cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15150206

For those of you who don’t know, Linux From Scratch is a project that teaches you how to compile your own custom distro, with everything compiled from source code.

What was your experience like? Was it easier or harder than you expected? Do you run it as a daily driver or did you just do it for fun?

  • waka@discuss.tchncs.de
    22·
    7 months ago

    I did Gentoo Stage 1 (which was very similiar to what you plan to do) in 2005 with a shitty laptop. 24 hours until I had a working shell compiled. A whole week until I had a graphical desktop working properly. Stupid me didn’t have enough and did it again in 2013 with better hardware within just 36 hours to the desktop.

    If you seek a challenge that leaves you with angelic patience once you’ve overcome the never ending rages you’ll encounter to push through to the end against all odds, lots of errors, bad documentation, dependencies from hell AND keeping it running, which will inevitably raise your patience muscles strength again and again, then yes, do it. Just accept that at some point, something will break inside you.

    • ExfilBravo@lemmy.world
      10·
      7 months ago

      PTSD from the “before times” of Linux is the reason I only run stable builds with UI installers now. Checking a list of dependencies is not how you should spend your free time. Even if you pull it off and install it from scratch; who are you going to boast about it to? US?!

      • waka@discuss.tchncs.de
        8·
        7 months ago

        That was the worst part. You have this super-optimized build that you somehow managed to make work with an ungodly amount of personal time, effort, blood and tears. It will only work so long as the hardware survives and on this machine only, nowhere else. Any update can knock your build down, making you work on debugging anywhere from a few minutes to full-on weeks.

        So you have a system that works at best as well as any other system which you could get flying within an hour with only a few clicks in the installer.

        That’s it. That’s what you’ve worked for and need to continue working for.

  • Shdwdrgn@mander.xyzEnglish
    10·
    7 months ago

    I played around with it in the early 2000’s to learn more about Linux. Eventually used it to build a micro-release of a firewall running samba, cups, apache, and postfix, all crammed onto a bootable zip-100 disk. You can do quite a lot when you understand the bare minimum requirements to get a system running.

  • overload
    111·
    7 months ago

    I’m currentlyI not powerful enough for this, but probably will attempt it for fun one day. On OPENSUSE Tumbleweed atm.

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
    6·
    7 months ago

    Did gentoo stage 1 and used that to get through my college education learning to manage windows systems.

    It was neat. I feel like I will never need to do it again.

    • naticus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      7 months ago

      Yeah I’ve done both LFS and Gentoo stage 1 before and it’s a fun learning exercise. Too bad the stage 1 isn’t a supported option anymore afaik.

  • XTL
    1·
    6 months ago

    Sort of and partly sometimes. But my first Linux installs are from time when Yggdrasil was new and I’m an embedded dev, so it hasn’t been on my own terms.

    Anyway, it will give some perspective on what a mixed mess a lot of the low level projects and libraries actually are when it comes to their builds and how much good work had been done by distributions to clean that away from users.

    I’ll mention Yocto, buildroot, and maybe even armbian here in case someone wants to go digging for more practical options. It’s too bad systemd and musl don’t get along yet. There would be some interesting avenues around. Also, rewrite it in rust is happening in various corners.

    And libressl. That is so long overdue. But I haven’t been paying any attention to that. Just like most other people haven’t.