On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 04:52:28PM -0500, Bruce Dubbs via blfs-dev wrote:
> On 09/12/2018 03:41 PM, Ken Moffat via blfs-dev wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 03:30:34PM -0500, Bruce Dubbs via blfs-dev wrote:
> > >
> > > What I want to do is give new users an idea of what to build first to
> > > flesh
> > > out their LFS systems into something usable.
> > >
> >
> > I don't have an opinion on whether or not this is worthwhile, just
> > questions / remarks about some of the items.
>
> Thanks!
>
> > > Disk Management
> > > parted-3.2 (for partprobe)
> > > LVM2
> >
> > Are these two necessary ?
> >
> > For gpt I prefer gdisk.
>
> It depends on how you define necessary. parted is how you get partprobe and
> that is needed if you want a new partition recognized on the boot drive
> without rebooting.
>
Ah, thanks. I'd forgotten about that.
> Actually I prefer gdisk also, but fdisk from LFS can do msdos partitions as
> well so I felt gdisk was redundant.
>
>
> > > General Utilities
> > > lsof-4.91
> > > libtirpc
> >
> > And again, I find lsof of limited usefulness - maybe I'm missing a
> > common requirement for *new* users of BLFS.
>
> I agree that it may not be a 'essential' utility, but it is nice if you do
> needed it. Perhaps it shouldn't be here.
>
[...]
>
> > > mailx-12.5
> >
> > Do people really need mailx ? And I thought it needed _old_ ssl ?
> > I dropped it because of that a while ago, and replaced it with a
> > bash script for my fcron mail.
>
> I find it useful in my scripts. For instance in one of the currency scripts
> I have:
>
> exec ( "echo '$message' | mailx -r $from -s '$subject' $to" );
>
I see I was wrong about old openssl (optional, not required). It
still feels old-school, but "your page" (or "your book"), "your
choices".
> > And bind utilities ? I run unbound on desktops, it's not just for
> > servers.
>
> bind utils is for dig, host, and nslookup.
>
As for mailx. Just as long as this doesn't turn into "BSD from
scratch" (joke).
> > > Servers
> > > postfix-3.3.1
> > > Berkeley DB-5.3.28
> > > libnsl-1.2.0
> > > rpcsvc-proto-1.4
> > > libtirpc-1.1.4 (listed above)
> > and icu to quieten log messages
>
> OK. It was not listed as recommended, but other packages do recommend it.
>
> > >
> > > Graphics
> > > xorg-7
> > > fontconfig-2.13.1
> > > freetype-2.9.1
> > > libpng-1.6.35
> > > which-2.21 (listed above)
> > > harfbuzz-1.8.8
> > > icu-62.1
> > > glib-2.58.0
> > > pcre-8.42
> > > libxslt-1.1.32
> > > docbook-xml-4.5
> > > docbook-xsl-1.79.2
> > > sgml-common-0.6.3
> > > libxml2-2.9.8
> > > UnZip-6.0 (listed above)
>
> > I'm not sure that harfbuzz, glib, or pcre2 are needed when bringing
> > up a basic Xorg. I build libxslt and the docbook stuff early, for
> > editing, but the rest get installed after I'm able to run fluxbox.
> >
> > And on the subject of Xorg - maybe drop twm (personally, I would
> > drop xterm and legacy fonts, but you know that ;)
>
> Harfbuzz may not be required, but we recommend it for freetype. The others
> flow from harfbuzz. I didn't list the individual xorg packages, but I agree
> that for most people the legacy fonts are not needed.
>
For freetype, you still have to build it twice, which is why I think
harfbuzz can come after 'basic'.
> What I had in mind was to minimize situations where users might need to
> rebuild packages when they go on to build DEs like xfce or even kde.
>
> > > libdrm-2.4.94
> > > Mako-1.0.4 (Perl module)
> > > Beaker-1.10.0
> > > funcsigs-1.0.2
> > > MarkupSafe-1.0
> > > Python-2.7.15
> >
> > If you hadn't mentioned Python2 as a dep of usbutils, I would have
> > questioned why it was in 'basic'. Needed at the moment for rustc
> > (that might change, since it might be that the weirdnesses I've seen
> > in scripted rustc builds are common to both versions of python), and
> > obviously still needed for later packages.
>
> Python2 and Mako are required for mesa.
>
OK, I'd forgotten that - it's amazing how many important things are
still using python2.
> > > libvdpau-1.1.1
> > > wayland-protocols-1.15
> > > libxml2-2.9.8 (see above)
> >
> > I guess wayland-protocols are for kde or gnome, not sure how useful
> > they are in other desktop environments.
>
> Again, I don't want users to have to rebuild packages. If a few are
> unneeded now, then it really doesn't hurt much.
>
I get your point about not rebuilding on the first build.
[...]
>
> > For new users, should we mention alternative editors ? I can
> > remember that vim took me a while to get to grips with and I
> > started with joe, other peopel seem to like nano.
>
> Diving in and learning vim is, IMO, best. A crutch like joe of nano may be
> OK for casual users, but I do not want to encourage them.
>
Ooh, policy ;-)
> > More generally, this is mostly about bringing up Xorg. I'll bet
> > most BLFS users running Xorg don't run Postfix.
>
> You are probably right, but as a learning experience, users should have an
> MTA available for scripts and fcron.
>
> My overall purpose is to make recommendations to new users. Many of the
> packages I listed will be completely new to a lot of users (especially my
> students). It is not like LFS though. I'm not recommending users have to
> build everything listed. If the build is a server, then xorg is not needed
> at all. I think that xorg+dependencies is about half of the above packages.
> Without that, even a new user could build everything in just a few hours
> after LFS.
>
> -- Bruce
>
We used to just say "work out what you know you want" (e.g. a
particular browser or office suite) and work back. But I agree that
is becoming overwhelming as the dependencies of everything grow.
I'm still not sure that I like separate books, but I can (and do)
live with not updating everything. As a page in the main book it
would be useful.
ĸen
--
Also Spuke Zerothruster
(Finnegans Wake)
--
http://lists.linuxfromscratch.org/listinfo/blfs-dev
FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/faq.html
Unsubscribe: See the above information page
