I followed LFS and BLFS instructions verbatim when I was a kid with so much time on my hands.
Enormously informative and also empowering to get from source code to a complex usable system and to be aware of every package.
Even just skimming the passages about security and other bits now, this is still an epic resource to get real grounded knowledge about pieces of the complex systems I can merely use nowadays.
This and doing stage 0 Gentoo install, which subsequently broke in interesting ways on running emerge. Fixing that was probably what got me enough 'real world' skill to be able to do it for a living.. 20 years later, here we are. Still grateful for the ricing :)
Same here. But looking back, it also shows the limitations of a modern desktop OS: there's too many big, complex components, all with intricate interactions, to set it up manually. Because -let's be honest- (B)LFS is a great learning resource, but a totally impractical way to get an OS up & running.
Automation is key here. Check dependencies, download archive(s), unpack, apply config options, compile, run tests, (optionally) build binary package, install: it all has to be automated or it quickly becomes unworkable.
I'd love to see more built-from-scratch OSes that include development tools, do something useful on modern hardware, but are small(er) to the point that it's easier to wrap one's head around the whole. Think Forth-based with a simple GUI, Oberon, Plan 9, Inferno or similar.
Consider forking it and experimenting with it. The Linux kernel compiles just fine with clang / llvm. There are plenty of userland tools that compile and work just fine with musl. This should be possible to implement as an experiment.
If you get it working, lfs may consider making it an experimental flavor, like they did with the RPi version.
With a two-week vacation coming up, I am greatly looking forward to jump into this for the first time! Any tips for someone on their first go-around? (I've already got 'Be Patient' memorized)
A lot of the middle part is busywork imo. Extract from tar, make, rinse and repeat. Like it's all necessary but it can get repetitive. You gotta push through it though.
Even just skimming the passages about security and other bits now, this is still an epic resource to get real grounded knowledge about pieces of the complex systems I can merely use nowadays.