I have been tring to install lfs 6.2 on a vector box for almost 2 weeks and no longer need hair cuts. Honestly it seems the more I read the less I understand. I cant believe all of the simple mistakes I have made. From forgetting commands to missing steps in the book.

I think that lfs is a very cool distro but, right now its not for me. I thought I could work through it but after 2 weeks I am only through chapter 5.6 and am stuck again.

Maybe I'll be back again for another go.

kelean

Howdy neighbor (from Kalamazoo here) LFS isn't for everyone, but it can be done. Have patience and work slowly the first couple of times you roll your own. I'm replying to your post using a Cross LFS system I built four or five months ago.

Arrow,

well I was haveing a hard time deciding between lfs and gentoo. I want to try something Different. I am wanting to learn more about how linux works, but I think lfs might be a little to much for me.

I agree... jumping from Slack10 or Deb3 to LFS is quite a leap. Gentoo would be an excellent "next step". Once you've mastered Gentoo, then try LFS again.

Cheers
Bill

Hello all:
Was wondering why dragonslayer48dx made reference to Gentoo as being a better next step after slackware and debain. I use Slackware 11 and have also tried fedora, Zenwalk, debain, Dsl and others but never have tried Gentoo. What's different about Gentoo other than the install and package management?. Well anyway the reason I'm here is because I am trying my first attempt at LFS from the LiveCd which is going ok so far but I have got a question. At what point is it safe to stop my work and continue later on. I'm going to assume since the instructions say after each compile to delete the source and build directory that it's ok at that point but just wanted to make sure that nothing is in memory anywhere. Couldn't find anything up to this point that I've read that said this.
Thanks...

Gentoo is source-based so similar in that respect to (C)LFS. You can adjust compiler and linker options to suit your particular system and you have finer control over optional package dependencies. Other distros like Slackware and Debian have to provide packages that are compiled to work on most systems. There is no way anyone could manage the myriad of possible combinations for a single package, let alone thousands.

On the other hand, someone else is typically figuring out any issues with a given package and "fixing" them when they write the build script for a source-based distro like Gentoo. With (C)LFS you'll be the package maintainer. (C)LFS will also give you even greater control over optional dependencies with packages that you add after the base system. I use both and periodically find Gentoo 'requiring' packages that truly aren't needed by a particular package.

That being said, using Gentoo or Arch or Sourcemage for awhile will help when you decide to try (C)LFS but a "Gentoo phase" certainly isn't necessary to successfully build a (C)LFS system. Patience and attention to detail will give you a successful build of the base (C)LFS system and beyond.

Very well stated... Thank you.

And while a "Gentoo phase" isn't necessary for everyone, I never recommend quitting. One deserves to learn at one's own pace, regardless how many distros they must master to reach their goal.

Cheers
Bill

Thanks Arow,
Finished section five ( the tool chain ) last night and will probably start working on the rest later this week. Maybe it will go well but if it doesn't then I will have something to put in my knowledge base for later on. Gentoo & Arch sounds interesting because I love learning how it all works that's the reason for my attempt at LFS. I will probably give Gentoo a try in a week or two depending on my success for failure of LFS.
Thanks again.

I'm installing Sabayon tomorrow. Sabayon is based on Gentoo so mastering sabayon would be like mastering Gentoo right???

Around a year ago I tried LFS and it was a major pain. The main thing it was just tedious as hell. I was also working 60 hours a week at the time so I just gave up. The biggest discouragment is the lack of a package management system and a way to resolve software dependcies.

I tried to create , on paper, the installation order for the dependencies for gnu cash, and it quickly became unmanagable. Dependency hell is truly hellish.

That's why there's the Beyond Linux from Scratch (BLFS) and Community BLFS http://cblfs.cross-lfs.org/index.php/Main_Page.

Is LFS really a distro?

I think it is more of a concept - a guide and not a prescription.

To me that is the appeal.

Sure, if you follow every step to the letter you end up with an LFS distribution, but you would take very similar steps even if LFS did not exist to build a Linux system from the ground up, in fact there is some quote floating around to that affect.

Package management tends to define a distribution - but of course that is open to debate as well - still currently that is the state of play.

With ALFS and the LiveCD we do see an LFS distribution of sorts.

I found this Distro way easier to install and maintain then Gentoo install (was a while back though) perhaps this goes against my "geek" quotient but the GUI frontend for emerge. Was the main reason I tried it. Learning is great but having your head explode. I,m still picking up the pieces...

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." I just made that up. Just kidding! That is from Winston Churchill. Building LFS is a great learning experience. You don't need to complete the entire book in order to learn about Linux. And it's not like you're building LFS because you need a distro. If worse comes to worse, simply reformat your partition and start the book over again at page one.

Most of us didn't wind up with a bootable system the very first time we built our LFS. Most of play with LFS for the joy of learning. In fact, I think LFS is easier than most modern, DVD-sized distros. They have so so many layers of complexity that it is difficult to see and understand the underlying structure of the OS.

Typos are a huge problem when compiling and in programming in general. Go slow and cut-n-paste your commands from the book. And I recommend using the LiveCD versus your present distro, just to help avoid any build issues. Keep working at it, don't give up. Keep posting. And keep using LFS, because it is the least complex way to learn Linux.