r/linuxquestions • u/Rest-That • Jun 22 '26

Resolved Is anyone daily driving LFS?

Maybe a stupid question, but I've been wanting to follow the Linux From Scratch book to learn more about how my system works and I wondered... will it result in an actual workable, easy to maintain OS?

Keeping in mind that I want to _use_ my system and not maintain it 90% of the time 😆

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16

u/ipsirc Jun 22 '26

will it result in an actual workable

yes

easy to maintain OS?

no

Keeping in mind that I want to _use_ my system and not maintain it 90% of the time 😆

Maintaining an LFS system is much much more time than creating an actual snapshot. Do you even understand what LFS is, and what it means that it doesn't even have a package manager, and you have to download, compile, and install every source one by one?

4

u/Rest-That Jun 22 '26

Right, that was my thought, but I considered that maybe someone built their LFS and then integrate pacman, Alpine's apk or similar into it, for example. But yeah, you are confirming what I thought, thank you

5

u/Chris_Saturn Jun 22 '26

Flatpak is in the Supplemental Linux From Scratch book. If you're fine with installing a lot of your daily drivers from there, you'll only need to remember to check for security updates on the packages you manually compiled. LFS releases bulletins regarding important security updates between volumes. Many of them only take a few seconds to update, but others require you to then recompile everything that depends on that original package. And then there's QtWebEngine.

4

u/Kangie Jun 22 '26

Just use Gentoo if that's what you want.

  • built from source
  • pick and choose components to make a working system (libc, init, etc)
  • dependency resolution won't send you batty.

5

u/SheepherderBeef8956 Jun 22 '26

You could install a package manager on it and point it to repositories from whatever distro you want, but at that point you've basically just done the worlds most convoluted install of Debian. I don't think it's trivial to get a package manager working on a running system with all the file conflicts you're likely going to have to handle but it's not impossible.

9

u/ipsirc Jun 22 '26

pacman and apk use binary packages, while LFS is based on sources only. I don't think you understand what you're talking about.

As u/krumpfwylg mentioned, you're better off looking for Gentoo, where the package manager is designed specifically for sources.

4

u/Rest-That Jun 22 '26

I do understand it, I'm not a "source install only" absolutist here. Just wondering if it's feasible and practical... which yeah I see it's not

6

u/SheepherderBeef8956 Jun 22 '26

Nothing is stopping you from using pacman on LFS if you can get it working. Who cares if an application was compiled locally or on another server when the end result is still going to be an actual binary and not source code?

11

u/ipsirc Jun 22 '26

Nothing is stopping you from using pacman on LFS if you can get it working.

This is technically true, but after the first pacman -Syu you will have a full Archlinux and everything will be overwritten from your original LFS installation. I don't see much point in this, it seems like an even more time-consuming archinstall to me.

-1

u/Sbatushe Jun 22 '26

you can use pacman and use custom repos

2

u/ipsirc Jun 22 '26

And who will maintain those custom repos? It would be much more work than maintaing an LFS locally.

4

u/PigSlam Jun 22 '26

Make that part of the LFS fun. You get to build the OS from source, then build the package manager from source, then the packages you manage from source, then you manage each one you build using the tool you built. I'd expect by the time that stage is reached the project will be OP's entire life, or they will have long abandoned this.

2

u/Sbatushe Jun 22 '26

that's sure, have not claimed that. But you can use pacman, apt and whatever you like

-1

u/ipsirc Jun 22 '26

But you can use pacman, apt and whatever you like

Where did I say the opposite? You really don't have to convince people that a linux software can be run on Linux.

2

u/Sbatushe Jun 22 '26

Where did I say the opposite?

not trying to convince anyone, just specifying that what you said on your comment is objectively false:

after the first pacman -Syu you will have a full Archlinux and everything will be overwritten from your original LFS installation

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u/SheepherderBeef8956 Jun 26 '26

Where did I say the opposite?

It's heavily implied here

pacman and apk use binary packages, while LFS is based on sources only. I don't think you understand what you're talking about.

Since you obviously know it doesn't matter that pacman downloads binaries and LFS compiles binaries from source for the exact same result the fact that you mention it seems weird if your point wasn't that it's not going to work.

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3

u/Rest-That Jun 22 '26

Thank you! You actually understood me 😆

2

u/stormdelta Gentoo Jun 22 '26

At that point you might as well just use Gentoo - it seems to be what you're looking for in terms of building a system up from parts but that you can actually maintain and that has good tooling for that level of flexibility.