Beyond Linux From Scratch 1.0 Released

An anonymous reader writes "DistroWatch reports about the 1.0 release of Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS), a subproject of Linux From Scratch: 'The BLFS Development team is proud to announce the release of BLFS 1.0. With this release, you can take your LFS 4.1 base beyond a development system. It can be a desktop, a firewall, a multimedia player/editor, an Apache web server or all of the above. You install only what you need. Your Distro. Your Rules. Enjoy.'" Choose the closest mirror...

Comments

I think I'm missing something

[Anonymous Coward]

It can be a desktop, a firewall, a multimedia player/editor, an Apache web server or all of the above. You install only what you need. Your Distro. Your Rules.

And that's different from LFS how?

Re:I think I'm missing something

[Blaine Hilton]

Hmmm, its "beyond"!

Re:I think I'm missing something

[Anonymous Coward]

LFS, for example, does not tell you how to install X windows from the source.

BLFS tells you about major packages and their dependencies.

Re:I think I'm missing something

[kinnell]

And that's different from LFS how?

Because LFS doesn't tell you how to install a desktop, a firewall, a multimedia player/editor, an Apache web server or all of the above. Thats why it's called Beyond Linux From Scratch. RTFWP.

Re:I think I'm missing something

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it does. It's right there in the documentation. Why do they need another pseudo-distro just to add some documentation to the previous one?

Re:I think I'm missing something

[kinnell]

Yes it does. It's right there in the documentation

Where exactly? In chapter 9 (hint: this is the last chapter in the book), "What now" it states:

Now that you have finished installing your LFS system, you may be wondering "What now?". In order to answer that question, we have composed a list of resources for you.

Beyond Linux From Scratch
The Beyond Linux From Scratch book covers installation procedures for a wide range of software beyond the scope of the LFS Book. The BLFS project can be found at http://beyond.linuxfromscratch.org/.

...From which I conclude that you are a troll, and the person who modded you "insightful" is an idiot.

Re:I think I'm missing something

[black mariah]

Why not? It's better than searching through the arcane BS that passes for documentation on some of these programs.

Re:I think I'm missing something

[Master Bait]

If you've ever tried to compile OpenOffice, you'll appreciate the info and also the hints available on their site.

Re:I think I'm missing something

[buffer-overflowed]

The dependencies and install order really help out when you're installing these things. X isn't bad, but Gnome is a pain in the ass.

LFS and BLFS will still kill a good day of your time though.

How different from Gentoo?

[mattbee]

I've recently been impressed by Gentoo Linux which lets you build your system from a BSD-style ports system: the whole thing held together by a bunch of Python scripts, but otherwise your build options, tools and so on are your own choice. If that's not Linux From Scratch I'm not sure what is :-)

Having said that, I'm not always convinced that the way to a reliable server setup is to build everything yourself, but both LFS and Gentoo look good for the desktop.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[kinnell]

The difference is that with gentoo, you don't learn much because most things are automated. Yes, gentoo is probably a much better option for someone who just wants a customised linux distribution. LFS, though, is an outstanding educational tool, for one thing, and an invaluable resource if you want to produce a linux distribution which is radically different from the norm in any way.

If you want to learn about how and why a linux distribution is put together, LFS is the way.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually very different from Gentoo. There's
a whole host of choices you can make when building
a package from source. Most of these are made for
you in the ports setup.

For instance, I may prefer *not* to have GNU
gettext linked into everything. Or perhaps I want
every installed program in /bin & /sbin to be
statically linked so I can recover if my
libraries somehow get hosed.

Don't get me wrong, Gentoo is good for eeking
performance out of your dist. But you don't
get exposed to nearly as many design decisions
as you do when building from scratch. I recommend
that anyone serious about *nix admin try it at
least once.

On your last point, I wholeheartedly agree.

When you upgrade/install a package from source
on a production system, you're basically trusting
that the creator of the package you're installing
has thouroughly tested it. This usually is not
the case. When you install a package from your
vendor, they've at least done some basic testing.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[Rasta Prefect]

Linux from Scratch is actually quite a bit different from Gentoo. Gentoo provides you with executable code, you answer some questions and you have a new install, although the process takes longer and is more configurable than say, downloading pre-built packages. Linux from Scratch, last time I checked, provides you with a document. Thats it. No packages. First you create and format your partitions (by hand, using fdsck and mkfs). Then you create your filesystem, (mkdir /usr /var /etc.....), then compile statically linked versions of them minimum utilities needed to boot and compile, then reboot, recompile libraries and dynamically linked versions, then start compiling the rest of your system software. All by hand. And you have to create your own init scripts (although examples are provided).

Why would you want to do this? It's an excellent way to learn about Linux. You learn exactly what components make up your system, get a pretty good idea how they interact, etc.

Would you want to run this on a system you actually use? Probably not. It's a pain in the ass. Everything has to be compiled from scratch. No package system to minimize cruft build-up. Every security patch has to be downloaded and applied by hand. It's very time consuming.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[thizzlewit]

Gentoo is a source-based distro built for power users. It's designed for maximum usability; most of the installation process is automated. (LiveCD, bootstrap.sh, stage tarballs... it's all there so you can get up and running in a hurry.)

In contrast, Linux From Scratch is more designed for people who are interested in learning about the internals of a Linux system. There's no bootstrap.sh; you do everything by hand.

If you're looking for a kickass source distro with a minimum of hassle, use Gentoo. If you want to know the nitty gritty details of how a linux system works, check out LFS.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[UU7]

Use FreeBSD ?
It's a server... plus has the ports.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[gclef]

So, in other words, you only use this if you want to claim to be l33ter than thou...anyone with an actual life uses Gentoo.

Okay, I can see that.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, in other words, you only use this if you want to claim to be l33ter than thou...anyone with an actual life uses Gentoo.

People with actual lives use Mandrake or Red Hat. People with l33t tendancies but an aversion to work use Gentoo. People who want to learn stuff use LFS.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[horza]

Gentoo is very simple to install. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. It teaches you a lot about Linux, not as much as LFS but enough to fascinate most techies without being *too* much like hard work.

The real selling point of Gentoo is the portage system. Want to try a new application? Type "emerge appname", and go have a coffee whilst it fetches the sources, compiles it optimised for your system, and then configures and installs it all for you. Want to update every application on your computer to the newest version? Type "emerge -u world".

It really is the most easy to maintain system I have ever used, and the only distro where installing and updating software is simpler than Windows. Whilst both Gentoo and LFS let you get a good look under the hood, the difference (as parent poster points out) in maintaining the systems is a gulf apart.

Phillip.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[semaj]

Gentoo provides you with executable code, you answer some questions and you have a new install, although the process takes longer and is more configurable than say, downloading pre-built packages. Linux from Scratch, last time I checked, provides you with a document. Thats it. No packages. First you create and format your partitions (by hand, using fdsck and mkfs). Then you create your filesystem, (mkdir /usr /var /etc.....)

Um, did I install a different version of Gentoo to you? There was no install program, and all the install guide said was to use mkfs to create your partitions and what you might like to put in your configuration files...

Admittedly the stage tarballs make things easier, but it doesn't seem as different as you make out.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[rifter]

All of the source based distributions are based on LFS. he whole point of LFS was to teach you how to make your own distribution. The problem was in order to teach people how to make a distribution, it was necessary to make a reference distribution (well, they referenced packages in the LFS-HOWTO, and ended up making the versions they used in making the HOWTO available, so by default this becomes a distro). It kind of grew from there. Gentoo/SourceMage/Sourcerer/etc take the LFS packages and add scripts that automate the download/compile and an installer, among other things.

So in essence the main reason to go through the LFS and such is to learn more about how Linux works and how to make your own distro (or better understand why your distro does things the way they do). Sourcemage is my current favorite distribution, but I have ordered the new LFS book because I want to learn more. (the Howto, sources, and I think even the book are also available online).

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[rifter]

That sounds bad. I should point out then that sourcemage has an excellent installer (pretty much teh best I have seen so far for experts, with options to shell out at any step in the process, for instance), and many excellent tools for configuring various things affecting the build process. It is also pretty easy to reconfigure things by hand if you prefer.

I have not tried Gentoo. Actually since Sourceror was the first source-based distro I heard of (on /.) and Sourcemage is its decendant, I tried Sourcemage first and liked it very much.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[Saint Stephen]

I just wasn't patient enough to love Gentoo. Is compiling the whole world with my own switches a noticeable perf improvment (on a P4, not an Athlon)?

It seems like it takes *hours* to do gentoo truly from scratch, if you cheat and use the prebuilt Gnome, OpenOffice, X why bother? Is the ports packages richer than say Debian?

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[jdavidb]

Gentoo Linux is a distro. LFS is a "Make your own distro" HOWTO.

Suppose there were no Gentoo, and you wanted to make your own distro with the design goals of Gentoo. You'd install some other distro like RedHat or Debian (or perhaps even a completely different OS; anyone ever bootstrap Linux from FreeDOS?) and slowly compile your own packages. You might choose to use rpm, dpkg, your own, or no packaging system. You'd have a bit of dependency hell while trying to figure out what order to compile everything in (and make sure that you didn't wind up with library dependencies on the original distro). Finally, you'd want to repeat the process from within your new distro; after all, you want it to be self-hosting rather than having to install RedHat each time you build a new version.

Mastering LFS trains you to do all this. Does everyone need to know how to do this? No. Do we really need any new distros? Probably not. But people who have said, "Yes we do" have often brought us much better systems (like your beloved Gentoo). Plus, I found learning this material to be intensely interesting and right up my alley.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[spectral]

Mandrake is very simple to install.

Mandrake has a pretty damned nice selection too. Type "urpmi appname", go pick your nose whilst it fetches the sources installs it all for you. Want to update every application on your computer to the newest tested version? Type "urpmi.update -a && urpmi --auto-select -a" (Or use software update. It's in your K menu somewhere.)

Yes, they lag behind in versions (Especially if you don't have cooker in your update sources). Yes, it's not compiled for your system (though afaik the src packages let you do this, I've never tried). But it is also pretty damned easy.

You fail to mention on Gentoo is innovative? Every other actual distribution can do basically the same thing.

Disclaimer: I use sorcerer on my machine, and manage a Mandrake machine for a friend.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[spectral]

Sorcerer was the first source-based distro I used, I heard of it from slashdot as well. Sourcemage is a fork. Kyle Sallee started sorcerer, and still maintains sorcerer. I still use sorcerer, never tried sourcemage (it's had over a year now forked, so it's prolly pretty different than sorcerer is now. Hell, sorcerer is pretty different than it was a few months ago. :)), and dislike Gentoo. I gave it a try like I said I eventually would, and just didn't like it.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[schutten]

Yes, it takes hours te rebuild all. I just rebuild one of my gentoo systems (in the course of upgrading gcc from 2.95.x to 3.x) and that rebuild took more than a full day (the magic command is emerge -e world), on a Athlon 1.33 GHz.

It is still manageable though, just type the command and go do something else...

This is a full workstation installation (including Xfree, KDE, Koffice, Mozilla as the largest packages; not with OpenOffice, that takes almost a day by itself...).

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[Jagasian]

Redhat is very easy to install and update software, just as Debian is very easy to install and update software. They both have versions of apt, which is a wonderful tool for install and updating software.
For example, if you want to install mozilla:

apt-get install mozilla ...is all that is needed. Anyway, yeah, installing and updating software for Linux is easier than doing so for Windows. Of course, then only applies as long as the software is packaged for your distro.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[bgat]

Hear hear. Having been through LFS myself several times, I'm now a diehard RH fan. There's simply too much work involved in producing a slick, fully functional Linux disto for me to want to do it myself. Not that I *can't* do it, I just prefer to leave it to someone else. Even at the full price of a boxed set, my time is still worth more than that (to me!).

Now, I agree completely that you don't know much about Linux et al until you can LFS it! I just don't want to live that way... :^)

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[fliplap]

People with actual lives use whatever version of Windows came on the computer they ordered from Dell. They don't have a clue how it works and they don't care as long as it came loaded with IE and Outlook Express.

IT goons who are afraid they're going to lose thier NT admin job use RedHat or Mandrake to show the boss they're learning something new.

People who have been using linux for years, know how stuff works, and aren't interested in learning it again use Debian.

People that are used to BSD but crave the hardware support and ease of Linux use Gentoo.

The only reason I would have to use LSF is if I'm building a highly custom or single purpose machine where I need to know they exact layout and versions of everything installed from the beginning. Then I can just let it sit and never upgrade it.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[intermodal]

depends. you can learn a lot from installing gentoo, especially the newbs. How many newbs actually know what is in /etc or how to get around on the command line? even for someone who knows a bit and has been using a mainstream distro, it can be pretty enlightening to at least do an install of Gentoo. This is an opinion, ymmv, but LFS seems like a lot of work for not a great amount of return when a distro like Gentoo exists. Granted I am sure its great for some projects, but for most desktop users LFS is arduous where Gentoo automates without loss of the performance desktop users are probably seeking from either type of distro.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[MmmmJoel]

While I agree with your conclusion, your points are inaccurate. Gentoo allows you to change flags that will determine whether certain things get compiled into the binary. They are controlled by USE flags in the make.conf. Not as flexible since not every option is available on every port, but there are quite a few.

Also, Gentoo's portage system also allows you to statically link as well so you can recover if your libraries get hosed.

That said, you do have more flexibility doing it yourself, but portage isn't that far behind.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[kinnell]

You can learn system configuration from any distribution; I haven't seen a distribution yet where I haven't had to venture into /etc at some point. But that's not the point. LFS isn't about learning about system administration, it's abvout learning how the system is put together: what does what, how the different parts of the system interrelate, why things are done the way they are. It's not intended as a working distribution like gentoo is, except for people with particular needs. LFS is a HOWTO for building a linux distribution, not a distribution itself.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[tigga]

People with actual lives use Mandrake or Red Hat.

Ow, common, actual lives and Red Hat? Maybe people with actual lives use it only for browsing? RPM system looks nice but dependencies killing it. Ever tried to upgrade from one version to another? The system becames whole mess. This rpm needs that library which depends on something else and else... And you should search for everything on Internet..

Portage in Gentoo much nicier - check dependency, download everything what's needed, compile, install - automagically. Well, it (idea) comes from *BSD and *BSD also quit manageable.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[ArsonSmith]

I can see it now, the LFS guys are going to say, "All your base are belong to us!"

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[rifter]

Oh, but for mod points. I wonder what happens if you try to mod a discussion you already posted in? ;)

/me crawls back into his chair

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[rifter]

I haven't seen a distribution yet where I haven't had to venture into /etc at some point.

You could always use the LFS instructions and then make one... :) Oh what fun it would be to ride on that particular camel my friend :).

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[cymen]

People who have been using linux for years, know how stuff works, and aren't interested in learning it again use Debian.

Until it finally annoys them for the last freakin time and they switch back to what they started with - Slackware.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the most important thing in the above: "Someone has to create a working ebuild for that package". There are tons of packages that do not exist in the portage. If you want to be on the real bleeding edge, you have to create the updated ebuilds yourself, which is no different from LFS.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[puregen1us]

This missed the point a little for me. I have used many different distros on both ppc and x86 and learnt the most regardless of distro whenever something went wrong. Before you ask I have installed LFS and currently use gentoo. But here is the point change. I don't use gentoo as an educational distro. I use gentoo as the closest i have got to linux on the dekstop. I create my distro using gentoo. I don't want it complicated, but i do want it to work. Portage does that for me. I understand the view that it ought to be a learning experience but i also want a stable computer to work on. I can't afford to have something broken. I run the stable tree. I just want emerge to work. If I want to learn something i actively learn it. I look at the config files and mess around. And if it breaks i fix it.

Re:How different from Gentoo?

[phatsphere]

LFS is educationally, but it is hard to keep it up to date. thats the most important point for gentoo. there you have a database which gives you tested updates (hopefully) very soon.
on the other hand, if you have LFS, you have to watch all installed components for updates, that is very time consuming. and then, you install them even if you don't know if it will be working right out of the box

Hmm Sounds like....

[philzama]

Slackware!
=P

Re:Hmm Sounds like....

[BrokenHalo]

Nice try. Slackware is God's chosen distro, as all right-thinking people will agree :-) but LFS is a lot more work.

Re:Redundant Linux?

[m1chael]

but gentoos base system is bloated :) i mean i dont need nano wasting valuable kilobytage.

It is not a distro

[AccUser]

Linux From Scratch [linuxfromscratch.org] is not a disto, but a set of instructions for building a GNU/Linux system from little more than an existing distro. The Beyond Linux From Scratch [linuxfromscratch.org] project builds on this tradition, providing instructions for installing a number of other packages.

Having said that, I would recommend that anyone serious about furthering their knowledge of Linux, and at least 750MB of free hard disk space should give it a go. I got into Linux back in '93, and knew quite a lot. Then I stumbled across Linux From Scratch (LFS) - I didn't realise how much I didn't know until finishing my first complete build.

I now run an number of LFS-based systems at home and at work, and have never looked back.

BTW, I am typing this on my Gentoo [gentoo.org], 1.4_rc4 build. :-)

Re:It is not a distro

[Anonymous Coward]

and it started off as a HOWTO! my, how times have changed! (for the better of course!)

typed on my shiny new PLFS/BLFS system, (check the mail archives for info on PLFS... uses alan cox's suggestions to make LFS even better....)

LFS is great...

[Anonymous Coward]

... to learn a lot about linux.

Thx to all the guys (and girls) who contributed to LFS

Grtz

predates gentoo

[Anonymous Coward]

LFS has been around for a lot longer than Gentoo, and is a different approach. Rather than hold your hand and let all the scripts do the work, LFS tells you how to do it and gives you commands but also the options for how to do it. It is more a teach-yourself-linux distro, in that you learn about interdependencies, the order which certain packages must be installed, and what each package does. Every single file created on the system can be accounted for this way. LFS is just the base system, and BLFS is seen as an extension of the base system, providing the means to customize a functional base linux system with only thoe applications you want! A faster and cleaner system I have not found anywhere! (not even gentoo, sorry! :-P)

Re:predates gentoo

[m1chael]

and thats why im tempted to use it (i use gentoo now but it feels like debian used to feel :)). i just wonder about manual package management...

Re:predates gentoo

[scosol]

well- the gentoo "installation" is largely nothing more than a document as well.
sure- gentoo provides a base set of software, and the emerge system to keep track of what is on the system- and it's own init scripts- but that's about it.

Re:predates gentoo

[m1chael]

but it does everything. i havent editted a text file in weeks...

LFS is not Gentoo

[jgardn]

I've installed LFS before. LFS is just the instructions on how to install Linux from scratch (hence the name, Linux From Scratch). They supply a few pieces of software conveniently in one place so you don't have to spend hours finding it on your own and figuring out what version goes with what. It is just enough to get an OS that works, but not enough to do much except put more software on it.

BLFS is a collection of instructions for installing various bits of popular software like Gnome, KDE, Mozilla, and more.

I would like to point out that LFS is not Gentoo. LFS is literally Linux From Scratch. There are no installation scripts. There are no system management tools. There is no pretty interface, or simple instructions. It is a book, not a piece of software.

You literally go through each piece of software and configure, compile, and install it. It is pretty cool because they describe what each piece of software is for, and you can see how one piece builds on another. You'll certainly never look at your system the same again, because you'll know what each bit does.

I wouldn't suggest trying LFS unless you are interested in what exactly goes on under the hood, or you are building your own distro from scratch.

Re:LFS is not Gentoo

[CoolVibe]

BLFS is a collection of instructions for installing various bits of popular software like Gnome, KDE, Mozilla, and more.

Although I agree building these from scratch is a great learning (and waiting) experience, I do recommend things like Garnome or Konstruct to build those. They worked a treat when I set up my LFS box (which is now a gentoo box again though).

Of course, when I want to finish off a machine quickly, I just use FreeBSD and be done with it :)

The real benefit of LFS and Gentoo...

[MaxBlue]

is that it is a good learning experiance.

When I first started using Linux I did the usual, RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, blah blah blah. I ran the nice little installer, opened my desktop, ran a few programs, but I couldn't tell you what was where or how to effectively fix broke things.

Then I tried Gentoo and now I feel like I have learned something about Linux. I found out where configuration files went because I had to. I learned how to compile the kernal because I had to. I learned how to install freaking network cards because I had to.

I don't know if my machine is "leaner and meaner" but you know, I had a lot more fun doing building it.

Re:The real benefit of LFS and Gentoo...

[ookaze]

I do not think that the good learning experience is the real benefit of LFS. I think it's the incentive. I installed my first LFS (a pre 3.0) for two reasons :
- learning
- there was no distro with what I needed !
I have had a hard time with distros. I started with Linux on 1999 only, and for 2 years, I stumbled upon a lot of issues, only to see that they were solved already, but not in distros.
So I installed my first LFS near the end of 2000. Yes, the worst thing about LFS is that it's time consuming. Actually, that's one of the reasons that my desktop is a bi-pro right now (for fast compilations :) ).
Well, going back to the real benefit of LFS : the perfect desktop. For example, until two months ago, I always wondered why people said X was slow. Even on my old Athlon 500 (my first LFS system), it was really fast, with Gnome 1 and KDE 2. I discovered that the problem was in the distros (again) as Gentoo users did not see the slowness and me neither.
Well, it took me one week to install a complete LFS system last time, and the benefit are endless :
- I can choose my init ! simpleinit-msb is the fastest and the easiest around to setup. Even my old PII 266 laptop boot faster than any machine with a distro installed on it (except my actual desktop). Even the gentoo system is slower (but use the same system for rc scripts).
- I had LVM a long time ago, and it's not even there in distros.
- When people are still whining about drag & drop between Gnome and Kde, or were whining about desktop resizing, etc., I had all of those months ago.
- When people whine of Gnome/Kde being slow/crash prone, I experience none of these behaviours (except on the PII 266 laptop with 32 Mo, where it's slow, but does not crash ...).
- All my users are on an LDAP server (LDAPv3 with kerberos actually), with pam for authentication/identification/..., for access on all my little network.
- I have already switched all fonts to Bitstream ones.
- My wife was pretty pleased with her Kde desktop with mosfet's Liquid and Noia icons.
- I use cups since a loooong time.
- ans so on and so on.

And I'm no leet, I'm not even searching to be leet, I just want a good desktop, as all my family use it (we are three actually).
If I'm so happy, that's all thanks to LFS, LFS Hints, BLFS and Freshmeat (and some work on my part too).

Actually, anyone planning to install a LFS as his main system need a good package management. I've scripted one that works good for me, but most of it comes from a LFS hint, the one on installwatch. That's what I use, with the nuke script. This is truely the best IMHO.

Re:Dispersing the Linux Myths

[Anonymous Coward]

Then how come Windows still comes on one CD, while Redhat comes on four?

Great news!

[QwkHyenA]

I personally did the LFS (2.4 & 3.0 ver.) serveral times one summer for the experience and was extremely impressed with the documentation that walked you through the whole thing. Problem was, after I was done, the boxes were only really suitable for servers/firewalls/routers as I had no idea what was needed to install X Windows and other things like gnome & KDE (far more dependent on libraries and I had no clue where to start!) Now, I can hand tailor my own desktop client systems and take LFS to the next step! Thanks BLFS team!

BTW, if you want to do the LFS part, I'd expect it to take a few weeks for a novice linux user (that's about what I averaged all three times.)

Re:Great news!

[iamthemoog]

...after I was done, the boxes were only really suitable for servers/firewalls/routers...

I'm not totally convinced of this even... For example, why would you want a complete GCC compiler on a router or firewall ? At least with a RedHat or other distro, you can install a minimal system with iptables, no compiler or source code hanging around.

moog

Re:Great news!

[QwkHyenA]

Good point, even the firewall/router I built using the LFS 3.0 a year ago really didn't touch on firewall rules back then (I just did a lot of research and installed iptables & startup scripts from scratch.)

However, I already scanned through the BLFS documentation and they now have a firewall/router section! (although I don't think they mentioned uninstalling the compiler and locking down other files. If anyone does need that kind of stuff you may want to look at debian's security manual which does a pretty good job! Course you'll have to tailor it to your needs & file system.)

Re:Great news!

[samhalliday]

err... may i suggest `man rm` to you? (after you check out `tar --help` of course...) becuase that is effectively what redhat's package management is doing. you dont need gcc lying around if you dont use anything else! (ok, granted you probably need cpp around if you install X, as it uses the cpp to preprocess a lot of its runtime configs... but cpp is tiny). you can have a web/email server running in less than 20MB; can you do THAT with redhat? (more importantly... would you want to? disk space nowadays is so cheap its not worth the hassle).

on a more helpfull level, i point you to an absolute minimal LFS hint

Re:Great news!

[wolverine1999]

I did the LFS 2.4 version and then compiled X Windows one one machine plus I took the binaries to a second LFS machine and both are running X now.
I'm trying to add GNOME to one of the machines.

Very important to GNU/Linux

[jocks]

Linux from scratch is critical to the future of GNU/linux. It stops the corporates from stealing all the limelight (yes I mean SuSE, Redhat et al) and is the ultimate counter measure to the "Linux will fragment like UNIX did" naysayers.

For all Linux users, building from scratch is like the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, it is something that you should do at least once in your life. I for one support this and will do my bit to ensure continuing freedom.

Re:Very important to GNU/Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

...For all Linux users, building from scratch is like the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca

I down to my third machine with LFS! I must really be a Saint ... or a Fundamentalist :-)

Gentoo / Slackware instead

[ajalics]

For labs/installations of many machines, or people who are dolts - um I mean newbies, I always recommend whatever the local flavour of Redhat/Suse/Mandrake/whatever.

However, for a few choice machines, machines that you spend more time with then should be legally allowed, I always recommend slackware (for a non high bandwidth connection) or gentoo (with high bandwidth). The flexibility of these last too is very rewarding for anyone who wants an uber customized Linux box.

And especially with slackware, you gain a lot of knowledge and familiarity with how things works, and how to fix things. This knowledge pays off it's debt quickly. For example, you might have a redhat buddy that has some problems with configuration GUI X, and you just go and fix it by hand.

LFS is interesting, but what's the big difference between it and gentoo? Just an extra step that's not very practical unless you're making your own distro.

Re:Dispersing the Linux Myths

[fr0dicus]

Last time I looked to set up a windows system with anything like the functionality of a linux system you'd need the windows CD, the office CD(s), the visual studio CD(s), the SQL Server CD(s) ad infinitum.

LFS Hints

[Anonymous Coward]

Beond Linux From Scratch is a great resource for expanding an LFS system, but don't forget about the LFS hints! http://hints.linuxfromscratch.org

There is lots of valuable information in the form of hints that is not available in BLFS

Re:LFS Hints

[samhalliday]

yes, but unfortunately a lot of people are concentrating on the BLFS book now and neglecting the the hints.

i have been part of the LFS community for a few years now, just helping out on the lists and writing a few hints. The sad thing is not that BLFS exists, but that it has become more of a 'copy and paste the commands' textbook for building a system. the hints were more of a walkthrough which taught you what you were doing at each step and explained in some detail setups for larger programs. dont get me wrong, i love BLFS, but i think it has lost some of what the hints had.

another sad thing about LFS is that the punters seem to WANT copy and paste instructions... lately i have unsubscribed from the lists because new posters are always asking FAQ questions or not checking the archives. a while ago, only those keen to learn GNU/Linux in more detail (and were not afraid of the `man` command) used LFS; nowadays we just get a bunch of kids wanting us to hold their hand while they build their own distro to increase their geek factor. and new hint subissions are all silly GNU style (configure ; make install) stuff which doesnt need documented. i personally think if you want to run LFS, you have to be prepared to write a few patch files yourself for dodgy programs, involving some level of programming experience.

for the record, i still use LFS, i think it kicks ass, and the speed difference with any distro is VERY noticable (i have had others confirm this, its not just propoganda). but then, it is an addiction; you have to reach a stage where you say "ok, this is stable, i am not going to upgrade it anymore!" or you lose your real life.

Re:LFS Hints

[Repugnant_Shit]

And there just might be information that's only available there. I used to run two LFS systems (for the learning experience) but now I'm using Gentoo. I still visit the LFS Hints often, especially when I can't find something quickly on the Gentoo forums. There's guides to cryptographic file systems, effectively using SSH, printing with CUPS, and lots more good stuff. Check out the "How to build a Pure LFS, which is based on comments/criticism from Alan Cox.

Re:Dispersing the Linux Myths

[PhiberOptix]

if MS bundled server and client versions of the OS in one product, MS office suite, firewalls, proxies, webservers, programming languages (lots of them), application development tools, etc, i doubt it would still fit in 1 cd.
and btw, redhat comes in three cds, or 6 if you want the source code, not 4

benchmarks

[thespare]

Has anyone compared this against other OS's? FreeBSD or OpenBSD or something else?

(Windows doesn't count)

A.

Re:benchmarks

[the_consumer]

Compared what? The 'distro' of Linux someone put on their box by compiling it from scratch and deciding exactly what they wanted on that box? Your question makes no sense, as this is not a standard distribution. Everyone who does this is going to have a different outcome, so there's no basis for comparison.

Re:benchmarks

[ShadowDrake]

> Compared what? The 'distro' of Linux someone put >on their box by compiling it from scratch and >deciding exactly what they wanted on that box? Your >question makes no sense, as this is not a standard >distribution.

Actually, I would like to see how much difference optimization makes. I believe Slackware is compiled by default for i386 (feel free to correct me). If I recompile it for i686, and run it on my PII/266, will Mozilla load in a reasonable length of time?

OT: Re:It is not a distro

[cdrudge]

You don't need to put the [domain] into your comment after your urls. Slashcode will do it automatically for you.

Re:Slashdotting

[gspr]

In case anyone should misunderstand that, due to my horrible lack of linebreaks:
[16:06:45] * Now talking in #LFS
[16:07:23] * HIghoS changes topic to 'Die, slashdot, die! http://quasar.highos.com/mrtg/'

Don't you feel the love? :)

Re:Dispersing the Linux Myths

[Jerk City Troll]

Then how come Windows still comes on one CD, while Redhat comes on four?

The Windows CD includes just an operating system. RedHat includes the operating system, a complete development environment, three office suites, two desktop environments, lots of server software, and so on and so forth. Three CDs for RedHat 9. Let's see how this breaks down into Microsoft products:

Windows - 1 CD (sometimes 2) - $400
Office - 2 CDs - $600
IIS - 1 CD - $(not sure)
Exchange - 1 CD - $(not sure)
VisualStudio - 5-6 CDs - $1,000

That list is hardly exhaustive. So, what you get on 3 discs from RedHat, you can get on a minimum of 10 discs from Microsoft. Oh, RedHat 9 purchased costs about 99$ (you can also get it free, sans support). The software from Microsoft costs about $2,000 total without support.

That's the difference.

Excellent News!

[rice_burners_suck]

This is excellent news. Linux has enjoyed widespread publicity and use, but unfortunately, I think that most people who use Linux (and are new to "alternative" operating systems) are using Red Hat or one of the larger distros and don't really understand its ins-and-outs. For many people, this is perfectly acceptable because all they care about is reading their email and word processing anyway. For them, DOS 2.0 with some kind of quick GUI would be more than enough, let alone Windows XP LX SE 2010. Putting together your own distribution with step-by-step instructions will probably make anybody a better user, admin, developer, etc. And with a book to show you how to build a usable distro, you simply can't go wrong. I think I'm going to dig some junk out of my computer graveyard and try this one out tonight... it'll be a long night!

Re:Excellent News!

[cosjef]

Trust me--it'll be a long FOUR weeks. But in the end--totally worth the frustration and effort.

Coming soon...

[Hard_Code]

Developments are already underway for the sequel, "Return to the Gates of LFS". "LFS 3D" is planned in Q4 2004. It is rumored "LFS: Vice City" will follow.

Re:Coming soon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention "LFS X" and "LFS Forever".

My easy guide to LFS

[stratjakt]

Install slackware as a base system, binutils and gcc and the other 'required stuff'.

Recompile and reinstall your kernel, glibc, etc, etc..

You get all the benefits of LFS with less headaches.

Of course this is really only useful on an x86 box, but for those wanting a completely tweaked/unique linux box on their desktop, this is no doubt an easier route to take.

Just getting linux to boot from scratch is the time consuming part, customizing it from there on in is the fun stuff (IMO). So skip the gruntwork and get to the meat and potatoes.

Re:My easy guide to LFS

[supergiovane]

You get all the benefits of LFS with less headaches.

But the benefits of LFS are the headaches!!

Re:My easy guide to LFS

[Mgdm]

I wouldn't actually go too far down this route: I would stick to the Slackware-supplied glibc, gcc and such like for the same reasons that the Pure LFS hint exists. Some interesting things can happen to the toolchain doing stuff like that.

Not sure if I'm actually making any sense, but I think I do...:)

Re:My easy guide to LFS

[Anonymous Coward]

>Recompile and reinstall your kernel, glibc, etc, etc.

hmm.... sounds a lot like another distro... Gentoo maybe... maybe I'm just off my rocker too :-)

I guess your "easy guide to LFS" is different in that you get to use a graphical interface out of the box, while us Gentoo users must wait for our rewards (but, boy is it worth it! I never saw KDE run so fast in my LIFE).

Please have mercy on my server guys =D

[HIghoS]

Sigh... /. editors, I love you for causing an absurd amount of trouble for me. I thank you for promoting our projects, I just wish you guys would have contacted us before linking to the main websites.

We've had hosting issues ever since our main server was taken off the VA network last October, and since then things have been hosted on my personal server. Anyways, I just wanted to rant little, considering i'm at the other end of this slashdotting.. (not like it's my first time, more like 8th now ;p)

At least use the mirrors guys.. please :)

Re:Please have mercy on my server guys =D

[black mariah]

Here's a tip... when you want someone to use mirrors for a site and you post on Slashdot saying so, POST THE LINKS TOO! That way we don't have to go the heavily shashdotted servers to find the list of mirrors. ;) I figure I'd toss these here in case your main server gets chewed up and spit out.

Is this called karma whoring?

http://beyond.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/intro.shtm l http://blfs.learnbyexample.com/blfs/intro.shtml http://beyond.lfs.130th.net/blfs/intro.shtml http://beyond.ca.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/intro.s html http://beyond.us.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/intro.s html

http://beyond.hu.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/intro.s html http://beyond.nl.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/intro.s html http://beyond.no.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/intro.s html http://beyond.linuxfromscratch.rave.org/blfs/intro .shtml http://blfs.netservice-neuss.de/blfs/intro.shtml http://beyond.at.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/intro.s html

Re:Please have mercy on my server guys =D

[zogger]

--well, that sucks. I promise to not link over-for awhile anyway, not today for sure.

As a noob I've been looking at this or that way too really learn linux. Although I run it, I really don't know much about it.

Perhaps ya'all should use that new bitorrent file distribution technique?

Re:Please have mercy on my server guys =D

[HIghoS]

I was hoping someone else would have done the honours of properly posting the links :)

I had just logged onto a computer at school and noticed the links on slashdot when I had quickly checked. If I had the time todo it, I would have.
(it's kinda hard todo when you are a peer support studeng in a classroom of 30 students that need your attention all at once, when it's their final day to hand in their assignments :D)

Anyways...

Re:Please have mercy on my server guys =D

[black mariah]

LOL, I hear you. I could only imagine the panic one must feel when they wake up to find themselves on the front of /..

"Mmmm... coffee... *click click* http://slashdot.org Hmm... wait, that's me. SHIT! *C|N>K* Better start selling blood for bandwidth money..."

Re:Please have mercy on my server guys =D

[rifter]

No because you get -1 DidNotPostLinksCorrectly :P

Here
are
the
mirrors
for
your
enjoyment,
mein
gut
freund :).

Since /. purposefully screws up any url you post in the text, it helps people very much if you make real links. :P

Also I find it ironic that VA would boot the LFS project off their servers and then /. the new server. That is kind of funny, in a perverse sort of way.

my kinda EULA

[b17bmbr]

You install only what you need. Your Distro. Your Rules. Enjoy

Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[ajs]

Instead of inventing YET ANOTHER WEB SERVER DISTRO (yes, I've been tempted too), can we please focus our efforts on the things that are wrong, broken and unusuable in EVERY DISTRO ON THE PLANET?

Here are some suggestions for your distro-crafting efforts (no implied priorities):

• There should be a way to say "fetch documentation for x" where x is a path name to any non-user file (and a few user files). man is the "right place" to do this, although if you wanted to take the time to re-engineer info so that it could take any program name or path name as an argument and find the right documentation AND had an initial dir.info that wasn't so geard toward "so you've installed EMACS and the GNU tools on an existing UNIX" then it might be a useable replacement for man (and info has the benefit of being a bit easier to convert into other forms like GUI-viewer, print and HTML-based representations because it's based on a more generalized markup language (texi) which is in turn based on a more powerful typesetter (\TeX). I'm a long time (15ish years) user of UNIX and UNIX-like systems, and I still want this!
• A set of management tools for pam that runs the spectrum from adding a user to choosing a password hashing format to setting up an LDAP server based on an existing source (local files, an external database, etc). In the UNIX tradition (and for good and valid reasons that you can find by searching USENET, and I won't go into here) it should be command-line driven, but I would not complain at all about a GUI tool
• A heirarchical installation model that allows for a /usr, /opt and /usr/local which are applied to all system paths and configurations in reverse order (e.g. default paths all start with /usr/local/bin) and which package maintainers have well defined conventions for using according to historical precident (/usr is for distribution-native packages, /opt is for third-party packages and /usr/local is for site-local items that are created and installed by the maintainer of the system). If I put GNOME3.0pre-alpha97 into my /etc/apt/sources or whatever the equivalent is, and install it, it should go into /opt so that un-installing it puts my system back where it started. If I hack my own copy of Perl and install it, it should go into /usr/local so that it's clear that this is my hacked version and not something installed from the official distribution.
• sudo, ssh, and pam all have different views on what it means to authenticate. These views need to be merged at the distribution level into a single means of authenticating. This is a hairy problem, and may involve feeding back into all three projects, but if I don't have a password because I use a pam-based smart card and ssh-agent for remote key exchange then I can't use sudo (which requires a password). sudo is well within its rights to require periodic re-authentication, but that needs a mechansism (through support in it and the infrastructure of the os including pam and ssh) to feed that re-authentication request all the way back to my smart-card interface....

So, if distributions are seeking to solve problems like these, great. If they're not, and they're just another way to customize Red Hat or Debian or install from source or put your files on an FTP server, then I have to ask if the authors of these tools are even scratching their own itch?!

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[andfarm]

READ THE ARTICLE!

LFS is a set of instructions for creating a Linux installation to do, well, whatever. If you want these features, you can go ahead and implement them yourself, because that's what LFS is for.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[samhalliday]

please somebody mod parent as troll!

ajs; LFS is exactly what you have argued needs done. it is a set of build instructions and text on how a system works, you build EVERYTHING yourself, from source! you are in COMPLETE control over what goes in and what doesnt, you are in complete control over what the system is used for. you are in complete control over what autenticates, the hierarchy, the docs. it is NOT a make-your-own-server distro; it is a make-your-own-ANYTHING-distro. servers just happen to be able to run on GNU/Linux :-/

IMHO, LFS is the only truly unique distro out there... the rest have good points and bad points but are ultimately all the same thing, a binary distribution of GNU/Linux; LFS/BLFS is just a book.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[samhalliday]

damn right; now why did i get modded down for saying the same thing? hmm...

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[jdavidb]

then I have to ask if the authors of these tools are even scratching their own itch?

I have to ask if you've been close enough to them to know exactly where their itches are. Ewww...

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[ajs]

please somebody mod parent as troll!

Thankfully, and for the most part, people mod based on thinking about what I've said, not what responders plead for....

LFS is exactly what you have argued needs done

Great!

it is a set of build instructions and text on how a system works, you build EVERYTHING yourself, from source! you are in COMPLETE control over what goes in and what doesnt, you are in complete control over what the system is used for

Uh... huh. And this accomplishes what I suggested HOW?

Understand that, yes, LFS is not itself a distribution per se, but it represents a lot of effort in going through and building distributions in order to learn and generate the documentation. Why? What need does it fill? Is it just the enthusiast, "hey, let's write a HOWTO on building bat-guano-based case mods!" or is there really a need that these people had?

That's what I was bringing into question, not the specifics of LFS or BLFS.

All that said, I can appreciate the accedemic merit of what they suggest, to wit:

The most important reason for LFS's existence is teaching people how a Linux system works internally. Building an LFS system teaches you about all that makes Linux tick, how things work together, and depend on each other. And most importantly, how to customize it to your own taste and needs.

But, I still feel that it would be more important and useful to the person who wants to know more about how these things work if someone who was skilled at creating documentation did so in the form of one, universally-consistent set of man-pages for what already exists in a given distribution. THEN adding additional distributions or docs on how to build your own would make sense. Hence, that was my first point in the original posting.

BTW: Since it's a set of intrustructions on how to get and use parts, I don't think you should be calling it GNU/Linux since that implies, for example, that you will not use the BSD file utilities, the Intel C compiler and many other components that are not GNU. Remember GNU's Not Linux! ;-)

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[samhalliday]

And this accomplishes what I suggested HOW?

ok, i can only answer 2 of your points, but i think you are complaining about lack of support in individual programs, not somethign which a distro can take care of.

There should be a way to say "fetch documentation for x" where x is a path name to any non-user file.

surely man already does this? my man pages are valid for any command, library call or setup file on my system, are yours not? do you have an example for me, as i clearly misunderstand what you are asking. granted if i were to type `man /bin/rm` i would get rubbish becuase man would be trying to open /bin/rm as a formatted man page, but why is `man rm` not good enough for you?? if you install a new `rm` command, in say /usr/local/bin, then if you want the man page to THAT command to appear when you type `man rm`, then you can set the man path to search /usr/local/share/man first. do you mean mayeb that some of your programs are missing man pages? however, info does suck and is a project which should never have been started.

A heirarchical installation model that allows for a /usr, /opt and /usr/local which are applied to all system paths and configurations in reverse order

this can easily be implemented by editing your $PATH, /etc/ld.so.conf, /etc/man.conf and others along the way. and is this not the FHS anyway?? its certainly the way my system is set up! (and i use LFS)

A set of management tools for pam that runs the spectrum from adding a user to choosing a password hashing format to setting up an LDAP server based on an existing source

this is not something a distro can take care of.. it is a request for a program which does not exist. a distro is a collection of existing programs, if you want a program such as this, why not try the PAM email lists; im sure someone out there is either willing to write one or to help you write one. i do agree there is a lack of good user-admin programs out there, which are standalone (ie not requiring kde or linuxconf or somethign equally massive and prone to bloat).

sudo, ssh, and pam all have different views on what it means to authenticate. These views need to be merged at the distribution level into a single means of authenticating.

it seems to me like you are asking for individual applicatiosn to work together better... not something a distro can do unless the apps themselves have not reasched that maturity. all a distro is, is a compilation of already existing packages.

you seem to be asking LFS to rewrite or write individual programs... and i suggest the place you ask these questions are on the mailing lists of those programs. the problems you have are not at the level of a distribution. all a distribution can do in the end is choose which version of a program to run, which toolchain to build it with and to choose its optional dependencies. if PAM and ssh dont work together regardless, how the hell is a distro supposed to fix this?

then I have to ask if the authors of these tools are even scratching their own itch?!

again, you seem to think the people making the distro are the same people makign the programs... THEY ARE NOT THE SAME PEOPLE!!!

Since it's a set of intrustructions on how to get and use parts, I don't think you should be calling it GNU/Linux since that implies, for example, that you will not use the BSD file utilities, the Intel C compiler and many other components that are not GNU.

actually, you must still use the GNU toolchain to build most of the components; you can certainly add icc afterward if you want; but you are askign for trouble if you want to get rid of gcc from the start. of course.. be my guest to try; you can even call it BSD/Intel/LFS/BLFS if you want.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[Overly Critical Guy]

Instead of inventing YET ANOTHER WEB SERVER DISTRO (yes, I've been tempted too), can we please focus our efforts on the things that are wrong, broken and unusuable in EVERY DISTRO ON THE PLANET?

Priorities would be better served by targetting them at idiots who don't bother reading the links of Slashdot articles, and instead decide to launch into a misinformed diatribe accusing LFS of being a misprioritized "distro." And also, fixing their caps lock key.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[ajs]

surely man already does this? my man pages are valid for any command, library call or setup file on my system

Not mine. I've tried every variant of Linux I can get my hands on. Here's an example from my system, just trying a few of the "/etc/p*" files:

man pam_smb.conf
man pine.conf
man printconf.local
man profile
man protocols

How do I find out what program "profile" is documented under? Granted, that's an easy one, and I already know the answer, but many people don't know what a borne shell is, much less that bash IS one.

FreeBSD actually made a point of thise, and they were doing a good job for a while. I have no idea how that's doing at this point, though.

You make the point that paths can be edited... well, yes, but the WHOLE system needs to know that you can have files in multiple locations. For decades now, /opt has been the correct place for third party software, and still I see distribution vendors all inventing their own ideas (Red Hat just wants everyone to install in /usr, debian made some noises in the /opt direction and then gave up in favor of the Red Hat model, the other distributions don't appear to have even thought this far ahead. It *is* a distribution's job to worry about how sofware can be added to the system in a sane way and impose those standards.

You claim that a distribution cannot manage user authentication, but then who exactly DOES? The sudo folks say it's pam's job. The pam folks say it's ssh's job. ssh says it's sudo's job....

In the end, it's GOT to be the distribution that sets their foot down and says "here is the way you will authenticate a user, and here is the way that you will pass authentication data around." The fact that SSH had to roll it's own was a sad result of the state of user authentication at the time, not a desirable situation. Should MY remote access program use SSH's keys or create it's own? Should I maybe have an API for that? Should that API be part of the standard suite of getpw* API calls? WHOAH NOW! That's the glibc folks!

Packaging a distribution is about creating a working system out of the parts provided and any other glue that needs to be added, not about typing "make install" and walking away.

On the point of what to call the system, I've never understood why people put the name of the kernel in the distribution name. It's kind of like calling a computer an IBM PC Clone....why? Why not be your own thing and put your acknowledgements in the documentation where they belong? Eh, I guess most folks don't agree with me here, so oh well....

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[handslikesnakes]

You have completely the wrong idea about LFS. You say that it's the distro's duty to impose filesystem standards, you say that the distro should do a better job of integrating parts, and so on.

Of course LFS will not put it's foot down! (heard the slogan "Your distro, your rules"?) Put your packages wherever you damn well please. /opt is for third-party programs? What's 3rd party when everything comes from different places and is compiled by you anyways? /usr/local is for non-essential components; does that include X? Decide for yourself; it really doesn't matter anyhow.

As for integration of parts, I'd really rather not see every distro come up with their own way of doing it. If the individual projects do it, excellent. However, I'd rather not have fluxbox stop working when I uninstall Mozilla because RedHat thought I could use the fluxbox-integrated-browser patch.
I'm happy with modular components; isn't the lack of them one of the major complaints about Windows?

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[samhalliday]

How do I find out what program "profile" is documented under?

you make a valid point; lots of programs havent pothered making good documentation. a good program has a man page for every binary, every function call and every .conf file it needs. an almost-good one has all the details under the one man page. a workaround would be to run

man -K "/etc/profile"

which will search all the man pages giving you an option to display the matching pages, but if the authors of a program haven't done a good job of the docs, there is not much anyone can do, short of fixing the docs themselves (only big companies like redhat/mandrake/suse haev the man power to actually do this, LFS is small and is concerned mainly with setups, not documentation content). man is indeed the place to implement this, a good example is `man lilo.conf` where the lilo people HAVE bothered to use what is available to them, everyone always forgets the man5 directory. writing another program to deal with this will not solve anything, and info, well, info is just a big pile of poo, isnt it?

You claim that a distribution cannot manage user authentication, but then who exactly DOES? The sudo folks say it's pam's job. The pam folks say it's ssh's job. ssh says it's sudo's job....

yes, this is a sad case... LFS is not a true distro, it is the means to make a distro from the program sources, which is a lot more than `make install`, believe me! (you must use *BSD, lucky you ;-).) short of editing the source code, this cannot be implemented by anyoen other than the program authors. if it were possible to pass a configure flag to each of these programs, such as `./configure --authstyle=keybased`, then YES, it would be up to the distro to implement the interoperability system-wide. but this is not the case, and these programs just do not work with each other. this is not any distro's problem (unless they have coders available to work with pam/ssh people). if the problem is as bad as you say it is; the PAM/ssh/sudo people better get their fingers out. i have never experienced the problems you are mentioning... i would put the blame on PAM, as i have had lots of problems with it before. i eventually gave up when i realised everything i needed done security wise could be implemented with traditional unix permissions. i have never seen any great benefit in using sudo: `chmod u+s file `works fine for me, i just `chmod o-xrw file` and make the file group owned.

Packaging a distribution is about creating a working system out of the parts provided and any other glue that needs to be added, not about typing "make install" and walking away.

you are right, but the 'glue' in this exmaple is AFAI can tell, a complete rewrite of these 3 programs. that is hardly ' some glue'.

You make the point that paths can be edited... well, yes, but the WHOLE system needs to know that you can have files in multiple locations.

Yes, and here is something which you CAN implement quite easily system-wide on an LFS system :-D this is indeed a distro thing, not like your other points, and LFS does it well. when builidn LFS, if you are looking to implement this, you will see what needs editing along the way; but LFS is much more FHS compliant than most, and even puts large packages such as GNOME and KDE into /opt. i evcen have a /opt/non-gnu which contains (obviously) non-gnu compatible files, and i link them if a program is stubborn in requiring them to be in a particular place, but mostly i can edit any program's search path. what you ask is already implemented on my machine.

i've never understood why people put the name of the kernel in the distribution name

its only because linux sounds cool ;-) if i were using the HURD as my kernel, i would most likely call it just 'gnu', but even gnu sucks as a name. bsd sucks as a name as well, and nacho... do we need to mention nacho? no we dont.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[rifter]

The poster was *not* saying that LFS should do anything of the sort. The Poster was suggesting that rather than creating millions of distributions we should perhaps work on one, or even a few, until they are fixed and workable, much in the vein of the guy who wrote the article recently about the fragmented nature of open source programs (thousands of word processors and text editors and many many years before a single one of them installs with a spell checker!).

As many others have put more elegantly, LFS is not a distro. It is a set of instructions for how to make a distro. But unlike the other poster was claiming, the LFS will not fix the parent's problem any more than anything else, because the answer in LFS even moreso than from RedHat and co. is "write it yourself if you want it!"

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[rifter]

Your documentation problem is an interesting one, and I have to say I agree this is something useful. (I think it is rather obvious the other answerers are blinded, as many Linux contributers/users seem to be, by "what is" and "how you do it now" and are not seeing the benefit of how it could be done.

A major problem here is the ragmentation of documentation even for a given command. A little bit in the man page, a bit in the info file, a bit in some randoom PDF, some random text files, a HOWTO, a mini-HOWTO, an Oreilly book, and some random web pages, besides a few archived emails from a list and some usenet articles, and maybe by the time you have gone through all that you will know what to do sometimes. (If not, you need to email a list).

Of course it would be much easier to RTFM if the FM was easier to read, or get to. It would be nice if one or a couple of these places was fairly complete. To be fair, many packages do this, and it is the package's job to provide docs, but this f course leads to an inconsistency, such that some package maintainers like info, others man, and others want you to read their web site, etc. I agree wholeheartedly that it is the distro's job to fill in the cracks. And there are some examples.

For instance, OpenBSD (yes not a Linux Distro, but everyone starts on the same foot on most packages) has decided that they will provide adequate man pages, and they will have everything documented in man pages such that you can actually use those pages, and only those pages, and get things to work. And they do it. Compare the man page for some random package/command on OpenBSD to the *very same one* on Linux (same version even) and you will see what I mean. Someone in the OpenBSD team is fixing the bloody man pages. So why can't Linux distros do it?

Of course the extreme where every file is documented on the system is a very good one to hope for, and something to think about. Also a better doc system than man (though so far I like man best) might be helpful in this task.

The naysayers to your problems are ignoring the fact that distributions change things all the time. It is their job to fill in the cracks and make a useable system. To their credit, I think most have done a lot of work getting things to happen their way. But as usual, there is more that could be done...

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[samhalliday]

I agree wholeheartedly that it is the distro's job to fill in the cracks

yes, suse/redhat/debian/mandrake may indeed have resources to fill in the gaps, and i also believe it is their job to do so and feed it back to the authors, after all they get payed to do it! but LFS is not a distro in the traditional sense. it is a means to produce a distro from the sources, for what you need it to do. if you want man pages for all the commands... go ahead and write them! or why not download the OpenBSD ones and insert them into your own distro!

only a big distro company like mentioned before can (realistically) put time and manpower (no pun intended) into touching up the docs, besides the authors. if all programs had a full man page, i would be oober-happy!

Compare the man page for some random package/command on OpenBSD to the *very same one* on Linux

I really hope OpenBSD are feeding back to the program authors with regards man pages.

you seem to always be thinking of LFS as a massive binary distribution, and are complaining about the problems with generic gnu/linux distrubutions. you are missing the point that LFS is just a means to make your _own_ distro... if you find a way to pull the excellent OpenBSD man pages you mention, then please write a hint and let the community know how you did it! LFS certainly doesnt discourage such things.

however, i agree that the doc issue should sorted out; in a perfect world, all programs would have amazing man pages shipped with them. but it is not a perfect world and people are faced with many ways to write and read docs (i think info is mostly to blame for this dissociation of documentation). it needs a project in it's own right to work alongside common packages, and ensure the docs are always in check. they should feed back their work to the programs affected.

The naysayers to your problems are ignoring the fact that distributions change things all the time

yes they do... but LFS is letting you choose how to do things, and pointing you in the direction of the FHS all the time; which is about as standards compliant as possible. no distro knowingly removes man pages on purpose; it is becuase the docs were never written by the authors! it is up to individual contributors, or resource rich companies (such as the big distros) to make the difference; each program has to 'play ball'.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[samhalliday]

LFS will not fix the parent's problem any more than anything else, because the answer in LFS even moreso than from RedHat and co. is "write it yourself if you want it!"

actually, the 'other poster' has changed his stance on this... now he says "please tell me how we can get the excellent OpenBSD man pages (for common packages) which you reccomend!"; if you can give me details, i will see how this would go down on the LFS lists. :-D

this is of course a short-term solution, as i hope OpenBSD are feeding their docs back to the respective program authors, and that those docs will be implemented in due course...

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[ajs]

LFS is not a true distro, it is the means to make a distro from the program sources, which is a lot more than `make install`, believe me! (you must use *BSD, lucky you ;-).)

I do get that LFS is not a real distro per se, but a set of docs on how to make one. I just wish that such vim (no pun intended) and zeal were applied to fixing the problems that UNIX/Solaris/HPUX/BSD/Linux/etc have had for decades rather than crafting yet another from-scratch compilation of things that don't work well together.

In answer to your assertion, I primarily use Linux at home and at work, though I use Windows/XP for gaming at home and I use whatever I have to to get work done.

I have friends who use Free- and NetBSD so I'm somewhat familliar with them (and I used to use BSD a lot in the late 80s (BSD propper) and early 90s (SunOS3 and 4)).

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[ajs]

A bunch of folks got me wrong here, and I just want to clarify:

There are two classes of people that one can address in relation to this article: the people who put LFS together (LFS is a documentation set on how to build a Linux system from scratch) and the people who use LFS to build their own systems.

What I was trying to suggest (and apparently didn't do a good job of) was that that SECOND class of people would do much better for themselves by taking joe random distribution (let's say Red Hat, just because they're an easy target, not because they are better or worse in these respects than anyone else) and customizing it by fixing the long-standing problems that have existed since before Linux.

It used to be amazing that you had a system where you could wonder what "ls" did, and so you typed "man ls" and you found out.

That was nice, but those days are now long ago, and we should be expecting more from our systems documentation. Same thing goes for the other things I pointed out (I wasn't saying: go fix ssh/sudo/pam, I was saying that the broken integration between them was a good example of a class of problem that PACKAGES don't fix because they feel it's someone else's problem).

Instead of that, though, we get thousands of people hitting Linux for the first time, many of whom are competent programmers or tech writers and instead of saying: here are all of the things that we should be looking to spend time on doing as a community, we push them in the direction (and by we, I include these new people as well) of building their own Linux installation from scratch.... educational? Yes. The best bang-for-the-perspon-hour-spent? Not even close. Try sitting down and understanding the rat's nest of documentation formats on your average Linux system (there are at least 5 "standard" documentation systems that I can think of, and they only interoperate with eachother at the minimum level possible) and after a few days or weeks, you'll probably know more than I do in a few areas. PLUS, you'll be poised to fix some rather substatial problems.

If you're a programmer, same goes for the authentication mess.

I'm not saying LFS is bad, heck *I* would have been tempted to write it, but I see these many, many endemic problems in the Linux world and I see the new folks to that world being told, "try building your own distribution, it's cool!"

Remember, if we don't lead new members of the community down the road of "scratch your own itches", they're going to continue to think of software as a feudal system where they should wait for the next release and see what the software maintainers have deigned to bless them with THIS TIME.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[rifter]

Well, the man pages are available for free download. I had not thought about reading them on Linux, but then I thought "why not? they are a standard format and thay are only tarred and gzipped..."

So I downloaded them from the aforementioned mirror, unpacked them, and found out they were even cattable. (if that is a word... well ok it is not ;), but this is /. ).

The reason OpenBSD has good man pages is that its maintainers have set as a goal that the man pages should be adequate documentation and the correct authoritative source for information aout the system. It has even been suggested that the man pages themselves, printed out, make a very nice book for OpenBSD. It's all about priorities. They set two goals: security and decent docs. They did not have a book so they made the man pages their book. I think that is the right way to proceed in any case.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[rifter]

ERm.. ok from now on we preview!

Here is the mirror.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[rifter]

yes, suse/redhat/debian/mandrake may indeed have resources to fill in the gaps, and i also believe it is their job to do so and feed it back to the authors, after all they get payed to do it! but LFS is not a distro in the traditional sense. it is a means to produce a distro from the sources, for what you need it to do. if you want man pages for all the commands... go ahead and write them! or why not download the OpenBSD ones and insert them into your own distro!

only a big distro company like mentioned before can (realistically) put time and manpower (no pun intended) into touching up the docs, besides the authors. if all programs had a full man page, i would be oober-happy!

But I am not talking about LFS, and neither was the guy who started this discussion. He was saying that doing 5000 distributions detracts from working on the ones we have now. To be fair, I think this is not really properly an indictment of LFS which serves a very different purpose. But indeed of RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, etc.

I know very well what LFS is and is not, and I hope to dispel the idea other posters in this thread seem to have that I am mistaking it for a binary distribution. I think I did an okay job of explaining myself in that respect here. What I was defending is the previous posters' assertion that in the past Linux has had bad man pages, for the reasons you and I seem well aware.

The main problem with "pulling the OpenBSD man pages" as you say, is that they are not directly applicable to Linux. They are directly applicable to OpenBSD. So what would hav eto happen really is that people would hav eto fix the Linux ones. They might read the OpenBSD man pages, but ultimately some things would be different for linux and the man pages would reflect that.

That's another thing, really, in that if distros change something they should document it better. If RedHat's gui tools worked, that is great. But if they don't its time to read the source or some random websites or crawl around at random to find the files that got changed and how.

Anyway I like the idea of LFS and have in fact gone to the trouble of ordering the dead tree version of the book. I am thinking going through it will teach me a lot about making distributions better so I can apply that to distributions I want to make better.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[samhalliday]

rather than crafting yet another from-scratch compilation

I think LFS is the only such option (besides the optional PLFS hacks) for makign a distro from scratch. it has been around since about, actually i dont know! but before distros like mandrake anyway....

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[samhalliday]

thankyou for that, however, you do realise that even

man pam_smb.conf
man pine.conf
man printconf.local
man profile

do not work under OpenBSD. i guess even openbsd haven't done this job correctly.

i tried looking at this and the man page width needs editing somewhat to get them to display. also, reformating the pages to the linux man is going to take some time; let alone the time it would take to remove unwanted man pages (such as those already existing and thigs like `man pkg_create`). also we would be left with some programs which are not even the same version, eg `man tar`

basically i think this is more trouble than it is worth and it is best to wait until the OpenBSD team feed back any changes they made to GNU (or opensource) packages in due course.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[rifter]

basically i think this is more trouble than it is worth and it is best to wait until the OpenBSD team feed back any changes they made to GNU (or opensource) packages in due course.

I would not hold my breath, and even if they did submit this, and the maintainers accepted the changes, and they ported those changes to the linux versions of the changes, and they were applicable to Linux... hmm that is a lot of ifs. I should stop now.

The point is not "lets snag the pages from OpenBSD because they are cool." That does not solve anything, really, though if you want to read them on linux you certainly can. The point is that if any distribution makes decent man pages a priority they can make it happen (or info, or html, or whatever). The OpenBSD team has proven that. One of the pages that does not appear to be in the file I referenced is the afterboot manpage (which is in base33.tgz ). This is a good example of manpages that should come with any system.

The afterboot man page (for the curious) explains *exactly* what you should do to your system upon installing and where to go to configure pretty much anything you wnat to configure. It even explains how you can reconfigure your kernel without having to recompile it ;). It has very often been a useful reference for me even long aftre I have been running awhile, as a jumping off point for searches for info.

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[samhalliday]

i though you were saying that the OpenBSD team had gone through and written man pages for programs which did not have man pages :-/. as you say, and as i also mentioned; it really would be ridiculous to just place these straight into a gnu/linux distro, i was hoping i could seperate the docs they wrote for gnu apps and possibly bundle them with LFS. but no, this is not possible. LFS is far too small a 'distro' to write the missing man pages, that should really be left to a binary-only distro which has reached osme level of stability and has time to write the docs. or hope the individual authors write some... (never gonna happen)

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[samhalliday]

ok, well anyway, some fruit has come out of this... check here:

http://archive.linuxfromscratch.org/mail-archives/ lfs-dev/2003/05/0089.html

sorry, couldnt be bothered with formatting :-)

Re:Can we please shift PRIORITIES?!

[rifter]

Well, my point is that this is not a job for LFS, except tangentially in that one could use LFS to make a distro and then make better man pages. I was thinking distributions that are truly distributions should do this.

I also should point out the OpenBSD case is one in which there are some man pages there that aren't elsewhere precisely because they describe things that are only on OpenBSD (much like distros have manpages for their distro-specific tools).

The argument was whether this is a job for the distro maintainers or not, and my point was the OpenBSD team has proven it can be. LFS is not, however, really a distribution in the classic sense, and has a different goal. I was more thinking of the Slackware/RedHat/Debian/etc where there is a goal of making a better operating environment as a whole. To me the LFS is more about making a better Operator. :)

any directions on how to build your own distro?

[dwgranth]

Yeah, I've looked through the LFS and BLFS online documentation, and I was curious... are there any directions out there on how to make it a usable/deployable distrobution?? I guess I could use g4u to copy the harddrive image to iso.. but i would rather not.

Re:any directions on how to build your own distro?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are instructions on how to use RPM or other package managers in the "hints" section.

Re:any directions on how to build your own distro?

[andfarm]

Just build a LFS system under chroot (or on a partition), write some nice installer scripts, and burn it to a CD. Have fun ;-)

Re:any directions on how to build your own distro?

[mabhatter654]

Drift over to the Knoppix land for that. Knoppix has sweet tools for wrapping up a distro to a bootable CD!

How cool would that be?

Re:any directions on how to build your own distro?

[wolverine1999]

I usually build it, export it and mount it from another PC which I boot with 'Tom's rescue disk'.
Then I fdisk the PC and transfer the files. Then I setup lilo and it's ready to go with the lfs system.

It's not an automated method but it works fine for me. For another PC I made a CD-R with all the files and installed it pretty much the same way.

Re:Dispersing the Linux Myths

[cpufreak]

why bother with CD's? its much easier just to use a DVD.
or in fact. just PXEboot and install over teh interweb.

A list of mirrors would be helpful

[mdfst13]

It is a lot easier to use mirrors if you tell us what they are. As stands, to find a mirror, I would look it up on your site, which rather defeats the purpose.

Re:A list of mirrors would be helpful

[HIghoS]

It was more so a comment directed at the slashdot editors, not the ppl visiting the site. The server should be able to handle the load-that's not the point.

Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package management

[Black Perl]

In Gentoo, do you have to rely on packages being created for you? That would make it useless right there. I have enough trouble finding RPMs for everything. And once I need to install something from scratch, I'm screwed. Header libraries from RPM-installed dependencies are missing, I have to re-install dependencies from scratch, RPM then breaks, and I'm in a situation much like Windows' "DLL Hell".

I like my current Mandrake distro, and RPM works great as long as you consistently and always use RPM to install stuff. But for me, it always ends up breaking. Just last night I tried to uninstall postfix in order to install sendmail, and it went something like this:

% rpm -e postfix
maildaemon required by mutt-xx-xxx
% rpm -e mutt-xx-xxx
Segmentation fault (Core dumped)
% rpm -e postfix --nodeps
Segmentation fault (Core dumped)

I even tried to use rpm to update rpm, in case there was a bug, but that failed too.

What the #$%&*@!! am I supposed to do? (Excuse my Perl)

Anyway, perhaps I should try a debian-based distro like Xandros. Everyone talks about how great apt-get is... is there an apt-remove? Does it manage dependencies well?

Stupid Newbie Question...

[gekkotron]

LFS looks like an interesting way to learn Linux from the ground up, but the .pdf says you have to do it from an existing Linux box. Is there a way to go through these steps from a Windows machine? (Cygwin or something like that maybe?)

Re:Stupid Newbie Question...

[samhalliday]

probably! i know people have tried this kind of thing from various *BSDS, with varying levels of success. if you are informed enough to give it a go, then try your best and report your findings back to the lists! (in fact, try search.linuxfromscratch.org first)

the pdf probably says that becuase a cygwin or *BSD walkthrough would involve a lot more writing, and also the lists are getting an increasing number of idiots who dont read the intro and think that this is maybe a good way to introduce themselves to this thing called linux...

Re:Stupid Newbie Question...

[EllF]

Knoppix actually works quite well. You won't be able to do the lilo setup, but grub works just fine -- I'd highly reccomend it over trying to set things up with cygwin, which is sometimes a bit funky about gcc and glibc versions.

Re:Stupid Newbie Question...

[kinnell]

The best idea would probably be to install a temporary linux distribution. You'll need to repartition your drive any way. You could also look in the hints section - a couple of these might be helpful to you.

Re:OT: Re:It is not a distro

[p3d0]

Um, he didn't, and it did.

Re:OT: Re:It is not a distro

[p3d0]

Oops, I was wrong. Looks like I changed my settings and then forgot.

At least once in your life

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't agree more. As was mentioned in earlier posts, LFS is just a document that describes how to build a Linux system - and it takes you from system bootup all the way through to your first bash prompt. However, it's important to note that LFS is NOT just a simple set of instructions. Littered throughout the document are tidbits explaining WHY things are done the way they are (for example, why do we need to create statically built libraries first?). It's the combination of excellent directions AND concise explanation of those directions that make LFS so great.

Of course, building LFS can be a real pain in the ass because it takes so long to do. But like the OP mentioned, it's something you should do at least once.

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[Gloume]

apt-get remove [package]
Yes, it manages dependencies very well.

Re:Dispersing the Linux Myths

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that the Windows CD has to be for the $4000 Advanced Server version.

This is due to changes made...

[i.r.id10t]

... a few years ago. The original 1.x series (the original howto) for LFS actually went thru X, KDE/Gnome, sound, etc. Not sure when it changed to just the base system, or even why, but more docs is always a good thing. I did my LFS system with the 1.x series of docs, and stopped when I had a "working" system - defined as being able to play Quake2 online with 3d support and sound.

I've been looking into things like this.

[www!!!1]

I really want to build my linux system from scratch, I hate installing a distro and not knowing what software i don't need or later how to upgrade, etc. I want to know where things are, how they work, what else I can get them to do...

Do you linux Gurus recommend this? Or What about distros like gentoo and sourcemage? Has anyone had success with sourcemage?

Is there a book that you'd recommend that clearly explains everything I would need to know to do this? I know about the RTFManPages and all that, but a nice book helps.

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[mark_lybarger]

no, gentoo is a source based distro, you can rely on ebuilds ( automated install scripts ) to be sent by someone, or you can install stuff from source.

as with any distro, when you install stuff from sources over stuff that's been installed elsewhere, that other stuff might break.

gentoo is nice, but very dangerous. the rpm -e postfix command that you used would be:
emerge unmerge postfix
in gentoo, and it would NOT complain about any dependancies. try doing an rpm -e --force glibc (or whatever however to force an uninstall) and see how well your system works.

it also has a nice clean feature where it will uninstall old packages that aren't used any more (still have kde 2.x laying around, emerge clean kde will do the trick) the problem is that you might have some apps that still need those kde 2.x libs. again no checking is done to see if packages are installed that use that software before cleaning it up.

in a nutshell, i like gentoo, i use gentoo, i wouldn't really think of using anything else, but i need to keep window around for whem my system gets fubarred from a simple upgrade. re-installing a system including kde/xfree takes literally days.

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[the_2nd_coming]

in debian there is no need to do a remove but you can if you need to (say you install something frim SID that is not working right yet and it messes with your system well it is a peice of cake to uninstall it)

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[cide1]

There are no packages. You download the official Tarball or gzip and extract, compile with your options, and install. It is probably the absolutely most vanilla linux their is. I have to second that it is very educational. I have built LFS twice, once about 2 years ago, and once about 4 months ago. The first time a system boots where you understand every little daemon and startup script and program and it's usefullness is very rewarding. LFS is basically an instruction book on how to build all the differant programs and libraries in the right order. At first, the GNU tool chain is built statically from a differant distro, then a jailed root is used to rebuild everything dynamically with the static toolchain, so the system is self-hosted. The book explains everything very well, and only minimal knowledge is needed. I can't emphasize enough how educational it is on Linux and Unix in general.

hafta rant

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just a home PC user & built a LFS 3 system and used it for about a year exclusively. I never got gnome to compile completely (tried very hard every few months) and lots of other things were broken.
With no real exposure to any other distros, occasionally I would reboot to windows98 to install a game and from this side of a 56k connection they just don't work from the store without hundreds of megs of fixes, etc. I found that the only difference between game support for linux is that the companies don't have a big enough market to lie and mention linux along with the unsupported versions of windows....
Anyways, I got a new p4 system and my optimized for pIII system wouldn't boot all the way and I decided to try redhat 9. I thought it was going to be The Bomb & all; with little file browsers and auto-insert notification, fully functional gnome & kde subsystem, etc, etc, etc.
Rh9 is so LAME. Just different things don't work now is all, and it 'feels' like windows. I had rh5 once and it was kinda cool, dunno wtf...
I /really/ prefer my broken distro better than someone elses broken distro with 'hardware detection', lol, sooo unnecessary.
Mostly, I was really expecting to be awestruck by RH9 and even told someone the day I installed it that it was great to be out of the 'dark ages' running auto linux with all the extras now. That was a short lived impression...

So go get LFS, I got the 100M tarball overnight with 56k and there's 'no rules, it just ruels'. That shit would boot fast as heck too.
My dri X server would boot with a black screen and just a cursor - then I could tap the function keys to dial, randomly toggle some wallpaper or some xscreensaver moving wallpaper, start the mixer. Oh sweet funtional function keys.
This stoopid menu bar I got with redhat doesn't even have a terminal on it, but there's all these office productivity crap that I could care less about, nothing useful there...so lame. Yeah I know I can fix it now, but won't have time - got to start making LFS4 w/the spare time.

Re:hafta rant

[wolverine1999]

Interesting... I know that Redhat 8 has a terminal in one of the latter menu options. Perhaps you missed it?

Re:Dispersing the Linux Myths

[Anonymous Coward]

ok

Not just x86

[foo fighter]

I'd like to point out the LFS and BLFS stuff works on PPC platforms as well.

You have to grab the PPC kernel and one of a couple other utilities to work with the Mac's ROM, but if you're doing LFS that shouldn't be a problem.

Lots of people are happy with OS X, but it runs poorly, if at all, on older PowerMacs. My 9600MP/200 (200MHz dual-proc Mac from back-in-the-day) would probably stand up and slap me for even putting the OS X 10.2 CD from my wife's iBook in its CD drive. But the LFS style system I built on it is happily hosting my DNS, Web, and Email. It is also pretty snappy when I'm building my (toy) programs in KDevelop, crunching my personal finances in OpenOffice.org Calc, and playing music.

All my geek friends are appropriately jealous of a dual-proc pre-G3 PowerMac running a hand-built Linux. (All my non-geek friends wonder what the hell I'm doing with an almost 10-year-old computer, of course.)

Not truely a distro

[nurb432]

Its a roll-your-own manual process.. Not a packaged 'distro'..

Sure its *great* for learning the internals and doing it YOUR way.. but calling it a distro, with no install scripts, etc is a bit of a stretch..

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[spectral]

urpm[i/e/q/f/whatever] is your friend.

urpme postfix
To satisfy dependencies, the following packages are going to be removed (9 MB):
mutt-1.4.1i-1.1mdk
postfix-2.0.6-1mdk

Is this OK? (Y/n)

There are graphical tools to manage thsi as well. Using straight RPM in Mandrake is like putting your nuts in a vice. There's no fucking point, and it's painful and stupid as all hell. :)

Ok, there are times when using rpm is nice/required, but very very rarely since urpm(x) does dependency checking and automatic downloads if you have your sources set up properly.

That being said, I like sorcerer, and use it as my primary OS. :)

LFS vs Source Based Distros

[Drasil]

I don't consider myself a guru, but 'I would say I know enough'. I've done the whole LFS/source based distro thing for a while now so here's my take on things.

I think it's important to make a distinction between LFS and Gentoo/SGL/Sourcemage/Lunar/uPM. LFS is a book that describes the process of producing a minimal linux installation that is capable of building software. The source based distros provide scripts/tools that automate the build process for you. Which you choose is largly dependent on your needs.

It seems from your post that you are interested in learning what makes GNU/Linux tick: what files do what, what software is required and what's bloat, and generally what goes on under the hood. For this I found that there is no substitute for LFS, it took me from Mandrake newbie to power-user in a couple of months. This was a good few years ago and at the time there was no BLFS, I feel that that actually helped me with learning the stuff. LFS held my hand through the installation of the base system, but after that I was forced to RTFM, making my own mistakes and learning from them. After 2 or 3 months I had a fully functional system with KDE, apache and a bunch of other stuff. I also had learned many times more than I did in over a year of using mandrake.

My new shiney LFS system was a joy to behold, but it became a real pain to maintain. I found that an unacceptable portion of my time was spent updating software manually and it was effecting my productivity. This was around the same time that SGL first appeared on freshmeat. I had tinkered for a while with LFSmake but found that it wasn't flexible enough. SGL was wonderful, I traded a small amount of the total control that LFS gave me for a system that saved me 80% of the time I was spending on keeping my system up to date.

Unfortunatley there was a bit of a storm in the SGL teacup which resulted in SGL going offline for a while and 2 forks appearing (Sourcemage and Lunar). Initially I went with Sourcemage but I found that after a while it became too unstable and as I was using it for work I couldn't have that (it may well be better now, I've not checked it out in a while). I switched to Lunar and am still using it now. It doesn't provide the same education as LFS, but once that knowledge is aquired it provides a much more efficient means of installing/maintaining your system.

I should say that I did once try gentoo but I was put off by the complete lack of an installer. You have to jump through too many hoops (and triangles, hexagons and other polyhedra) to get the thing up and running. uPM also looks interesting but is still in a relativly eary stage of development.

To sum it all up: LFS cannot be beaten for it's educational value, but for day-to-day use Lunar suits me best.

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[ioao]

Same with me.

I always end up f@!ing my mandrake installation. URPMI doesn't handle everything to me *at least* as some imply it does.

When I upgrade Mandrake 9 to have libgtk2.2 from mandrake 9.1, it breaks the GUI, hiding the labels and texts everywhere.

When I tried to share my connection of my more or less upgraded mandrake 9.1 from 9.0, using their wizards, it broke my internet connection badly.

In less than 10 months I think I reinstalled mandrake about 4 or 5 times. And I need to reinstall it again.

But, I am hoping I can put my hands on a redhat9 or mandrake 9.1 ou suse 8.2 or a cool distro with a binary installation and gnome 2.2 and kernel 2.4.

Well, with linux we hardly get hopeless :-)

Cheers, I am no more angry.

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[maxpublic]

I'm at a loss here. I use SuSe Linux for my home system, which has to be the most brainless and user-friendly distribution available. With 8.2 it's pretty much 'three clicks and you're good to go', if you don't want to customize installation (which I do, heavily).

However, I often install programs which have no RPM, just tarballs or gzipped tarballs. I don't have any problem doing this at all. If there are dependency conflicts they're usually pretty easy to work around; and if not a test or two will tell me where I'm fucked and then I can fix that by hand (or remove the program that's causing the problem).

Sure, this is a bit beyond the average user but you can mix an RPM-based system and regular tarballs relatively easily with some basic know-how.

Max

It's good for control freaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want absofuckinlutely TOTAL control, use LFS/BLFS. Not to mention that if I needed to hire a Linux admin, I'd prefer somebody who successfully runs LFS over somebody who uses Gentoo. Compare Gentoo to buying a "barebones" system from TigerDirect and LFS to building a PC from components.

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[Sancho]

in a nutshell, i like gentoo, i use gentoo, i wouldn't really think of using anything else, but i need to keep window around for whem my system gets fubarred from a simple upgrade. re-installing a system including kde/xfree takes literally days.

That's why I burned a copy of my initial filesystem to a CD. Frequent backups aren't a bad idea either.

Avoid package hell / parallel src installs (long!)

[Deagol]

I understand the RPM dependency hell very well. I recently did a full, clean RedHat 9 install. I then downloaded all the source RPMs from freshrpms, mostly for the multimedia capabilities. A quick 1-line bash script went through the entire batch and attempted to build them. Of course, some needed to be built and installed before others, so about 30% failed. I installed what did build, then repeated this process several more times. The mplayer package was the worst by far.

Anyway, I don't understand how anyone has trouble installing packages from source. You just need to partition them appropriately. I wish distributions used a similar method so they could keep parallel versions of programs and libraries installed.

Take openssh, for example:

My typical build of openssh requires: zlib, openssl, and tcp_wrappers.

I use a structure I call /mfs ("My File System"). I could use /usr/local for the same thing, but a customized directory will prevent collisions in /usr/local (the usual default prefix for configure scripts).

Under /mfs I have directories "dist" (the tarballs), "src" (where I untar and build each package), and "pkg" where I install packages.

So I start with zlib: "./configure --prefix=/mfs/pkg/zlib/1.1.4 ; make ; make test ; make install".

I repeat with tcp_wrappers, openssl, and finally openssh. So now I have the most current versions:

• /mfs/pkg/zlib/1.1.4
• /mfs/pkg/tcp_wrappers/7.6
• /mfs/pkg/openssl/0.9.7a
• /mfs/pkg/openssh/3.6.1p1

It should go without saying that I configure openssh to use the zlib, openssl, and wrappers libraries under /mfs, rather than the default system libraries. To the anal purists out there, I don't do this with all libraries (such as glibc), as it would drive me insane -- but it could theoretically be done.

Here's where it gets elegant (or convoluted, depending on your tolerance for complexity). Under each package's directory, I use a symlink from the version I wish to use on a regular basis to "std".

So, under /mfs/pkg/openssh, I may have directories 3.6.1p1, 3.0.1p1, and 2.9.9p1. Let's say that I want to use the latest sshd, so I run "cd /mfs/pkg/openssh ; ln -s 3.6.1p1 std". I then cd back up to /mfs. I then issue "lndir pkg/openssh/std". Actually, I have a script in /mfs that automatically removes all existing links under /mfs (avoiding the "pkg" dir, for obvious reasons) then re-linking every package with a "std" link. (Note I don't use a "std" link -- and thus don't lndir -- for libraries without runable binaries). If you don't know how lndir works, check it out (it's from the XFree86 distribution, though that might not be where it originated.).

After running lndir (or my script), I now have /mfs/{bin,etc,var,lib,sbin}. I point my sshd startup script to always use /mfs/sbin/sshd, which is actually a link to /mfs/pkg/openssh/std/sbin/sshd. Since std is a symlink to the version I wish to use, I can change to a newer or older version by simply stopping sshd, changing the "std" link to point to another version, and restarting sshd.

The beauty is that still have other versions available to me. Say the scp provided in 3.6.1p1 has an irritating bug (not the case, but just imagine). If my normal PATH has /mfs/bin, I'll get scp v3.6.1p1, but I can fall back to running /mfs/pkg/openssh/3.0.1p1/bin/scp.

This technique is especially valuable in multi-user systems, where libraries and applications of different versions (think compilers, for example) have dedicated users who aren't ready to upgrade.

Sorry for the really long post, but this idea works extremely well, IMHO, and I'm surprised that no distros use a similar technique for maintaining parallel versions. If RPM used this technique, you'd never run into the case where a new app needs a newer library version, but upgrading that library isn't possible since other major applications require that specific version (such as KDE needing a specific version of libpng and libcrypt).

KUDOS TO SLACKWARE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I agree. Slackware is the one and only. Gentoo is great, but us loyal followers will always have Slackware installed!

Now try to explain that to a novice Unix admin.. You just gotta live it. And I gotta tell you, I haven't felt so ALIVE IN YEARS when I installed the new version of Slackware! Kudos to you Slackware people! You're the best!

LFS 4.1 Book

[Namaseit]

I just got my LFS 4.1 book in the mail a few days ago. I like it even better now that i have a hard copy of it. I just wish BLFS came in hardcopy....or maybe it does, i'll have to check.

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[Black Perl]

urpm[i/e/q/f/whatever] is your friend.

Maybe it's your friend, but it's definitely my foe. I can't get urpmi to work.

Example:

% urpmi sendmail
[...]==> RETR sendmail-8.12.7-3mdk.i586.rpm ... Installation failed, some files are missing.
You may want to update your urpmi database.
% urpmi.update -a
urpmi database locked
% kill 11724
% urpmi.update -a
urpmi database locked
% kill -9 11724
% urpmi.update -a
...retrieving failed: wget failed: exited with 0 or signal 2
retrieve of source hdlist (or synthesis) failed
no hdlist file found for medium "rpmfind"

I have done this with various sources of RPMs I've gleaned from recent posts to alt.os.linux.mandrake, all of which fail one way or another. There's nothing wrong with my internet connectivity, it's urpmi.

MOD PARENT DOWN...

[xchino]

" People with actual lives use Mandrake or Red Hat. People with l33t tendancies but an aversion to work use Gentoo. People who want to learn stuff use LFS."

This is a blatant troll. Please tell me we have at leat a few moderators with some critical thinking skills. It makes no sense. "Linux is for people who want to work, but Linux is for lazy people who think they are l33t." is all it amounts to. If you modded this up, you're an idiot.

I think you're missing something, too

[Overly Critical Guy]

It is called the capacity for rational thought, considering you have obviously never implemented an LFS system. It was a nice troll attempt, but far too obvious to be terribly effective.

That's why there's a distributed mirror project

[jeroenvw]

The distributed mirror project is a fixed site where you can add and find mirrors of slashdotted sites. Now with handy links to the wayback engine and google cache for if there are no mirrors yet.

directly to mirror page

see the main page for more info

The project relies on one thing to be(come) successfull: users providing mirrors, or at least leaching the site before it gets slashdotted

Re:Avoid package hell / parallel src installs (lon

[tigga]

You should try gentoo - you don't need to research all dependencies - it does it by itself..

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[rifter]

I also had nothing but hell with urpmi. Essentially it would figure out that dependencies were needed and then not install stuff. Part of the fault was with broken standard rpms from mandrake from what I can tell (this was trying to upgrade Mandrake 8.0 to 8.1, using the rpms from cd, and the rpms wanted dependencies with slightly different names than what those packages were called by the 8.0 rpms).

My boss swears by Red Carpet, and if you want RPM to work, I hear this is the way to go, but it seems there are many reasons this method is a broken one.

Re:Avoid package hell / parallel src installs (lon

[rifter]

To be fair, the maintainers of the scripts (whatever gentoo calls them) research the dependencies. So you should thank the maintainers! (perhaps this will become an exclamation much like C3PO's "Thank the Creator!" or "Thank God!") :)

Even if not using LFS/BLFS.

[HuguesT]

There are huge benefits from this effort.

First of all they tell you how to fetch, recompile and configure a whole lot of standard packages. Want to enhance your RH9 distribution with ALSA? head for these guys' documentation and you'll be home and dry in no time.

Second of all this documentation covers a lot of things in a very tight format. Want to configure an anonymous CVS server? there you go.

Finally this effort frees the whole community from the grips of the distribution vendors. If all goes to hell in a handbasket and your favourite distro turns its back on you, you can still survive, fix, patch and generally maintain what you've got, or start from scratch.

Thanks B/LFS!

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[spectral]

Yeah, there are times when it's pretty broken. I once upgraded a system from 8.0->9.0 using standard RPM, because urpmi broke on me. The newer versions (9.0+) haven't given me any problems though, so you might want to try and upgrade those first. of course, I think they have pretty intrusive version requirements, so you might have to upgrade everything anyway. Whee!

use this website: http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon/urpmiweb.php to find sources, I could never find an easier way to put them in, the urmpi.addmedia command's documentation was complete crap. :)

Hope it helps. Mandrake is nice for not wanting to have to deal with stuff toooo much. but I still prefer sorcerer. ;)

portage...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can install gentoo's portage on a LFS system, then you would get an easy to maintain system after learning all the stuff you want to... Check out the gentoo forums, lots of talks about it on there.

Re:Gentoo, Mandrake, Xandros and package managemen

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean there's no need to remove? People do want to remove packages even if there's not a problem ya know.