Out of pure curiosity, I decided to dig into Linux From Scratch in February 2019, thinking it was time to create my own distribution, just in case the Internet actually gets disconnected and existing GNU/Linux distributions can’t install packages without it.
First, I built the base system following the LFS book. Everything worked, but thinking that a bare Linux console is a sad sight, I started working on Xorg. To install Xorg on the base system, a bunch of packages need to be installed according to the BLFS book. Manual package installation is fine, but a helper is needed. Thus, the idea of creating a service that helps assemble packages was born.
The essence of the service is as follows: there’s a specific site on a LAMP stack that is associated with a database of packages and generates Bash installation scripts instead of HTML pages. The database holds information about packages, dependencies, and patches.
Initially, I used the service to install mc. Surprisingly, the dependencies resolved, the sources built, and installed correctly. Then I tackled Xorg, which also compiled successfully. However, when I tried to build GNOME, I encountered a surprise: a dependency on rust via librsvg. This problem is dedicated to the April post 'A Good Thing Will Not Be Called Rusty.'
Realizing that things were bleak with GNOME, I turned to MATE, but it also turned out to depend on librsvg. After MATE, I moved on to LXDE, and surprisingly, everything worked, albeit with minor errors (poor rendering of controls and missing icons in the windows).
In trying to resolve the button issues, I looked at previous versions of librsvg, hoping to find a version for GCC. To my surprise, it turned out that earlier versions of the package were written for GCC. After successfully compiling a previous version of librsvg, I installed the gnome-icon-theme-symbolic package. And the issue with icons in the windows was resolved.
If the button problem was solved, then the MATE environment should also install. And it did. The MATE environment was built and installed successfully.
I installed programs and games, resulting in a quite functional and even comfortable graphical environment. Of course, there are issues and shortcomings, but for a solo maintainer, it’s just an excellent outcome.
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Source: habr.com
