[HN Gopher] Linux from Scratch
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Linux from Scratch
Author : letientai299
Score : 117 points
Date : 2020-08-21 19:22 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.linuxfromscratch.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.linuxfromscratch.org)
| [deleted]
| Daegalus wrote:
| I think this is something every computer/tech/future programmer
| should have done at least once, even if you give up half way.
|
| I did this when I was in early high school. I just got into
| Linux, and this was super fun to do, it really showed me how an
| operating system worked and all the moving pieces and how they
| all fit. I did it all on a 1ghz machine with 256mb of ram, and
| some slow DSL. It took me a 4-5 days back then, but it was a
| blast for me.
|
| I haven't done it since. But today I am a senior devops engineer,
| and that knowledge was so valuable to me today. It is so much
| easier for me to reason about systems and linux in general.
|
| Honestly, I am really tempted to go through this again as a
| weekend project in a VM or something
| pram wrote:
| Maybe. I did it and while it's certainly educational, most of
| it feels like a waste of time. The bulk of the entire process
| is running 'make' on random things and waiting. It's fine as a
| teenager (when I did it lol) but as an adult with a job? There
| are better/more productive ways to spend your time if you want
| to learn more about Linux probably.
| sprior wrote:
| The first time I did this in 2001 it took me a week. It's still
| up there as one of the most educational things I've ever done. A
| perfect graduate level class would be "here's a box full of
| computer parts, at the end of the semester I'll give you the
| grade you display on a web page served by the computer you build
| and compile from scratch".
| saagarjha wrote:
| I wonder if it would be less work to write an OS with the sole
| purpose of pushing out packets for the hardcoded webpage...
| kevinherron wrote:
| So... basically pass/fail? Who's gonna get that far but type
| 'F' instead of 'A' into the HTML they author?
| sprior wrote:
| Puts skin in the game. No kidding in 1987 I actually did
| convince a professor to agree to an independent study course
| for me and a friend to build a voice synthesizer on an IBM PC
| proto board using the TI chipset available at the time and
| the only terms of the class would be that he gave us the
| grade my computer verbally asked him for at the end of the
| semester. We actually built two of them, one for each of us.
| It was wire-wrapped. We had no backup plan whatsoever and it
| was a brave/stupid thing to do, but we both got A's and the
| prof told us his only regret was that he didn't have us make
| one for him too. Even more skin was that it went into my own
| IBM PC, so if I blew that up not only wouldn't I have had
| enough credits to graduate but PCs were very expensive at the
| time. These days you can blow up a Raspberry Pi and who
| cares.
| vasilakisfil wrote:
| Is this something that will allow you to create a new distro?
| Foxboron wrote:
| Sure, Arch Linux was bootstrapped with LFS by Judd around
| 2001/2002. Back then pacman was written bash I think?
| kenniskrag wrote:
| yes, because a distro is a collection of software on top of the
| kernel.
| smcphile wrote:
| It can be a first step to creating a new distribution, but most
| people just do it as a learning experience.
|
| Here's one example though of someone who went on to create a
| new distribution: http://www.nutyx.org/en/
|
| To create a distribution, you need a package manager of some
| sort to manage software updates, and while LFS discusses some
| possible package managers that's not really its focus.
| nix23 wrote:
| No you build your own gnu/linux...from scratch.
| cbsks wrote:
| Be careful with this! It's a slippery slope from LFS to Gentoo. I
| made the mistake of trying LFS once in college, and then I spent
| the next 10 years compiling everything from source! Beware!!
| timw4mail wrote:
| Funny, I use Gentoo, and thought LFS was too far...
| amelius wrote:
| Better use a purely functional build system, like in NixOS,
| where you can download binaries and have the guarantee that
| they are the same as when you had built them yourself.
| hvdijk wrote:
| It's much closer to that than any alternative I am aware of,
| but that's one guarantee you don't have. It's important to
| limit your substituters (binary caches) to trusted servers,
| because Nix does not and cannot verify that the binary it
| receives corresponds to the source, only that the remote
| server claims it does. Even if the binary does correspond to
| the source, the build process may have picked up small
| details about the build system, meaning a local build would
| produce a different binary. Even if the build process does
| not pick up any such details, many packages do not have
| deterministic builds, meaning they might produce different
| binaries even if you build them multiple times in succession
| on your own computer.
| reichardt wrote:
| Something I've been wondering: what's the difference between this
| and buildroot?
| diegocg wrote:
| buildroot is used to cross-compile Linux systems. It's a tool.
| Linux from scratch is a guide that users are supposed to follow
| to learn more about Linux. It's mostly an educational tool.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| That doesn't sound like a very big blocker; don't you "just"
| need someone to "package" a compiler chain?
| Thoreandan wrote:
| "...the goal of LFS is to build a complete and usable
| foundation-level system. This includes all packages needed to
| replicate itself."
|
| http://linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/prologue/package...
|
| Buildroot's target systems don't include a compiler - it's more
| for real-world embedded linux system generation.
|
| https://buildroot.org/downloads/manual/manual.html#faq-no-co...
| agumonkey wrote:
| I never got into LFS, when I finished my build I was probably
| exhausted by all the sed'in and patchin' and didn't have a single
| clue about where the piece fit.
|
| I did end up with a flawed system with funny bugs. I couldn't
| access the network with the usual tools but elinks managed to
| bypass something and get a TCP stack somewhere. But it failed to
| render properly on tty. No surprise I had no clue what I did
| wrong but it made me realize how much plumbing there was.
| dang wrote:
| Related from a month ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23787526
|
| If curious see also
|
| 2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20149111
|
| 2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11829373
|
| 2012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4488162
|
| 2012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3677350
|
| 2011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3171448
|
| 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1779665
| spudlyo wrote:
| Thanks Dang!
|
| It's interesting that in 2016 the top comment was about how
| out-of-date the documentation was, which made it very
| challenging for the novice to approach. When I did it in 2019,
| my experience was very different -- I marveled at the quality
| of the instructions and documentation, as well as how up-to-
| date it was.
|
| In fact, just this week I was googling for some information
| about building GPG without having to deal with generating PDF
| documents, and I stumbled upon an LFS GPG page[0] that had been
| updated that day. There seems to be a fairly active community
| who is maintaining the guides.
|
| [0]:
| http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/gnupg....
| [deleted]
| sieste wrote:
| I tried to go through this a few years ago. The time commitment
| is huge, especially if you really want to understand all steps in
| detail. In the end I lost interest because it turned into a
| mindless command-copying exercise for me. My only real take away
| was a much greater appreciation of the complexity of an operating
| system.
|
| Has anyone followed this from start to finish and can now
| comfortably compile their own linux kernel from scratch?
| swiley wrote:
| Wait, compiling the kernel and coreutils is the easy part. It's
| when you get to X11/gtk/Firefox that it starts to get bad.
| maxrmk wrote:
| I followed through the whole process as an assignment for my
| operating systems class in college. Overall I had the same
| experience as you -- it was an exercise in copy and paste.
| netsharc wrote:
| I was wondering if it's automatable, and the site already
| does that...
|
| I also did the whole book (manually!) as a slacker student. I
| guess if you do it/let it run automatically as you read the
| book, you'll know your installed OS inside and out...
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| Automating LFS is where Gentoo came from.
| djxfade wrote:
| What came first, ~~the chicken~~ Gentoo or ~~the egg~~
| LFS?
| troutwine wrote:
| I did as a teenager, probably close to 16 years ago. The
| process was glacial because I lived in a rural area with
| rudimentary internet access. Figure from start to finish it
| took me a year? Gave me a lot of time to consider the different
| pieces of software being compiled, which I probably would not
| have done with a fast internet connection. Really helped jump
| start my interest in systems programming and is surely one of
| the experiences that pushed me toward the career I have now.
|
| I still feel pretty comfortable in compiling a linux from
| source. Userland specialization is also a neat topic.
| cel1ne wrote:
| I did this 15 years ago, before I gave gentoo a spin. I
| compiled my kernel for many years (make menuconfig).
|
| Bottom line: It's not worth it.
|
| I use debian now.
| Bnshsysjab wrote:
| I moved to Ubuntu for political reasons outside the fault of
| gentoo. I really miss the ability to easily patch core libs
| with custom patches, and portage (when it worked) was a lot
| easier to deal with than apt.
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| Care to elaborate on the "political reasons"? I've never
| heard of someone moving _to_ Ubuntu for political reasons.
| Bnshsysjab wrote:
| If I get breached as a result of using gentoo, it looks
| bad. If I get breached using Ubuntu it's at least along
| the lines of 'well everyone else is using it anyway'.
| Semi safety in numbers, semi 'nobody got fired for buying
| an IBM'.
|
| It wasn't my call, and it's a defense move rather than an
| opinion on the state of Gentoos security. I know they
| take things very seriously, but my assertions aren't
| enough to make my employer feel comfortable.
| barrkel wrote:
| The point of doing it is to understand how Linux hangs
| together, to remove the mystery in the wiring.
|
| I don't think it's worth pursuing to a GUI, unless you have a
| burning desire to customize or fix brokenness in that
| experience you've had on other Linuxes.
|
| The point is definitely not to continuously manage your own
| distro you built from scratch, unless that's your job or hobby.
|
| I use the knowledge I gained from the experience to debug many
| random instances of brokenness on Linux, both personally and
| professionally. It also made compiling from source a fairly
| comfy option when necessary (e.g. you need to fork, or backport
| a piece of software).
| blablabla123 wrote:
| Yes I also did this years ago. During that time I was actually
| also fascinated by the idea of building my own OS - which I
| never did though. But if you do this, you really understand how
| "GNU Linux" works end-to-end and stumble over a lot of
| interesting things with the upside of having a system tailored
| to your setup.
|
| I started using Linux when it was still necessary to compile
| your own Kernel to support literally anything going beyond the
| absolute base setup.
|
| The most difficult parts were bootstrapping the system and
| getting the glibc stuff right. The rest is indeed rather
| robotic, although I think there is some kind of package manager
| now included.
| jamiedamien wrote:
| I followed this during winter break my first year of college
| and loved it! Helped me learned Linux and co. pretty quickly
| and I used the machine as my main computer for the next 3.5
| years of college.
|
| Once you get X and google chrome it becomes pretty self
| sustainable. Updating the kernel is easy but upgrading the
| compiler / C library is a nightmare.
|
| A lot of programs you might want to use provide binaries that
| makes things a bit easier, but there were some annoying days of
| dependency chasing if you have to install from source. I ended
| up writing some custom scripts to ./configure, make, and make
| install into a deb from .tar.gz.
|
| About the initial LFS process, I had messed up a few steps
| pretty bad, and had to restart / go back one or two times. The
| worst mistake was embarking on the journey first by installing
| everything into a USB flash drive. Eventually data corruption /
| loss ruined the yacc binary (or similar? hard to remember) and
| I spent days trying to figure out what went wrong. After moving
| to an SSD it worked better :)
|
| Definitely one of my favorite and most rewarding projects I've
| done.
| Skunkleton wrote:
| I haven't done LFS, but I have built minimal Linux systems from
| scratch as part of my day job. FWIW, building a _basic_ usable
| system is fairly trivial, and requires no where near the amount
| of work described in LFS.
|
| I could see value in building a basic Linux from scratch.
| Beyond that you are just copy pasting commands from READMEs for
| hundreds of projects.
| spudlyo wrote:
| I had a lot of fun doing this. You really get a feel for the
| evolution of build systems -- from older software that uses
| automake/make to newer programs that use meson/ninja/cmake etc.
| It was also cool to learn how to bootstrap a bespoke set of
| development tools tuned for your hardware.
|
| It took me a solid weekend to get everything built. I was able to
| get a basic LFS system built on a Saturday, and on Sunday I did
| the "Beyond Linux From Scratch" edition. At one point I got stuck
| trying to debug a weird interaction between systemd and PAM that
| took me a while to unravel. That was humbling, I thought I knew
| just about everything about Linux, but turns out there are large
| areas where I just don't have a clue.
|
| The docs are well written and maintained, so there wasn't a lot
| of frustration there. Even if you're not an old hand at Linux you
| can likely get pretty far by just diligently following the
| instructions.
|
| I struggled a lot more trying to make a decent desktop
| environment than I did getting the OS setup. I spent so much time
| trying to get a nice-looking toolbar (polybar) and basic stuff
| (like how patched fonts work) took me an embarrasingly long time
| to sort out. I also didn't know what a compositor was, or why you
| might want one. I enjoyed figuring out the basics of compton,
| which allowed me to get cool transparent backgrounds on
| windows[0], although I never did quite figure out how to get
| rounded corners.
|
| [0]: https://muppetlabs.com/~mikeh/spudlyo.png
| anbux wrote:
| How do i get started too? Where should i begin with?
| input_sh wrote:
| I don't know if you're referring to the Linux From Scratch
| part or the desktop customization part of the comment you're
| replying to, but if latter:
|
| Visit here for inspiration:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ (safe for work, despite
| the name).
|
| Pick a window manager, learn how to use it, and go from
| there. Popular options are i3 (i3-gaps if you want some space
| between windows), sway (i3, but for Wayland), bspwm, awesome
| wm. Usually they're used in combination with polybar (highly
| customizable status bar) and rofi as an application launcher.
| spudlyo wrote:
| That's right, /r/unixporn influenced me quite a lot. I read
| a lot of folks' dotfiles that were posted there and was
| inspired by the screenshots. Because I had built a lot of
| software with LFS, I wasn't at all afraid of tackling
| building custom versions of i3 (i3-gaps) and compton
| (compton-tyrone) to get visual bling.
| johnnythunder wrote:
| Nice! I know the project maintainer and he is really methodical
| about everything he does. Nice work Gerard.
| johnisgood wrote:
| On
| http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/chapter06/pk...:
|
| > Symlink Style Package Management
|
| For this I highly recommend https://zolk3ri.name/cgit/zpkg/ which
| I have been using for years now. It works wonderfully.
|
| Environment variables and their defaults:
| ZPKG_SRC = ~/.local/pkg ZPKG_DST = ~/.local
| ZPKG_DB = ~/.db
|
| It means that if you install anything from scratch, you have to
| `make install` (or the like, depending on the build system) it
| to, say, `~/.local/pkg/foo-1.0` and then run `zpkg link foo:1.0`
| to install (i.e. link) the "package". After that you just have to
| make sure you have added `~/.local/bin` to your `PATH`
| environment variable, and `~/.local/man` to your `MANPATH`
| environment variable (in your `~/.bash_profile` file). Seems to
| do the job. It does lack a README file for which I may contact
| the author. In any case, `zpkg --help` should be of tremendous
| help.
|
| By the way, I have noticed that someone created a package manager
| with the same name, but its initial commit was in 2019, while
| this one's was in 2017.
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(page generated 2020-08-21 23:00 UTC)