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Be careful with this! It's a slippery slope from LFS to Gentoo. I made the mistake of trying LFS once in college, and then I spent the next 10 years compiling e

by cbsks 6y ago

Be careful with this! It's a slippery slope from LFS to Gentoo. I made the mistake of trying LFS once in college, and then I spent the next 10 years compiling everything from source! Beware!!

amelius 6y ago
Better use a purely functional build system, like in NixOS, where you can download binaries and have the guarantee that they are the same as when you had built them yourself.
- hvdijk 6y ago
  It's much closer to that than any alternative I am aware of, but that's one guarantee you don't have. It's important to limit your substituters (binary caches) to trusted servers, because Nix does not and cannot verify that the binary it receives corresponds to the source, only that the remote server claims it does. Even if the binary does correspond to the source, the build process may have picked up small details about the build system, meaning a local build would produce a different binary. Even if the build process does not pick up any such details, many packages do not have deterministic builds, meaning they might produce different binaries even if you build them multiple times in succession on your own computer.
  - ingenieroariel 6y ago
    This is true. I am a NixOS fan, but when a piece of software asks me to use a Nix binary cache it can mask problems like a private git repo or other issues that would prevent a full build without me knowing. Worse yet, a Hydra box eating it's own dogfood ...
- _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
  Of course you can also use Nix or Guix in a more Gentoo-like fashion and forbid binary downloads, requiring everything to be built locally.
timw4mail 6y ago
Funny, I use Gentoo, and thought LFS was too far...
BeetleB 6y ago
Heh - going on 17 years on Gentoo for me! And yes, I got there via LFS. As in "Wow, this LFS/BFS stuff is a nightmare to maintain. I wonder if anyone has automated it..." Gentoo has its problems, but I can't imagine life without it. The day I can't use Gentoo is the day I quit tech.
- Koshkin 6y ago
  > I can't imagine life without it The people who I know that use Gentoo are addicted to constant updates (they apply them more than once a day).
  - Alupis 6y ago
    Probably more addicted to all the compiling and stuff. There is something about compiling non-trivial software, like the kernel, with all that text flashing by the screen, that is purely satisfying to watch.
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    > The people who I know that use Gentoo are addicted to constant updates (they apply them more than once a day). Quite the opposite for me. I struggle to do it once a month. I would often go months without it, but that turned out to be a really bad idea. No - it's the USE flags that make it awesome. And the ability to apply custom patches, etc as needed.
  - arantius 6y ago
    I just got the warning from portage yesterday that, in that case, told me it had been 33 days since my last sync.
monadic2 6y ago
Or you end up on a BSD :)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cbsks 6y ago
  The horror! ;)

by cbsks 6y ago

Be careful with this! It's a slippery slope from LFS to Gentoo. I made the mistake of trying LFS once in college, and then I spent the next 10 years compiling everything from source! Beware!!

amelius 6y ago

Better use a purely functional build system, like in NixOS, where you can download binaries and have the guarantee that they are the same as when you had built them yourself.

hvdijk 6y ago
It's much closer to that than any alternative I am aware of, but that's one guarantee you don't have. It's important to limit your substituters (binary caches) to trusted servers, because Nix does not and cannot verify that the binary it receives corresponds to the source, only that the remote server claims it does. Even if the binary does correspond to the source, the build process may have picked up small details about the build system, meaning a local build would produce a different binary. Even if the build process does not pick up any such details, many packages do not have deterministic builds, meaning they might produce different binaries even if you build them multiple times in succession on your own computer.
- ingenieroariel 6y ago
  This is true. I am a NixOS fan, but when a piece of software asks me to use a Nix binary cache it can mask problems like a private git repo or other issues that would prevent a full build without me knowing. Worse yet, a Hydra box eating it's own dogfood ...
_emacsomancer_ 6y ago
Of course you can also use Nix or Guix in a more Gentoo-like fashion and forbid binary downloads, requiring everything to be built locally.

timw4mail 6y ago

Funny, I use Gentoo, and thought LFS was too far...

BeetleB 6y ago

Heh - going on 17 years on Gentoo for me! And yes, I got there via LFS. As in "Wow, this LFS/BFS stuff is a nightmare to maintain. I wonder if anyone has automated it..." Gentoo has its problems, but I can't imagine life without it. The day I can't use Gentoo is the day I quit tech.

Koshkin 6y ago
> I can't imagine life without it The people who I know that use Gentoo are addicted to constant updates (they apply them more than once a day).
- Alupis 6y ago
  Probably more addicted to all the compiling and stuff. There is something about compiling non-trivial software, like the kernel, with all that text flashing by the screen, that is purely satisfying to watch.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  > The people who I know that use Gentoo are addicted to constant updates (they apply them more than once a day). Quite the opposite for me. I struggle to do it once a month. I would often go months without it, but that turned out to be a really bad idea. No - it's the USE flags that make it awesome. And the ability to apply custom patches, etc as needed.
- arantius 6y ago
  I just got the warning from portage yesterday that, in that case, told me it had been 33 days since my last sync.

monadic2 6y ago

Or you end up on a BSD :)

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cbsks 6y ago
The horror! ;)