Linux from Scratch

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

What LFS Teaches (and Doesn’t)

  • Widely praised as a deep way to see how a Linux system is assembled: toolchain bootstrapping, sed/patch/autotools, glibc, init, boot scripts.
  • Many say it “removes the magic” and permanently changes how they see distributions and system internals.
  • Others argue it mainly teaches building and bootstrapping (e.g., compiler stages, package build systems), not “using Linux” or day-to-day administration.
  • Several warn it’s easy to fall into copy‑pasting commands without understanding, which limits learning.

LFS vs Gentoo, Arch, and Other Distros

  • Some claim Gentoo/Arch give similar educational value with far less time investment.
  • Counterpoint: Arch install is mostly partitions and file moving; it doesn’t expose internals like LFS.
  • Another view: Gentoo/Arch docs and troubleshooting guides are more complete and practical than LFS, and leave you with a maintainable system.
  • Slackware, Guix, NixOS, and “skill tiers” (Ubuntu/Fedora vs Arch/Gentoo vs LFS) are discussed playfully.

Maintenance, Upgrades, and Long-Term Use

  • Common pattern: people build LFS once (often as teenagers), learn a lot, then migrate to a mainstream distro.
  • Upgrades—especially glibc and kernels—are described as painful; maintaining LFS/BLFS as a daily driver is considered hard.
  • Various personal schemes appear (versioned tree/AppDirs, scripts, ruby tooling), but consensus is: creating is easy, maintaining is hard.

Hardware, VMs, and Automation

  • Debate over whether to do LFS on a VM (safer, snapshots, controlled hardware) or on a real daily‑driver machine (forces you to truly care when it breaks).
  • Cross-LFS for embedded/ARM (e.g., early Raspberry Pi) is seen as rewarding but adds complexity.
  • Automated LFS and homegrown scripts/Makefiles/Jenkins build systems are used to speed iteration.

Kernel and “Modern Stack” Challenges

  • Kernel configuration is called out as one of the hardest parts: huge config, unclear minimal sets; advice is to start from a known-good config and iterate.
  • BLFS and variants (systemd, “Gaming LFS”) are mentioned as the path from bare LFS to something resembling modern desktops (Wayland/X11, KDE, etc.).

LLMs and LFS

  • Some suggest LLM agents could assemble bespoke distros or help navigate kernel config and source locations.
  • Others see this as missing the point: LFS is a learning tool, and outsourcing the work to an LLM diminishes its value.