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Or How to waste a few days copy/pasting configure commands, watching the output of make to be left with a minimal, insecure and unmaintainable system. Only thi

Or How to waste a few days copy/pasting configure commands, watching the output of make to be left with a minimal, insecure and unmaintainable system. Only think it will teach you is why distros and package managers exist.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
> to be left with a minimal, insecure and unmaintainable system Minimal yes, unmaintainable maybe, but insecure? Really depends on your threat model; courtesy of "minimal", there's not much attack surface to go around. > Only think it will teach you is why distros and package managers exist. And more importantly, how a distro works and what a package manager (and package build process) has to do. LFS isn't a terribly practical output for many people, but building it is a good learning experience regardless of if/how you use the built system.
- lambda_dn 5y ago
  I agree it's important to understand how linux eco system work, if you are interested. I don't think LFS does that, it's simply page after page of .configure..make..make install. It would be more valuable to read a sysadmin book on unix/linux and play around with a minimal distro.
hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
Do you think distribution managers (the staff that work at canonical, etc) are just born with the ability to create distributions, rather than it being a learned skill? Just because you don’t see the value, doesn’t mean it has none.
five82 5y ago
Agreed. I went through about 70% of the runbook last year before running out of time and giving up. I used Gentoo in the early 2000’s and building an LFS system had been on my Linux bucket list since then. Maybe it’s just me but the instructions seemed to focus too much on what to do and not nearly enough on why. I came out of it thinking that I learned much less than I expected.
- hulitu 5y ago
  > Maybe it’s just me but the instructions seemed to focus too much on what to do and not nearly enough on why. I came out of it thinking that I learned much less than I expected. In the "good old days" it was recommended to install the linux-howtos package and there was one howto https://tldp.org/HOWTO/From-PowerUp-To-Bash-Prompt-HOWTO.html https://tldp.org/HOWTO/From-PowerUp-To-Bash-Prompt-HOWTO.htm... which explained the boot process. There are also other howtos who talk about X. Nowadays with systemd and the (stupid) tendency of using a lot of shared libraries the things have become more complicated.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

> to be left with a minimal, insecure and unmaintainable system Minimal yes, unmaintainable maybe, but insecure? Really depends on your threat model; courtesy of "minimal", there's not much attack surface to go around. > Only think it will teach you is why distros and package managers exist. And more importantly, how a distro works and what a package manager (and package build process) has to do. LFS isn't a terribly practical output for many people, but building it is a good learning experience regardless of if/how you use the built system.

lambda_dn 5y ago
I agree it's important to understand how linux eco system work, if you are interested. I don't think LFS does that, it's simply page after page of .configure..make..make install. It would be more valuable to read a sysadmin book on unix/linux and play around with a minimal distro.

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago

Do you think distribution managers (the staff that work at canonical, etc) are just born with the ability to create distributions, rather than it being a learned skill? Just because you don’t see the value, doesn’t mean it has none.

five82 5y ago

Agreed. I went through about 70% of the runbook last year before running out of time and giving up. I used Gentoo in the early 2000’s and building an LFS system had been on my Linux bucket list since then. Maybe it’s just me but the instructions seemed to focus too much on what to do and not nearly enough on why. I came out of it thinking that I learned much less than I expected.

hulitu 5y ago
> Maybe it’s just me but the instructions seemed to focus too much on what to do and not nearly enough on why. I came out of it thinking that I learned much less than I expected. In the "good old days" it was recommended to install the linux-howtos package and there was one howto https://tldp.org/HOWTO/From-PowerUp-To-Bash-Prompt-HOWTO.html https://tldp.org/HOWTO/From-PowerUp-To-Bash-Prompt-HOWTO.htm... which explained the boot process. There are also other howtos who talk about X. Nowadays with systemd and the (stupid) tendency of using a lot of shared libraries the things have become more complicated.