LFS size and hardware requirements

[Dennis Clarke]

> Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:
>> No, learning must be gradual, the reader must see a trouble-free
>> book first and _then_ experiment.
>>
> Learning is gradual, but is almost never trouble-free. A child learning
> to walk stumbles countless times before achieving balance and poise. I
> have stumbled quite a bit with LFS and even used an old Pentium machine
> as a learning platform. If someone can build LFS in 8-12 hours,
> perfectly and in a single session the very first time, it seems to me
> that either they're already experts or very lucky and haven't learned
> much from the experience.

I am very very slowly working my way through the JH branch with a very very
small PowerPC based machine.

http://www.blastwave.org/dclarke/efika/efika_002_m.jpg

This little thing has 128 MB of memory and a 5400 rpm laptop type Seagate
drive on it. I am in chapter 5, well I just finished chapter 5 actually. I
am connected to it via a serial line console and I have a DEC VT220 Terminal

vesta:~# uptime
 12:25:24 up 11 days,  1:02,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
vesta:~# who
root     ttyPSC0      2008-04-07 17:56
vesta:~#
vesta:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
cpu             : G2_LE
clock           : 396.000000MHz
revision        : 1.4 (pvr 8082 2014)
bogomips        : 65.53
timebase        : 33000000
platform        : Efika
machine         : EFIKA5K2 CHRP PowerPC System
revision        : 2B3
vendor          : bplan
vesta:~# df -h $LFS
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3             3.9G  3.1G  667M  83% /mnt/lfs
vesta:~#

The process has been, what word shall I use? Slow?

Steady is what it has been and because of the serial console connection I
have recorded the full session of each stage into a log file.

bash-3.2$ ls lfs_log
chap5_adjust_toolchain      chap5_gettext-0.17
chap5_bash-3.2              chap5_glibc_2.7
chap5_binutils-2.18         chap5_grep-2.5.3
chap5_binutils-2.18-pass2   chap5_gzip-1.3.12
chap5_bzip2-1.0.5           chap5_linux-2.6.24.4
chap5_change_ownership      chap5_make-3.81
chap5_coreutils-6.10        chap5_ncurses-5.6
chap5_dejagnu-1.4.4         chap5_patch-2.5.4
chap5_diffutils-2.8.1       chap5_perl-5.8.8
chap5_e2fsprogs-1.40.6      chap5_sed-4.1.5
chap5_findutils-4.2.33      chap5_tar-1.19
chap5_gawk-3.1.6            chap5_tcl8.4.18
chap5_gcc-4.2.3             chap5_texinfo-4.11
chap5_gcc_4.2.3_pass2       chap5_util-linux-ng-2.13.1

I can tell you that the second build of GCC was about twelve hours. The
testsuite was another twelve to sixteen. I don't know which and I may be
guessing.  Everything works as is should and I am about to venture into
Chapter 6.

As a personal note, I can tell you that I do have access to some really
screaming fast hardware but where is the fun in that? That is like showing
up at a community racetrack with a Maserati MC12 and it will be fancy and
slick for some people to look at but no one is really impressed. If you can
push an old 1976 Ford Pickup truck over the quarter mile un less than 12
seconds then you have done something interesting there. Perhaps even
bizarre.

I am doing my first LFS build in five or six years and I chose this little
ppc unit to do it with. Because of what LFS is really about, to me, is
learning and seeing each piece along the journey.

Dennis Clarke