A milestone in my Linux self-taught education and usage over the years was reached tonight.

I compiled my very first LFS-7.2 distribution using Slackware64-13.37 as a base in VirtualBox using a VHD which will be eventually attached to my Windows 2008 R2 BCD loader and used as an actual Linux OS on my PC.

I'll be starting BLFS soon enough and I'm hoping to have a fully working and operational system up and running within a few months time.

Just want to say a big kudos to the LFS authors for not only making LFS a fun little project but for allowing insight into the LFS processes to allow average users to learn as they go step by step.

Well done mate, i'm actually just starting mine. Are you going to eventually install it bare metal on a machine? Will you use it as your primary machine?

Well done! Built mine a few month's back and use it as my main system now.

How are you finding it Keith?

Pretty much O.K. Occasionally I try to use a command that I have forgot to install, but it all went pretty smooth I used CLFS on a 64 bit, I had some problems with running X ( tried to get fancy and do a minimum install and ended up having to install a full X ), but this forum helped sort them out, and I am now running Xfce4.10 as my desktop, SpaceFM 0.8.0 as my file manager, Firefox 15, claws mail, cairo-dock, GIMP 2.6.12 ( 2.8 is PANTS! ), latest svn and git versions of mplayer,ffmpeg and handbrake and the Nvidia driver for my card.

P.S.
Follow the book to the letter! When you have a working tool chain BACK IT UP!

I actually preserved my toolchain after finishing and didn't delete it. The entire system will be eventually be backed up as a live disk on DVD upon completion.

I doubt I'll ever use it bare metal as using VHDs not only allows the system to be duplicated for redundancy, but allows for portability between systems and allows for work to be done within the system from other distribution without having to boot into it. Yes I have to have Windows, but at the same time I get the best of having a hardware level OS but the flexibility of a virtual system so I can move it in and out of VirtualBox as needed.

Thanks for that Keith, how has your working knowledge of Linux improved since taking on LFS? Do you feel more confident knowing what blackmagic occurs in the background? (i.e. what the Package managers are abstracting and so on)

Good job. I never wanted to do a from scratch more than a few times. Usually once is enough for most folks.

I'll probably update my LFS to the next version if and when it's released, but for now 7.2 plus a SVN copy of BLFS dated 10-1-2012 is what I'm going creating my system off of for now.

Well actually I came from Slackware so I had got out of the habit of using a traditional package manager like apt-get or yum, the Slackware package manager is very grown up and doesn't hide the nuts and bolts of the process like other package managers ( DIY dependencies etc ). One of the first things I did was write a package manager for myself based on the Slackware one, it does make experimenting much easier.

I have of course learned a lot by building LFS especially about what you DON'T need in a system, and kernel building which I had not done before, for instance my LFS system boots in about 7-8 seconds compared to about 45 for Slackware.

That's so sexy man cheers for the info, i think i will follow a similar path

Hi ReaperX7, could you share your built LFS distribution (.vhd) somewhere (thepiratebay, depositfiles or any other) and put reference here? I've got some troubles during building my LFS distribution and I think your LFS would help me

You should start a new thread so you can get some help with your problems, we'll be looking for it.