Linux From Scratch rebuildathon: 64-bit edition.
Posted 02-21-2009 at 09:24 AM by Seph64
Every year or so, after the last variation of LFS was wiped from the system (it's just something I do for fun, so I do not keep important files on the partition I am building it on), I decide to rebuild Linux From Scratch so I can try to force education on my ignorant self. The main reason why I wipe LFS is because of problems that prop up from time to time and my lack of motivation to solve them (mostly something to do with GNOME, so I am going to avoid using it this time around).
Package Management: Last time I tried using a slackware based package management system (not automatic like Swaret or anything like that), just something to keep track of packages I have installed. It worked mostly. But I have no idea if the scripts to make such a package would work in a 64-bit environment, so I'd thought up a different way to keep track of applications. A SymLink system.
Basically, for an example, if I am installing Firefox-2.0.0.16, I create a folder /apps/, then issue the command ln -sf -v /usr /apps/firefox-2.0.0.16 then issue ./configure --prefix=/apps/firefox-2.0.0.16 [+ the rest of the needed config options]. Of course this is an example. This would probably need a ton of symlinks. For software suites that have many different packages to install such as xorg or KDE, an /apps/X11-r7 or /apps/kde-[version.number] symlink will suffice for the entire suite.
Build Environment: Gentoo 2008.0 x86_64 or the official LFS x86_64 LiveCD. I know it's probably a little weird for someone who uses Gentoo to want to install Linux From Scratch since Gentoo is (technically) a build from scratch system which is entirely automated. Anyway, I am going to try to use Gentoo as the host system (if things go awry, I can always boot up the LFS LiveCD to do it properly). Since this is Gentoo, all the tools needed to build a Linux from scratch is already installed (although probably not a desired build environment for LFS).
Anyone have any comments or suggestions for me during this LFS Buildathon?
Package Management: Last time I tried using a slackware based package management system (not automatic like Swaret or anything like that), just something to keep track of packages I have installed. It worked mostly. But I have no idea if the scripts to make such a package would work in a 64-bit environment, so I'd thought up a different way to keep track of applications. A SymLink system.
Basically, for an example, if I am installing Firefox-2.0.0.16, I create a folder /apps/, then issue the command ln -sf -v /usr /apps/firefox-2.0.0.16 then issue ./configure --prefix=/apps/firefox-2.0.0.16 [+ the rest of the needed config options]. Of course this is an example. This would probably need a ton of symlinks. For software suites that have many different packages to install such as xorg or KDE, an /apps/X11-r7 or /apps/kde-[version.number] symlink will suffice for the entire suite.
Build Environment: Gentoo 2008.0 x86_64 or the official LFS x86_64 LiveCD. I know it's probably a little weird for someone who uses Gentoo to want to install Linux From Scratch since Gentoo is (technically) a build from scratch system which is entirely automated. Anyway, I am going to try to use Gentoo as the host system (if things go awry, I can always boot up the LFS LiveCD to do it properly). Since this is Gentoo, all the tools needed to build a Linux from scratch is already installed (although probably not a desired build environment for LFS).
Anyone have any comments or suggestions for me during this LFS Buildathon?
Total Comments 2
Comments
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good luck
Posted 02-22-2009 at 03:28 AM by QueenZ -
Hit a few snags, mostly to do with the host system. Gentoo x86_64 truly is not an ideal system to build off of. So I will just use the LiveCD.
EDIT: Well that was stupid of me. I decided to go with the slackware pkgtools for package management (instead of using symlinking), and used a chroot inside a chroot to install a particular app to make a pkg. So I binded /tools to /path/to/app/build/tools. When everything was done, I decided to issue rm -rf /path/to/app/build without unbinding the tools folder and ended up wiping out my toolchain. Now I need to rebuild it. I = fail.
*sigh*
UPDATE: Ran in to problems with building GCC (missing some header files for one reason or another), and lack of motivation to solve said problem, I decided to ditch this attempt. Will try again some day down the road.Posted 02-23-2009 at 07:18 AM by Seph64
Updated 02-24-2009 at 11:35 PM by Seph64