Eric Herman wrote:
On 04/18/2015 06:10 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
But I need a better understanding of how the pieces of a Linux
system
work together.
I found LFS to be a good way to learn exactly this. I didn't
learn everything on the first try of course, but I sure learned a
lot.
Even if an install goes "perfectly", I'd likely learn that I
could better specify my goal(s) for the installation.
1. What version(s) of use SysVinit (systemd not wanted)?
Looks like the current stable is Sysvinit-2.88dsf according to:
http://linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/chapter06/sysvinit.html
2. Will working through LFS give an understanding of dependencies?
This is covered pretty well in the text for the core system
components.
It is also covered in BLFS for each additional package one may
wish to install, but with various amounts of information,
depending on the package. For instance, if you look at:
http://linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/stable/xfce/xfburn.html
You will see that Xfburn lists both required and optional
dependencies, but I need to read about the dependent packages to
understand what those other packages are and why they are
required or optional.
I hadn't asked asked quite the "right" question ;/
A better question might have been "What makes a minimal system?"
A definitive answer is unlikely. A comparison of packages that
Debian labels as "Essential &/or required", Slackware tags as
"A", the order in which Linux From Scratch builds will likely
point in a valuable direction.
3. I have a *PHYSICAL CONSTRAINT* - dial-up internet access.
A. Live-CD would seem appropriate. Though considered
"dated", is it commercially available somewhere? Does
an image exist on the WEB(high speed internet being
available at local library)?
I guess that nearly any linux flavor that has a live CD can be
used as a foundation for building an LFS system. This page will
help to figure out if the LiveCD of your choice has what you need:
http://linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/prologue/hostreqs.html
You put a "sanity filter" on my question <GRIN>. If physical
Live-CD's are
not available, I do specifically want an image of one. Apparently
Oregon
State University has it available at
http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/lfs-livecd/lfslivecd-x86-6.3-r2145.iso .
B. Are all source packages available as a single package?
Not as a single package, no. But you can easily download the
whole set by piping the contents of this file to wget:
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/wget-list
OSU apparently has tar files of 6.0 thru 7.7 available at
http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/lfs/lfs-packages/ .
4. Are there important questions I haven't thought of?
Hundreds, I'm sure .... but there are always great people on IRC
who can help, and IRC works fine even with dial-up.
I think persistence is the most important thing. For your first
system, it is important to follow the book very closely. Even so,
my first LFS build took several tries because I made many errors
along the way. However, I learned a lot by doing it.
The text of the book gets better with every version, but still
(if you are like me) I suspect you will find that there are
sections which will seem "magical" and you may find yourself just
typing in exactly what the book says without understanding much
about /why/ you need to type the "magic" .... That's okay, over
time, it's natural to learn more about the previous systems. If,
like me, you decide to rebuild everything once every year or two,
I expect you will find that more of it makes sense each time and
less of it seems like "magic".
I hope this helps.
Thank you.
Cheers,
-Eric
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