Beyond Linux From Scratch book content issues

Jean-Philippe MENGUAL | 13 Aug 2012 00:38

Help blfs

Hi,

As you may know, I have helped this project since 2008, with
translations. With Denis and other contributors, we translate into
French LFS, BLFS books, and also others.

But with Gnome3 and GUI evolutions, I start being fed up with
traditional distros, especially I feel I cannot help them as their
contribution processes are so complex. I feel I could use (I'm building)
and help blfs now.

But for that, I need methodological help. I wonder how editors can
maintain up-to-date so much areas and packages. At every new LFS
release, do you build again a new system? And do you re-install all
packages you need? It's very, very long time. So do you use at least
some scripts? Or some system to home a common workspace where you work
beyond your own machine?

I'm fixing my kernel panic issues and I'll have my LFS 7.1 done. And I
plan to use it. Would it be enough to help? I plan helping because I
imagine that in some areas, updating packages doesn't imply changing so
much instructions. Moreover, what's your method to know packages
contents? Does the edguide book say that? Or this provided with LFS?

Finally, how can I start contributing? What's the best approach with
submitting write patches (or packages update)? Where can I submit? etc.

Once I've my LFS, I plan to install things to help in blfs-support, if I
have the good level for that. Indeed, I know to build, but I do not know
to program.

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Armin K. | 13 Aug 2012 02:16

Re: Help blfs

On 13.8.2012 0:38, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As you may know, I have helped this project since 2008, with
> translations. With Denis and other contributors, we translate into
> French LFS, BLFS books, and also others.
>
> But with Gnome3 and GUI evolutions, I start being fed up with
> traditional distros, especially I feel I cannot help them as their
> contribution processes are so complex. I feel I could use (I'm building)
> and help blfs now.
>
> But for that, I need methodological help. I wonder how editors can
> maintain up-to-date so much areas and packages. At every new LFS
> release, do you build again a new system? And do you re-install all
> packages you need? It's very, very long time. So do you use at least
> some scripts? Or some system to home a common workspace where you work
> beyond your own machine?
>

The last LFS I've built, 7.1 minus glibc 2.14 (I used 2.13 back then) 
was built in January this year. I used it as my production machine for 
at least 6 months or so untill I got back to Debian Sid few days ago 
(damn laptop and binary drivers). But, for package updates I used that 
system. I upgraded or added package on that one system, I had my 
"package management", but no scripts. Everything was built manually. I 
also tend to build more or like everything from one source package, thus 
expanding far beyond blfs itself. If I get stuck, I consult either 
Debian's patch tracker or source files, ArchLinux's packages svn or 
Gentoo portage source files. I check for package dependencies either by

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headers

Bruce Dubbs | 13 Aug 2012 03:27

Re: Help blfs

Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote:

> As you may know, I have helped this project since 2008, with
> translations. With Denis and other contributors, we translate into
> French LFS, BLFS books, and also others.
>
> But with Gnome3 and GUI evolutions, I start being fed up with
> traditional distros, especially I feel I cannot help them as their
> contribution processes are so complex. I feel I could use (I'm building)
> and help blfs now.

Any help you can give would be appreciated.

> But for that, I need methodological help. I wonder how editors can
> maintain up-to-date so much areas and packages. At every new LFS
> release, do you build again a new system? And do you re-install all
> packages you need? It's very, very long time. So do you use at least
> some scripts? Or some system to home a common workspace where you work
> beyond your own machine?

For my normal system, I don't upgrade much.  I generally only upgrade 
when there is a problem of some sort.  That said, I recently did a 
complete upgrade.  See my write-up of what I did:

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/~bdubbs/files/updating-lfs.html

I do have another system dedicated to LFS development work.  I do most 
of the development there via ssh, but can access the physical 
keyboard/monitor when needed.  It may be surprising, but that's not 
required a lot.  Generally it's needed to test a new kernel or an xorg

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headers

Ken Moffat | 13 Aug 2012 03:27

Re: Help blfs

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 12:38:56AM +0200, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> As you may know, I have helped this project since 2008, with
> translations. With Denis and other contributors, we translate into
> French LFS, BLFS books, and also others.
> 
> But with Gnome3 and GUI evolutions, I start being fed up with
> traditional distros, especially I feel I cannot help them as their
> contribution processes are so complex. I feel I could use (I'm building)
> and help blfs now.
> 
> But for that, I need methodological help. I wonder how editors can
> maintain up-to-date so much areas and packages. At every new LFS
> release, do you build again a new system? And do you re-install all
> packages you need? It's very, very long time. So do you use at least
> some scripts? Or some system to home a common workspace where you work
> beyond your own machine?
> 
 I assume that *everyone* who continues to use LFS and BLFS will
eventually develop their own scripts - without scripting, it is just
too painful.  Usually, I build several new LFS systems each year,
then use them to build all of my current desktop.  For my server, I've
tended to be in no hurry to update (e.g. it uses linux-3.0 headers,
unlike the book, with a 'stable' 3.0 kernel), but I'll probably try
building 7.2 on my server if I have time.

 With the recent amount of change in BLFS, it isn't possible to keep
*everything* in my build up to date, so sometimes I just keep building
what I know worked on the previous build - even so, I often hit issues

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