Thinking about making my LFS as my final project for master degree?
 

Hi,

I have used linux for about 2 months, but I should confess I am still a newbie to linux.

Now I am thinking of making my LFS for my final project of master degree.
The final project starts from June, ends in the late September(including dissertation 15000 words).

I know Java and a little bit C++, is it possible to make a linux system in about 2 months by a linux newbie like me?

any advice will be appreciate!

I dunno any Java or C++ and I made an LFS in a few days. Not a very *good* one, but I can boot and connect to the net and all. I've got it on hda11 and I created an identical hda12, so I'm just going to LFS LFS back and forth until I'm happy. :D Had to cheat to get my LILO and BSD-style inits and so on, too - I really wouldn't like a 'straight' LFS at all.

'Two months' use of Linux doesn't mean much regarding whether two months will be enough to build an LFS. If you're terrified of the command line or can't follow directions (or even understand them), you're screwed. If neither of those are true and you just want a system, it's a cakewalk. If neither of those are true and you want to *learn* and experiment, then it's a crapshoot.

I started out intending to learn (and did some) but ended up needing some serious distraction due to some... bad... stuff, so ended up plunging through faster than I'd have done otherwise.

I dunno, though - how does LFS equal a masters degree? Cuz I'll take one. :D


-- Oh, your 'host platform' would probably make a difference. I built LFS from Slack but it might be different from Mandrake.

-- And your hardware. Mine's kinda middlin, I guess - 1.1GHz Athlon/512MB RAM. On a slower machine/less RAM, it'd slow things down. A faster box; faster.

Mandrake is OK to build from as long as you remember to install the usual development tools and glibc-static-devel (or whatever it's called - I've not got it installed anymore so I can't check). More memory definately speeds up the build as it cuts down on disk thrashing. As for it being hard or a cakewalk, I find it easy now (I have my kernel .config and XF86Config) but the first time I did it a couple of months ago I found it very difficult. One of the most difficult things I've done. But if you take your time, follow LFS book 5 to the letter and google on any error messages, you'll get there.

I built an LFS 4 from Mandrake. No tribble at all.

And simply following directions is fairly straightforward. A full system with LFS and BLFS -- including KDE and such things -- took me about two weeks to complete, on an Athlon 1.33 GHz.

First, reading some HOWTOs and such from tldp would be wise -- know your way thoroughly around bash, know how to compile a kernel, get some experience dealing with tarball compilation and troubleshooting.

by chinaundead
Now I am thinking of making my LFS for my final project of master degree.
The final project starts from June, ends in the late September(including dissertation 15000 words).

depending what your studying i can think of a couple of titles that might work, but you cant write a dissertation on building a lfs system. maybe some of the following would be ok but find a supervisor who has a good understanding of this stuff to make sure theres enough material to write about.

• a comparison of symlink and database style package management for source(make install) installs
• the efficiency of a system specifically constructed for a job vs a general system (by this i mean pick a task eg webserving, build an lfs system with the goals of becoming a webserver and then benchmark it against a standard distribution running the same webserver)
• unsafe optimisations - is the performance worth it?

by chinaundead
I know Java and a little bit C++, is it possible to make a linux system in about 2 months by a linux newbie like me?

no programming knowledge is required to build lfs, i used to be able to build a system in about 2-3 hrs but now the build process is a lot longer, i could probably do it in a day.

by chinaundead
I have used linux for about 2 months, but I should confess I am still a newbie to linux.

depends what you did in those 2 months, i had no previous linux experience before i built my first LFS but i had used solaris for maybe 6-8 months before. and was totally comfortable with the command line.