The true meaning of LFS?

rmy1 · 10-01-2004, 09:45 AM

Is LFS made to be a "Gentoo-like" generic distro for my home PC or was it made specifically to create my own custome distribution that I can create an ISO from and distribute universally with all the other distros?

2damncommon · 10-01-2004, 09:58 AM

If you consider that another name for "Linux from Scratch" could be "Do It Yourself Linux" you would see that it is an excellent tutorial to show the possibility of building a Linux system that is custom taylored to your own needs.
Since LFS has been around longer than Gentoo, I do not think it is correct to say that it's intention was to create a Gentoo-like distro. I believe that Linux from Scratch was around before any of the "source distros". Is that correct?

ranger_nemo · 10-01-2004, 10:04 AM

I still shake my head everytime I see "Linux From Scratch"... It's like making a chocolate cake from scratch, and the first ingredient listed is an already baked Betty Crocker chocolate cake.

2damncommon · 10-01-2004, 10:09 AM

Quote:

It's like making a chocolate cake from scratch, and the first ingredient listed is an already baked Betty Crocker chocolate cake.

You will be disappointed to learn that Linus created the kernel on a computer that already had software on it. And that really was Linux from Scratch.

ranger_nemo · 10-01-2004, 09:11 PM

Quote:

You will be disappointed to learn that Linus created the kernel on a computer that already had software on it. And that really was Linux from Scratch.

I'd be willing to bet he wasn't running Linux.

2damncommon · 10-01-2004, 10:16 PM

Quote:

I'd be willing to bet he wasn't running Linux.

You've got me there.

Andrew Benton · 10-02-2004, 12:55 PM

Linux from minix?

mdh · 10-04-2004, 10:12 PM

Give us a bit, we have a build for building LFS from pretty much anything that you can build gcc on.
When time permits it will be merged into the lfs-unstable branch.

Of course from M$ or MacOSX you need to patch glibc to build on a non-case-sensitive filesystem,
and with non-gnu based unices you gotta lot of extra (GNU) packages to build before you start,
to use instead of the build-hosts which may not have all required features.

[R]

rickseiden · 11-03-2004, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mdh
Give us a bit, we have a build for building LFS from pretty much anything that you can build gcc on.
When time permits it will be merged into the lfs-unstable branch.

Of course from M$ or MacOSX you need to patch glibc to build on a non-case-sensitive filesystem,
and with non-gnu based unices you gotta lot of extra (GNU) packages to build before you start,
to use instead of the build-hosts which may not have all required features.

[R]

I think that would just about blow Bill Gates' head right off. Linux from Scratch done on a Windows system!

All of this really is just raising the question, which came first, the chicken or the egg. In this case, the egg is Linux, and the chicken is the OS being used to build Linux. Obviously it couldn't have been Linux, but now that we have it, is it really a big deal that we're using Linux as a host OS to build Linux? I mean, doesn't LFS go out of it's way NOT to use the host system as much as possible?

320mb · 11-03-2004, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by rickseiden
I mean, doesn't LFS go out of it's way NOT to use the host system as much as possible?

Yes LFS does go out of it's way, but there are some needed tools provided by the host that LFS needs..........but once you build the /LFS/tools and chroot to build the filesystem, LFS is on it's own.........

rickseiden · 11-03-2004, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by 320mb
Yes LFS does go out of it's way, but there are some needed tools provided by the host that LFS needs..........but once you build the /LFS/tools and chroot to build the filesystem, LFS is on it's own.........

Yes, but as someone else pointed out, you don't have to start it on Linux to get to Linux. LFS just happens to work best on there because it's easiest, and LFS is an educational tool as much as it is a Linux building tool. In theory, you could do the same thing on AIX, as long as you've got GCC installed, right?

mdh · 11-03-2004, 04:40 PM

If you feel like some pain^H^H^H^Hfun I do have some proof of concept scripts up.

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/~rya...pts/cross-lfs/

Will have a new set up over the weekend sometime...
Scripts cross-compile all of chapter 5.

Scripts also handle nptl enabled glibc, and can build bi-arch cross-toolchains
(ie 32/64bit for eg x86_64)

Still needs a patch for glibc to build on case-insensitive filesystem though
(I have no windows, nor MacOS X boxes to play with)

Regards
[R]

Paulsuk · 11-08-2004, 04:51 PM

Hummm, an interesting thread, but ultimately...?

I mean, surely the Linux Kernel 2.6 was developed on a machine running 2.4.x and I'm sure the programmers at M$ wrote XP code on machines running 2000.

I'll bet that if anyone REALLY wanted to, they could manually enter a bootstrap in hex, using switches (or whatever) and bring a system up that way, but what's the point? Certainly, that's the way it was done "in the beginning" but it really isn't required now!

The point is that ANY modern system is initially built using tools on another (often earlier version of the same) system. LFS isn't any different here. The important issue is that the toolchain thing means you are sure that the tools you ultimately use, are tools that you know the pedigree of.

Paul

lloyd_smart · 11-09-2004, 07:49 AM

Quote:

manually enter a bootstrap in hex, using switches (or whatever) and bring a system up that way

That would be a cool project! LFS from . . . SCRATCH!

mdh · 11-15-2004, 12:27 AM

LOL, why stop there ;-)
Grab an FPGA, a copy of LEON (sparcv8 in VHDL, see http://www.gaisler.com/ )
Build your processor from scratch, then linux from scratch for your processor from scratch ;-)

/me runs