Strip down and Rebuild
 

OK, so this is not strictly a LFS question, but I thought this was the closest section to pose my question.

While I would quite like to build a Linux system from scratch, there are a few things stopping me at the moment. So I would like to do what I consider to be the next best thing, which is to basically strip down this system pretty much to the bare bones, then build it back up again.

Is that a really dumb thing to do?
If not, any top tips or suggestions?
To be honest, I don't know where to start.

Hello,

In my personal opinion, if you just start 'stripping' down a system by removing packages, links, dependencies, libraries, you'll pretty soon have a system that will be unresponsive or overload you with errors.

The best thing to do as I see it, it just start with LFS and follow the book. If you encounter any problems you can post them here. It isn't that hard, just takes time, but it'll teach you so much more.

Can I ask what's stopping you from trying LFS? I recently finished the LFS book (second time) and am now moving on to BLFS. You cannot imagine the things you learn when building it yourself. Most important is to have a good host system that complies with all the requirements. I used the LFS LiveDVD so got everything covered pretty good.

Kind regards,

Eric

Yes. I think that would be a pretty silly way to do it as well.
The main thing is simply the difficulty of getting a hard copy of the book.
Crap excuse really I know.
The other reason is the worry that I'll won't have time to do it before I need the machine again for something important.
I suppose the sensible thing to do would be to put it on a separate partition, but I don't have the space.

OK, I know. Build it on a spare machine and do the learning, then see where I am.

Hi,

I have a spare machine that I use for various things. When I started with LFS, as soon as I got the hard disk ready and packages downloaded, after my first run I made a copy using CloneZilla LiveCD to a USB hard disk (which are not expensive at all). Whenever I need that laptop to install something else, I just use it, and when I have spare time to work on LFS (or BLFS now), I first put the copy back onto the hard disk. The only thing it takes me is about a half hour to restore the machine to its last state, and another half hour making a new copy. I make regular copies of all my systems that way. The disk is only 300 Gb but has proven its uses over and over again.

So you see you don't really need another computer to play with if you do it that way. A lot cheaper and it only takes a little bit of time.

PS: Download the LFS LiveCD and use that as boot environment for your LFS practice. It avoids preparing a host system.

Kind regards,

Eric