Re: Learning Linux from scratch

barsalou wrote:
> Damien has mentioned that he is going through LFS and building linux
> from scratch. This is a worthy exercise and anyone wanting to learn
> about Linux from the ground up will be happy they made the trip.
>
> Additionally, since putting the Nevaeh vmplayer appliance on
> ftp.aklug.org, it seems a few of you have downloaded it and only one
> has said they started it and played with it a little.
>
> I'd like to start a series, via e-mail to work with this distribution.
> From my perspective, it's claim to fame is that it is small, versatile
> and aimed at folks wanting to learn linux but also want a production
> level (at least for the server) OS.
>
> Some of Nevaeh's main features are that everything is kept as close to
> the minimum as possible but never cutting you off from expanding things.
>
> If this sounds interesting to you folks, let me know, and I'll put an
> outline together and we can get started.
>
> One question you might ask is, what in the world would you want to use
> such a bare bones distro, when you have Fedora, Suse, Ubuntu?
>
> The simple answer is, I don't want to become a Microsoftie of Linux. I
> think it is awesome that all the neat GUI tools that are out there and
> make my desktop easy to use. But I also want to be able to manipulate
> these things at a closer to the hardware level.
>
> Maybe this doesn't interest everyone....I'm fairly certain about that,
> but hopefully it will provide an avenue of appreciation for all the
> work that distros like Fedora, Suse and Ubuntu do for us.
>
>

I wanted to respond to this last night, but decided to download the
vmware image and run it to see how things were before I ran my mouth
off. Having downloaded, booted, and played around with nevaeh, I can now
run my mouth off.

Regarding nevaeh:
____________________
I think the complete lack of any email threads about nevaeh speaks
volumes. Out of the entire lug, I have only heard two people speak
about it until today: Mike Barsalou and Shane Spencer. Continuing to
push nevaeh, which is small, managed and updated by one user, and
un-documented, would be a disservice to people at aklug as well as
anybody who might stop by for a meeting while it is being worked on. It
is tiny, yes, and directed, yes, but for 99.999% of users, it is
uninviting, unintuitive, and bested by preexisting distributions.
There's nothing that nevaeh does that gentoo does not; and gentoo has
reams of documentation in multple languages as well as many enthusiasts
more than willing to hold a user's hand through problems. There are
forums and IRC people waiting to help people through with any problems
that might not be already discussed and solved and documented.

Regarding being closer to hardware:
________________________________________

If one wants to be closer to hardware, then Linux From Scratch is what
you're looking for. Neveah seems no closer to the hardware than gentoo,
and gentoo is a lot more user friendly. I haven't used linux from
scratch, but from what I've read it is very involved and very informative.

Regarding being Microsoftie:
__________________________________

Seriously now, that's a deliberate attempt to drive a wedge between
linux users. It creates two tiers of users, "those people" an the
elite. And that pisses me off. I cannot stand "measuring contests",
and I get irritated when people "pull rank" when people ask questions.
Just because someone doesn't use nevaeh, Gentoo, or Linux From Scratch,
or hasn't been using linux for 10 years doesn't mean they are a
microsoftie. It means they don't want to wait forever for their system
to finish building, don't want to have to tinker with config files to
get X to show up. I personally have things to do, which is why I use
Ubuntu. With a few commands and a CD, I can get up and running within 2
hours, preserving my old home directory, all necessary configurations
and packages. I got sick of waiting 40 hours for my gentoo build to
complete to the point where I could *begin* configuring the beast. And
I used gentoo for a number of years (even went so far as to start
installing it in production.)

In summation:
__________________
1. Stop pushing nevaeh. It seems as if there is only one interested
user in the entire LUG.
2. If we're going to push "low-level" or whatever, push a more
widely-supported distro: gentoo,linux from scratch, or another.
3. Let's not create classes of users. The best linux advocates (and
most helpful people) don't give a rat's behind as to how many years
you've put in, how many distros you've ran, or how many computers you
run linux on. They'll answer your question without being derisive no
matter how stupid the question, and will help you learn as much as
possible in the process. People with one more day's experience is often
all someone needs to figure something out. The worst linux advocates
and least helpful people are the elitists. "I put in my time, you can
go RTFM for all I care", or "I don't use that newb distro, go find
somebody who does" seems to be very predominant among these users and
tend to not only scare people off, but turn them vehemently against linux.

Disclaimer:
______________
I do not speak for everyone. My comments regarding nevaeh are my own,
although I believe the amount of chatter about nevaeh justifies summary
point #1. Perhaps there's nonstop chatter at the meetings about it,
but I haven't been able to make as many because I moved out of
Anchorage, and can only stop by once a month or so.

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Received on Wed Mar 14 13:51:52 2007