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My Linux From Scratch system |
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2025-03-29 |
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Last edit: 2025-03-29 |
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> In this blog post, I will refer to |
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Linux From Scratch |
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by writing "LFS". |
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I heard about LFS by stumbling across a |
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podcast |
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by Brodie Robertson. I've been curious and made me want to build my own Linux … |
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## What is LFS? |
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It's a book that explains how to build your own Linux system from scratch using… |
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## My objectives |
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In reading LFS, I have some very specific goals. I'd like my system to be able … |
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DDNet |
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and Quake I. To do this, I'll need a kernel that can communicate with my hardw… |
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I'd also like to have a simple, lightweight desktop environment based on the gr… |
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Xorg |
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And most important of all, I'd like to be able to boot into my system directly … |
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## Building LFS |
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So I started reading the book and setting up my system. More precisely, I chose |
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version 12.2 with systemd (French version) |
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as init daemon and with Linux version 6.10.5. In this section, I'm not going t… |
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### Disk partitioning |
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I chose to make a single 40GiB ext4 partition on my laptop's hard disk. I decla… |
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NixOS](https://nixos.org) configuration, with partitioning handled by the [NixO… |
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module. |
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```nix |
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lfs = { |
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name = "LFS"; |
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size = "40G"; |
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content = { |
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Happy helping ☃ here: You tried to output a spurious TAB character. This will… |
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Happy helping ☃ here: You tried to output a spurious TAB character. This will… |
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Happy helping ☃ here: You tried to output a spurious TAB character. This will… |
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}; |
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}; |
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``` |
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### Compiling the compiler compiling a compiler |
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An important part of LFS is cross-compiling. The aim is to build the tools of t… |
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Here's a diagram representing the cross-compilation steps, where each rectangle… |
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### Basic softwares and configuration |
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After entering my new system (chroot), I was able to establish a base. |
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I installed all the basic tools you'd want on a Linux system and wrote configur… |
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### Linux |
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I built Linux by passing the right values to its parameters, so as to be as com… |
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I activated the right drivers to communicate with my network card and audio har… |
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Once built and installed on my LFS system, all that's left to do is load Linux. |
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### Boot |
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To be able to boot on my LFS system, I added an entry for the GRUB managed by m… |
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NixOS](https://nixos.org) system. To do this, I rebuilt my [NixOS |
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system using os-pober, as shown below. |
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```nix |
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loader.grub = { |
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useOSProber = true; |
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}; |
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``` |
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## Beyond LFS |
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Now that I have a basic system that I can boot, the goal is to have a desktop e… |
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I had to build the entire graphics system |
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X](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System) and its dependencies, before … |
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. |
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I'm obviously skipping all the sub-dependencies, network configuration (DHCP cl… |
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Below is an overview of my main desktop envinronnement. |
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So I end up on |
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Xfce](https://www.xfce.org), download the latest version of [DDNet |
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, patch the source code as I didn't want to use the `libnotify` library, compil… |
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The application is functional, I can join a game via the Internet and the game … |
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The same for Quake I through |
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VkQuake |
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, a preview below. |
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## Little hack |
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To avoid having to manage all the packages by hand, I decided to install a pack… |
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Nix |
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. It will allow me to have fully functional immutable packages. |
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I installed it with the |
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DeterminateSystems |
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installer. |
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It allowed me to build very complicated packages such as |
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Firefox |
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, here's a preview. |
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## Is it worth it? |
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Reading and putting LFS into practice takes a long time, but it's definitely wo… |
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I recommend the experience to all curious people who want to have their own Lin… |
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## Conclusion |
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I loved reading the book and setting up everything myself, and I intend to keep… |
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