guygriffiths

[Log in to get rid of this advertisement]

This is my second LFS distro. I had a couple of problems with LFS 4.1, just little things that didn't quite work. It takes ages to install (since you build everything from source), but you get the ideal distribution. Mine has everything I need, running much faster than either RedHat or Debian (the two distros I had previously tried)
It's ideal for anyone who wants to learn lots, and as long as you read the book as you go, the installation is not difficult. I'd say that installing LFS was much easier than installing Debian, for example.
Highly recommended to anyone who's not completely new to Linux (although you don't have to be very experienced)

njs12345

I like my LFS system a lot... if you enjoy tinkering and consider yourself a power user, go for it. You need to know the basics of installing from source(./configure, make, make install) and basic console commands like ls.

I had a pretty flawless install... when it came to compiling awk from source, however, I had to add some flags.

But it's the most stable and fastest Linux machine I've ever had.

I highly recommend the Beyond Linux From Scratch book as well :)

bahadir

I used RH, MDK, SuSe and Knoppix, and I think they are just like Windows; huge and slow.

I found LFS Site and installed LFS to my box. It's the fastest and the most stable system I have ever used.

garbagedisposal

If you want to hand instal a Kernel & all the packages then you are probably a mal nourished vitamin D deficient teenage geek with no social life and nothing will drag you away from that keyboard!

Go to it!

aiiiq

i like DIY linux

orvtech.com

ok.. i began with the book and i have all the pacages also the patches, here goes my Question....

Wat i really want is to build a FTP, web, mail server, text editor and with a graphical desctop such as WFM or just X. i would like a system no bigger than 300 MB... is it possible with LFS ??

zz9pluralzalpha

I downloaded this book, prepared a partition and went through step-by-step entering each command verbatim. Every package compiled beautfully and everything worked exactly as described in the book. It is only now that I have graduated beyond LFS and even BLFS that I realise what an achievment that is.

LFS should not be considered a distibution in the traditional sense. If you want a clean, optimized, customized distro, use Slack or Gentoo. If you are shopping for a distribution, do not consider LFS. LFS is something you do because you want to. It doesn't provide a full system (though BLFS will help you create one). Instead, it provides the build tools necessary to compile further packages, independently of your host operating system. From this starting point, you can do anything you like. It is a fantastic and intimate introduction to the structure of a UNIX OS and something any CS student should consider.

It is by no means comprehensive, even with the extension projects such as Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS), and the hints. Instead, you begin to learn where to go to get help and learn new things, what to expect from open-source software, and how to deal with the inevitable problems that arise compiling from source.

The maintainers do make some choices for you. Most notably there are a number of patches applied to some packages that could be better explained. The start-up scripts are provided as a package to be installed and little explaination of this complicated aspect of system administration is given. Also, I hate SysV init scripts.

I expect there'll be a number of LFS based distros cropping up in the comming months. I hope so, as I expect they'll be considerably more interesting than all those debian and fedora based distros. If you want to make your own distro, this is the place to start.

FYI, I'm writing this on my LFS system under fluxbox 0.9.9, with Xorg 6.7.0 (with NVIDIA) and Firefox 0.9 (with mplayer, realplayer, java and flash plugins). I also have Gnome 2.6 and KDE 3.2.3 installed.

Guimauve2

When I discovered GNU/Linux, one year ago, I started with Mandrake.

I then switched to Debian, 6 month later. I was not because of Debian I built LFS. It was because I always wanted to build my own LFS.

And it is great! Except some mistakes in the end of the build process (which were not critical, hopefully, but could have been), the install process went fine.

Yes, it is long to compile, but not too much (it took me a day with à 2,8 Ghz Celeron processor).

The BLFS is fun to do. Indeed, LFS is a very, very interresting version of GNU/Linux.

If you can, try it.

Dumbell

After a quite long installation the first time you build it (the other time you can use the tools repertory of your first LFS), you get the basis of a linux system (ie a console). As it has been said before, without BLFS, LFS is quite useless (unless you really love not to have an Xserver and graphics applications).

For me, the biggest advantage of LFS is the fact you can change pieces of the system without any problem caused by some distribution particularity (e.g. you don't need anything more than the kernel source and, perhaps a new version of modutils, to change your kernel. For example, on my first distro (a Mandrake 9.2) I needed the Mandrake's kernel source to change my kernel... and it harder to find than http://kernel.org !!)

A high level in Linux's knowledge isn't required, but the more you know about Linux, the better you understand what you are doing.

drowbot

I have tried both the 5.1 and 6.0 versions of LFS and both are excellent. I started out with Slackware, but even that didn't give me all of the control I wanted. LFS, however, is perfect for me because it gives me everything I need and nothing I don't.
It is not as daunting a task as it may seem at first. I've only been using Linux for about 3 months and I was able to set up the system with little or no problems every time. And I learned a lot more about the OS than I could have with a year of experience on any other distro.
I highly recommend this project to anybody who wants total control of their machine's capabilities and resources and any one that has a thirst for knowledge and experience.