On 7/21/2011 2:13 PM, Rob Landley wrote: > So the message to people new the project is they have two choices: > > 1) Try the latest known-good release, which produces a system roughly on > par with Ubuntu 8.04 "hardy heron" (desktop version end of lifed May > 2011), or SuSE 11 (end of lifed June 2010). > > 2) Your first experience with BLFS can be attempting to build a nightly > source control snapshot. You may get to be the first person EVER to try > this particular combination. Which apparently has some fundamental > reason for not having been turned into a stable release in forever.
Yes, there are very good reasons. Additionally, using the most recent release of LFS and BLFS Development is what is recommended. One would hardly be the first person as you say. > While making this decision, ponder: was 2008 the last time the > developers _bothered_ to cut a release, or the last time developers > _managed_ to cut a release? Are they lazy, Far from it. > or overwhelmed by their own > project, or do they simply not care about giving outsiders a known good > version? We do not look at a release as that important. The development book is typically kept stable, and is the recommended version of BLFS to use. See http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/download.html > And you wonder why the flow of new users/developers into the project has > tailed off? Releases are _important_. Perhaps to you they are. BLFS is struggling with time constraints on all the editors. I could cut a release right now, but it would be broken with current LFS. There apparently are more issues than you are aware of. > And exists right now in the one big book. Gnome is chapter 29 of the > book, how many of the previous chapters do you need to install first? > Even in the _relevant_ chapters, like 8, do you need libusb? How about > libpthread-stubs? If I recall correctly, Xorg needs those packages, though I am not certain about libusb. > Chapter 10 has xterm, which requires the X libraries from chapter 23. > Chapter 10 also has Xscreensaver which presumably also requires them, > but doesn't say so... We have been really careful to document the dependencies correctly. Do you have any evidence that the version of Xscreensaver in the -dev book requires X libs? > (why chapter 4 on > security isn't in the networking section, I don't know...) Because there are several packages in Chapter 4 that have nothing to do with networking. > What's _left_ that you can't easily ignore should either be a base BLFS > book or folded into LFS itself as an extra section at the end. Folded into LFS will never happen according to LFS doctrine as it stands. LFS is meant to *teach* one how to build a base minimum Linux system from scratch. It is not meant to be a distro, but instead a learning platform in which you can add to it by using the BLFS book. Bruce wrote: >> To suggest multiple books, we need to look at a proposal with what >> packages go in each book. > > That was my first post to this thread. And a very good idea. I wish I had more time to devote to BLFS. I used to commit 20-50 hours/week on BLFS. Life doesn't allow that for me any longer. I do see it changing, however. Bruce wrote: >> That would be quite challenging and I'm sure >> generate a lot of discussion. > > Not so far. Perhaps your idea needed to be repeated. Not everyone reads *every single post* or thread, sometimes it doesn't hurt to bring up a subject again to see if there might be interest. > Great. Why not cut a release? Because it would be broken. And we are not in the habit of releasing a broken book. I do see merit in your idea of splitting things up. That way we could get timely releases out. BLFS has grown leaps and bounds since its inception. It has grown much, much more than LFS. LFS is almost stagnant, other than packages are updated. Yes, occasionally new packages are added to LFS, but only for special situations (GLib, for example). Which brings me to why I keep using the term "a BLFS release would be broken". LFS' version of GLib is not compatible with the version of GTK+ in BLFS. If we updated GTK+ in BLFS, there would be lots and lots of testing to do. Gnome would certainly be broken. I realize you don't care about Gnome; however, others do. And we don't want to release a broken book. Why do you think I started this thread to begin with. It was to foster new ideas and thoughts on how to go forward. I like your idea of multiple books. I just haven't commented due to time constraints. Hopefully my remarks are taken by you to be constructive and with heartfelt meaning, and not just trying to pacify you. It is not like there are many developers. Go ahead and look over at CBLFS, there are lots of combinations of packages that will not work together peacefully. I'm not sure a wiki is the way to go, there needs to be some checks and balances to ensure that the instructions are correct and compatible with everything else in the book. Which leads me to: What if we do split the book up into several books? It would be easy enough, but then we would still have the problems that some of the books would be broken. Thanks Rob, for your insightful and thoughtful comments. I have read them all. Let's continue to discuss. I know I can commit some time, DJ checks in now and then, Wayne updates occasionally, but we really need many, many more editors. Regards, Randy -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/blfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
