, KDE, and so forth.

    You can also check out the lfs-hints for additional software/issues that are not covered by the blfs-book;

    http://hints.linuxfromscratch.org/hints.shtml

    It's more about taking the time todo it ;-)