On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 03:59:52PM +0100, Aleksandar Kuktin wrote: > >On Thu, 12 Dec 2013 23:35:17 +0000 > >"Wolf, Robert (ext)" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Hello there.... > > Hello there too. :) >
+1 > > I have already invested some time and a new hardware into (B)LFS. > > Think of all the sunk cost! :) > (I'm joking, ofcourse.) > That is nothing, compared to the cost of the time you will spend building packages and learning (iff you like the LFS/BLFS way of building from source). > > 1. Purchased a new Lenovo laptop (I heard it was relatively > > compatible with Linux). > > I heard a lot of things too... > If anyone asked, I would never recommend a laptop for building LFS/BLFS _if_ you intend to get to a usable laptop system - there are too many variables for powersaving (creating a cpufreq bootscript is easy enough, but not covered, and suspend/hibernate are dependent on your desktop) and networking with wifi. It can be done, but a desktop system is much easier and (usually) more powerful. OTOH, my first linux installs (late '99) were on a secondhand laptop I acquired - ISTR it took two or three attempts to get a Redhat-6 install which would boot - and I've built LFS/BLFS on two apple ibooks (ppc) in the past. But, my netbook on which I'm typing this is still running unity [ yeah, friends don let friends run ubuntu :) ] although I have now built the kernel for it on an LFS-7.4 machine, and I plan to try a (binary, i.e. built on another box) BLFS system in the new year. Hopefully, your machine is adequately fast if running on mains power - batteries imply reduced CPU frequencies or frequent recharging. > > 2. Installed Linux Mint (Olivia). > > > > 3. Partitioned the drive to have some free space for the final > > BLFS. > > > > 4. Partitioned 8GB USB flash for initial ground work. > > Don't build on flash memory. Flash memory is consumable, building > includes creating and deleting a large amount of files in a short time > span. You will burn out the flash disk way too fast. > Agreed. > If you need a fast disk for building or whatever, use a ramdisk > (repurpose some amount of system's RAM to be a virtual HDD). Like this > (will allocate half the total RAM to a ramdisk): > mount -o tmpfs tmpfs /whereever > A good idea, but only if there is enough RAM. I probably wouldn't bother if building on less than 8GB of RAM. > > So far I have compiled binutils (pass 1), gcc (pass 1) and API > > Headers. Preparing for compiling glibc. > > The process is (in my case) tiresome, troublesome and long. > > It took me a week to get where I am without errors (finally). > > Took me less then a day when I started, some six years ago. It's > individial. > The book, and therefore what has to be done, changes over time. Each new version of gcc seems to take longer than the previous. I guess that I came to LFS circa 2002, and at that time I was recommended to switch from the CD I got in a magazine (2.something) to the development book (that became 3.0, I think) because of the problems I was having. Nowadays, the released book *ought* to build on any system which matches the host requirements, as well as "too new" systems, but there will always be corner cases. > > My questions are as follows: > > Can I build BLFS system compatible with Debian and able to get and > > install dpkg packages? > > Can I build BLFS system on which I will be able to use GIMP, > > (Libre)Office, Stellarium? > > Can I build BLFS system able to run Windows programs (such as Age Of > > Empires) through WINE? > > Can I build BLFS system on which I will be able to program ALSA/audio > > application with c++ (using g++)? > > Yes, yes, yes, yes. > > Chris metioned there is a hint re/ dpkg. Using dpkg is not necessarily the same as compatability with debian. The versions of libraries in LFS/BLFS will differ, so installing binary packages might not work. Building from source using dpkg might also show this problem, I have no idea. > LibreOffice is in BLFS, I > think, so just follow instructions. GIMP may or may not be, but the > webpage of the project features the dependency list and that is most > important. Ouch! The gimp has been in BLFS since at least 5.1 (that is the oldest version currently online), and I think it was in 1.0 - probably gimp-1 in those days. Yes, I've done some of the gimp updates in BLFS - I get offended when people suggest it might not be in the book :) > Stellarium has no unusual dependencies AFAICR, if you can > build Wine, you can build Stellarium. Wine has quite a dependency list > but you can skip most of it if you don't feel like it. ALSA is a > one-banana job. The rest of the development enviroment (Emacs and > whatever else you use) will depend on what you like most. If you are a > heretic, you can just use Vim from base LFS. > > > .... And in short, is Linux Mint/Ubuntu/Debian in any way superior to > > BLFS? > > Depends on your definition of "superior". Personally, the only distro I > can use comfortably and feel happy about myself and the way my life is > going is LFS. > I agree with that sentiment, but I think it is fair to point out that we don't cover everything. Any big-name distro will provide security updates, sometimes they even fix the problem without causing side-effects <joke/>. In BLFS we occasionally patch, but usually we just move on to the next released version of the package. Also, using dpkg might not help when it comes time to upgrade your toolchain. I know that at least Armin has done in-place upgrades, but I don't have the details and I continue to upgrade my LFS systems frequently by building a new system - yes, that does mean writing scripts to build it. > > Can I construct a fully functional BLFS equivalent of a modern > > Linux distribution? > > Yes. Especially if you are crazy and persistent enough to actually > replicate all those (mis)features big distros have. > > > Is my construction of (B)LFS worth the effort? > > Is building your own house worth the effort? > Your decision. Some people build LFS, tick the box to say they have done it, and then go back to a distro. Others of us (typically, those of us who loathe the distro approach of making every package pull in every possible dependency, or those of us who hate the distro package management systems) stick with it and adapt it to meet our desires. I can't guess if it will be worth the effort. What I can say is that learning to build things the LFS/BLFS way takes a lot of time. I was lucky - when I first installed linux I had time because I'd just got out of hospital and was only working part-time. People who have seen my ramblings on the list probably think it was a "secure" hospital - it wasn't, I had a life-changing spinal cord injury. Some people are clever enough to learn these things quickly, for others it takes longer. I recommend keeping searchable notes. If you continue, good luck and ask on -support if you run into problems. If you don't, it doesn't reflect badly on you, it just means you are probably less anal than the rest of us! ĸen -- das eine Mal als Tragödie, dieses Mal als Farce -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-chat FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ Unsubscribe: See the above information page
