Is anyone using LFS as their only operating system?
 

I just finished with LFS installation. Of source I learned a lot.
I am wondering, is anybody using LFS as his only every day use os?
I would be happy if I found a way that I could make it easier.

Hi
I use it all the time i have Lxde, Mate, Xfce, Lxqt as
desktops. I have installed all that i need for my use,

Once you have built it a few times it tends to get easier
just the compling of big packages takes the time. There is an
automated version to build lfs.

I would like to use it too, no problem with compilation times (I used Arch and now Gentoo). But what partly discouraged me is that if I want to install a package, I have to install also the required and recommended dependencies and also the required and recommended dependencies of these dependencies? How do I keep track of the updates of all these?

Also if I do all above and have a usable system, I understand it is easy to update eg chromium or mplayer, but if I want to update the base system do I have to run the whole LFS installation again and then install all the BLFS programs again?

Thank you!

I do a rebuild wben certain packages are updated, you could look in to package managers, afew people use them but that is not described in lfs/blfs, if you look through the posts
here i,m sure there will be advice and pointers. Arch's manager is an option to look into

hariskar, i think it's very unlikely that soemone uses LFS as their sole OS.
it is much more likely that they have more than one computer.
also you might want to include women as well, yes?
maybe rephrase the question to "Is anyone using LFS as their main operating system?"

Sorry ondoho, I corrected that. I didn't mean to exclude women.

I Use lfs as my main os full desktop, dependencys are not too much of a problem once you get a system to hqndle them set up for your self, I for instance use a my own pakage manager, others just have short install scrupts that install all the needed dependencys etc, remember, your lfs is your own so you only need to install what ( optional ) dependencys you need/use I rarely install all the optional deps for a package, its up to you.

It's not my main OS, but I do use lfs regularly to play mp3 music using rhythmbox or parole and watch youtube videos using firefox. I also use it to edit LaTeX documents using emacs.

As to your question about the upgrades, the book recommends rebuilding lfs for each new glibc. That means you will have to rebuild blfs as well.

However, I upgrade in place, somewhat like a rolling release. I came up with a recipe to upgrade in place, but it is not foolproof. If anything goes wrong, I am on my own. No problems so far.

LFS took me a week to build and troubleshoot. BLFS another two weeks. That is why I don't want to repeat the build process. I guess you could write a bash script to automate the process.

You can build faster if you have a fast computer with a lot of cpu cores.

I have three OS's on my main computer, but LFS is the main one, the one I boot up most days.

Also using [B]LFS as my main system, though I can't say it is my only os, since I do multi-boot with windows (for games) and there is still the previous Linux (which if all goes to plan, will be the partition where I put the *next* LFS system :) ).

I also use B/LFS as my only system. Dependencies can be a little difficult to handle at first. What I did was break the BLFS part down into smaller sections (think networking, X, printing, sound, and so on). Take an hour or so and write out on paper what the dependencies are for each of the individual packages. You will probably have a messy hodgepodge of lines and arrows drawn all over the place, but when you're done, write the packages all out in a linear order and keep the list handy. I did this originally for BLFS 7.5, and when it came time my most recent build, I pretty much stuck to my original list, and that saved considerable time and effort.

Another thing to consider is making a backup each time you finish building one of the smaller "sections," that way if you mess up, you don't have to start at the beginning again.

It depends what is meant by "update the base system" whether everything should be rebuilt too. As long as glibc isn't updated a full rebuild shouldn't be necessary - but rebuilding would be safer. Making your own "rolling release" BLFS would only be as stable and backward-compatible as the packages you are building.

I use [CB]LFS as my main system, but I am an outlier (and have 15 years worth of makefiles, build scripts and custom packaging to drive it).
If you want to be on the cutting edge, you have to mitigate the bleeding.

The best advice I can give is
a) Make sure you run a snapshotable (is this even a word) filesystem (ie: zfsonlinux)
b) script your build (and push them to github/elsewhere).
c) always DESTDIR install (and tar up/package) your package builds, then merge into your current root (or your new image).

I also use LFS as my only operating system. Yesterday I moved LFS partitions in place of gentoo partitions!

How did you do it? Writing all dependencies in my case with programs like chromium, webkit seems extremely difficult, because there are many required/recomended programs and dependencies that go many levels deep.. Where did you write them finaly? In a *.doc?

I use my own OS based off LFS, not quite LFS, but very close. I use this OS on my main PC as well as my car's in dash computer.