Linux From Scratch

The Linux From Scratch project is pretty cool. You can get the book from here, http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ . It really helps you understand the linux o/s that much better when you build it yourself. This book will help you through the steps to set up a linux distro completely from scratch. You create a partition and create the proper file systems. Then you use a host system to mount the blank partition and compile the basic tools needed to run the system by itself before chrooting into the new environment. This book does a great job of helping you through the process and keeping the host system as separate from your project as possible.

To get the most out of this you really need to have prior experience with linux and or a unix operating system, and must really enjoy learning about it because it can become frustrating trying to build it… But it is actually really cool to have the finished product with only the packages you have compiled, and learning exactly what goes into a great o/s.

Any way for all the linux fans out there this is definitely worth checking out incase you havent seen it already or already know how to do this on your own :happy:

Awesome. Definitely going to check this out. Thanks for the link.

Absolutely briliant ! If I had time, I would dl it right now…. :( Anyway thanks a lot !

Hmm… I believe I'll be checking that out as well. Would certainly make a Gentoo install go faster, not to mention slimming down those other distro installs.

Hey this is totaly rad but I need some help please. I am using lfs live cd as a host system. I wanna know how I can save or backup the /mnt/lfs directory preserving the proper configs, symbolic links, permissions and content so that if I want to do this again later or if i have to restart to get root I dont have to put the temp system together all over again…

Any help please? great share :D

Zephyr_Pure wrote: Hmm… I believe I'll be checking that out as well. Would certainly make a Gentoo install go faster, not to mention slimming down those other distro installs.

Erm.. how much do you know about linux again?

Gentoo is basically automated LFS. And LFS is going to take a lot longer than Gentoo.. I've done LFS twice and it's a massive PITA, but you get a big bag of smug….

I misunderstood the intent of LFS… thought it was that bit where you can pre-package your own "distro". Now that I have read the description, you are right concerning Gentoo and LFS. To revise my previous post, then:

"Pre-packaging a CD with all of the stuff I'd do manually each time with Gentoo would be nice. LFS wouldn't help me too much, though, since the other 2 distros that I use are Arch and Slackware, which are already quite slim."

That should be more on-topic.

Let me throw an idea out there and ask if it will work for my needs. It says in the LFS book in section 5.31 "Changing Ownership" the following:

Although the $LFS/tools directory can be deleted once the LFS system has been finished, it can be retained to build additional LFS systems of the same book version. How best to backup $LFS/tools is a matter of personal preference and is left as an exercise for the reader.

*** Caution*** If you intend to keep the temporary tools for use in building future LFS systems, now is the time to back them up.

What would be the best way to backup the tools directory for later use? And is the tools directory all I need? Or do I need the original directory of each of the tools (ie gcc-4.1.2, gawk-3.1.5)?

My idea is to use the cp command possibly with the backup option to copy the whole LFS (/mnt/lfs) to my flash drive. would it backup all the files and settings of the tools? Do I only need to cp the tools folder?

Thanks in advance :D