Linux From Scratch. Your distro. Your rules.

by , 03 January, 2002

I wanted something to do on Christmas eve and Christmas day so what better I thought, than to build my own Linux distribution!

Ordinarily, except for a few, this task would be difficult to the point of near-impossible. Thanks to Gerard Beekmans' unique and superb Linux From Scratch (LFS) book however, if you can install a Linux distribution, you can build your own Linux distribution. All it takes is to download the source tarballs from the site, and copy and paste the commands to install each package. In essence, it really is that simple.

In a nutshell

Here's how it goes:

1. You download the source tarballs from the LFS site (78.6MB, or 56MB if like me you already had the linux-2.4.16 source tarball).
2. Create an ext2 partition of 1Gb+.
3. Install enough software, statically linked to your current distribution's library files to allow you to...
4. ...then build the software, dynamically linked to the new distribution's library files.
5. Install some boot scripts, compile a kernel image, and update your bootloader.

That's it, that's all there is to it.

Support, and more

If you run into problems, during or after LFS installation, there's support in the form of many mailing lists, including a massive mailing list archive you can search, and even an IRC server, irc.linuxfromscratch.org (#LFS).

When you first boot into LFS, you have a bare-minimum Linux installation. You have Vim to edit text files, and Perl and GCC to program with. That's it, that's all you have.

From here you then read the many submitted LFS hints, and the Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS) book, to find out things like how to connect to the Net, install a Web browser, and install X.

There's even Automated LFS (ALFS), a tool still in alpha stage, that allows you to build distributions according to an XML profile, in an automated manner, with fine-grained control over every aspect of building. In other words, building that custom-made Linux firewall distribution has never been so simple.

The missing link: My installation experience

Gerard Beekmans took a look at this article and suggested I add a little about my installation experience, but truth is I had one of those non-eventful experiences. I blindly followed the instructions in the Linux From Scratch book and everything just worked fine, first time. Hardly worth mentioning really. Besides I was extremely busy at the time. Then Tina Gasperson from NewsForge fame, seemingly teaming-up with Gerard (only joking) goes and writes a nice review of Linuxdot.org (thanks Tina), saying the same thing. Doh! Seems I should have taken Gerard's fine advice and added a few extra lines. Will this do? :)

Some post LFS tips

• The number one tip I can give, is to automatically run cd /mnt/lfs; tar cvfj lfs-3.1.tar.bz2 * from the distribution you built LFS in, to backup your entire LFS installation. You might want to remove everything from the /mnt/lfs/usr/src directory beforehand to reduce the size of the archive (to 50MB in my case). Again you could backup LFS when you have everything to your liking, e.g. some more libraries and X installed.
• Install the Links browser instead of the Lynx browser, it's lighter, simpler to use, and renders better than Lynx. See the Beyond Linux From Scratch book for installation instructions.
• Grab the Xfree86 4.1.0 source code (3 files totalling 54.2 MB) and the zlib source code, and follow the xfree86_41.txt hint for installation instructions. On my 1GHz Athlon, compilation took 45 mins, so go off and watch some TV. The installation includes TWM (Tab Window Manager), which while simplistic in the extreme, at least gives you something. The mentioned XFree86 -configure command to configure X after compilation bombed with me, so instead I used the xf86config command. One quirky aspect of TWN is that you have to drag the top right button of a window and increase its size to allow you to drag back again to reduce its size. Very strange.
• Also see the redhat_style_logon.txt hint which helps make your console log-in screen look more respectable.

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