I'd like to discuss the direction of LFS with respect to where upstream 
developers appear to be going.

Currently we use sysvinit and udev as the basis of bringing up LFS.  We 
do not use an initd/initramfs or systemd.

http://wiki.debian.org/InitrdReplacementOptions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initrd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/why.html

----------

There appears appears to be a movement to consolidate /bin and /usr/bin, 
/lib and /usr/lib, and /sbin and /usr/sbin.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/UsrMove

----------

udev is dropping support of module-init-tools for a new package called 
kmod.  I was able to build kmod with ./configure --with-xz  --with-zlib 
&& make && make DESTDIR=/tmp/kmod install.  The only files installed are:

/usr/bin/kmod
/usr/include/libkmod.h
/usr/lib/libkmod.{la,so,so.1,so.1.2.0}
/usr/lib/pkgconfig/libkmod.pc

------------

LFS now provides a good, solid, and relatively simple way of bringing up 
a single system.  It does not directly support any of these more complex
methods.  The question is: should LFS add these capabilities?

If we did decide to implement the capability for an initramfs and/or 
systemd, I think we might need a whole new chapter in the book.

One of the major purposes of LFS is to explain how the packages in Linux 
fit together.

Personally, I have mixed feelings.  For a lot of situations, our current 
implementation of LFS/BLFS works very well.  For a large implementation 
where the requirements are varied and complex, I don't think LFS will 
ever be preferable over a commercial distro.

For the purposes of explanation, what we have works, but if we don't 
change, it will become farther and farther away from what people see in 
other implementations.   It is similar to the situation with GRUB.  GRUB 
Legacy worked pretty well for most people, but for newer situations, 
GRUB2 was necessary.  It is a lot more complex, but complexity seems to 
be the inherent result of increased flexibility and capabilities.

If we don't add things like an initramfs to the book, we will probably 
need to limit what our users can do.  For instance, we will probably 
need to require that /usr cannot be on a partition separate from /.  In 
the era of TB hard disks, that is probably not a big deal.  It's hard to 
find a thumb drive smaller than 16GB any more.  Many organizations give 
them away as promotional items.

Any changes we decide to make do not need to be done right away.  We are 
scheduled to release LFS 7.1 in about 6 weeks.  I definitely would not 
want to make major changes before then.

What do you think?

   -- Bruce

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