Kenneth Harrison wrote:
Up till before systemd was experimented with, several packages never had
existed in the LFS book until that time. These packages include:
expat
XML:Parser
intltool
libcap
acl
attr
Dbus was obviously and possibly taken out because it was specifically
needed for systemd and reassigned to BLFS where it resided for the longest
time, but these other packages technically are not technically required by
LFS. Now, I understand that several packages in LFS such as:
tcl
check
dejagnu
expect
are used primarily for testing purposes during compiling and are included
during the bootstrap phase, and that LFS is not a true minimalist system,
but in regards to actual usefulness during the build phase, those
forementioned packages are not required on any level even in regards to
checking system packages or properly booting the system. In my hint
eudev-alt-hint.txt which is now (hopefully temporarily) deprecated, I
mentioned these packages could be excluded.
I'm not certain of the logic behind leaving these packages in LFS since
they technically aren't required for the base system. Not to step on toes
or make a ill statement, but because LFS is somewhat of an educational
experience, leaving these packages in serves no purpose and no educational
benefit (at least in my opinion anyway), and in my own humble opinion,
resigning them back to BLFS would be a possible wiser choice because of the
lack of necessity to the base.
In my own opinion again, the base system should just be that, a workable
base with minimal tools, but not the bare minimum (if that makes sense) to
get the kernel loaded, the shell activated, and the interface brought up,
but with enough usability and the right tools and packages to expand
outward.
The reason I left libcap, attr, and acl in LFS is because they are
security applications useful in any environment, even though they don't
have to be used. The reason for gperf, expat, and intltool is because
they are used in a relatively large number of BLFS packages and I didn't
think the time or space building them in LFS was significant.
XML:Parser was left in (actually put back) because it was needed for
intltool.
The reason I removed dbus is that it really isn't useful until you have
completed xorg (unless you are using systemd).
If you really want to cut down on LFS, you can remove autoconf,
automake, and probably libtool. They are used less than the packages we
just added and take longer to build. You can also substitute joe or
nano for vim as several distros do by default.
You can (or at least I can) also make a case for adding lsb_release,
wget, which, sudo, ntp, pci-utils, usb-utils, openssl, and openssh to LFS.
Actually, there is no bright line that can be drawn that says that some
set of packages belongs and another doesn't. It comes down to a
judgement call. You don't have to agree with my judgement. I don't
mind if you do. Your distro, your rules.
-- Bruce
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