Eric Herman writes: > Brennan Vincent wrote: >> I mean no offense, but what's the value of installing LFS from an >> installer? I thought the real point of LFS was to do everything by >> hand, to learn in detail how a Linux system works... Agree... :)
And I agree with most (if not all) of the below post too. The reason why I am writing scripts is because I am using LFS in real life applications, and sometimes it is neither effective nor safe to "just build" everything "in place". I, for starters, do not want building tools (gcc, ld) on an Internet accessible machine. I set several design goals before I started my project: 1.- It had to be fully functional with the tools available in Chapter 6 (I had to add vim, file and rsync ): 2.- Every build step would have to be fully documented and 3.- The final product should be exactly the same as the manual built project. Also, a STRONG requirement was: KISS. I believe I achieved all of them to a certain degree. There is undoubtedly room for improvement, some of it I will implement in the next incarnation, some of it I don't even know about yet... As it evolved I realized 2 things: 1.- The main focus of the whole process is REPLICATION. 2.- I am not building a "Package Manager", I am building a "System Manager" with a built in "Replication Framework" What my system allows me to, is to be able to propagate software safely and replicate machines effectively. When LFS 6.5 comes out and after I build the packages, I can "pack up" my LFS 6.4 machine, do some tweaking to my replication scripts and deploy a tested, reliable AND DOCUMENTED! upgrade of my system. My other BIG concern is security. My system allows me to safely remove a package and install a new version. Furthermore, it allows me to deploy a copy of my production machine, install, test, and finally expose a machine that I trust. I believe there is some educational value on what I have I done. I believe that as simple goes, it can't be done any simpler easily (dare to prove me wrong? :) I believe that as a document, it provides a detailed inventory of how a machine is built and transported without exposing it to an unwelcome visitor, or providing such visitor tools to work with. In short, I am loving to have the capability to safely transport a functional machine from hardware to hardware on 2 commands: packup install and deploy (plus fixing /etc/fstab, menu.lst, running grub, it's not magic! :) And even though it may not be a tool to teach someone LFS (IS NOT!!!!!), it may become a tool to teach someone how to USE LFS. And it's almost there... :) Any reviews, critics, comments, etc will be greatly appreciated. Flame wars will not... Best! :) ET PS: Drooling over the upcoming 6.5 release, that will be the "test of fire" for my goofy system... > We are far from the first people to have the idea of automating LFS: > > http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/alfs/ > > One could even argue that build systems of "Gentoo" and the BSD systems > are automating a *nix from scratch .... However, we've seen that with > some build systems (seemingly to deal with growing build complexity) the > goal of automation over-takes any goal of education. Even if the goal of > education was there to begin with, after a while the build looks like > deep sorcery to the new comer. That's clearly against the point of LFS. > > Before I had completed the build of an LFS system, being able to do it > all by hand was the most important goal. Now that I've gone through the > process a number of times, and I actually use LFS machines for normal > tasks, being able to repeat the process reliably and efficiently becomes > a goal. And yes, it is in sharp focus for me that any LFS installer that > obfuscated the steps would, indeed, be taking away one of the main > things I really like about LFS. > > Any automated LFS-like system should make it clear how to perform the > steps by hand, and easy to reproduce those steps by hand. For pure > practicality, this is important because it seems that every time I build > a system, something has changed. Somewhere in the course of things I end > up needing to walk the steps by hand very slowly and very carefully and > take notes about what is different between the book and reality ... > especially when using newer versions than found in the book. > > But more important, I completely agree that a great way to learn, > involves walking it all by hand as a novice. And to that end, it is even > more important that the steps and process be transparent. > > What I especially like about the litbuild work that Brett Neumeier has > been doing is that it is, in effect, another approach to constructing an > an LFS-like book. Instead of being XML which is translated into HTML, > the format of litbuild input is text files which can be read as plain > text, transformed into nice HTML, or executed as a script. > > Here is an example: > > http://tiedyedfreaks.org/eric/src/freesa/automation/packages/gcc.txt > > or: > > http://tiedyedfreaks.org/eric/src/freesa/automation/packages/glibc.txt > > By keeping the instructions in a format which remains comfortable to > read (and more importantly: update) as plain text, the goal of > understanding the "what" and "why" is easier to serve: the barrier to > any change is low, especially adding some additional explanatory text as > something new is learned. > > A good way to go from novice to intermediate experience is to use LFS > systems for "real work". Of course this means going past the bash prompt > and heading into building a complete system. I lean on > http://cblfs.cross-lfs.org/ rather a lot for this. > > For me, doing "real work" with an LFS system also translates to a desire > to automate the parts I'm comfortable with so as to let me focus on the > "new" stuff: things like "what is this new GMP dependency?", other > changes in the process of building various programs, and dealing with > rolling through upgrades over time. (I find "package users" very handy > in that respect.) > > So, in the end, I think "the real point" of LFS is to learn, and > automation can encourage this, especially for the intermediate user. > > Cheers, > -Eric > > litbuild, FreeSA, and Brett's mod of "package users" can be found at: > > http://www.freesa.org/ > > -- > http://www.freesa.org/ -- mobile: +31 620719662 > aim: ericigps -- skype: eric_herman -- jabber: [email protected] > -- > http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-chat > FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ > Unsubscribe: See the above information page -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-chat FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ Unsubscribe: See the above information page
