Category: LFS

Status report on the computer:

I now have Xfce4 installed and working. The system is running much more smoothly, and is much easier to use now that I have a complete desktop environment in place, instead of the addhock measures I was using while I built it to that point.

Next, I think I will install kate or gedit before moving on to install anything else. Vim is great. It is an awesome console based editor, but I like to be able to point and click. I have gotten used to GUI based text editors, and they make things much easier for me. I think I actually like kate a bit better than gedit, because of it’s extendibility.

After I install kate, I will check over all the dependencies and install Gimp, Ogre, and Blender. That order may be best for completeness.

After that, I will install OpenOffice.org 2.x, and that will bring me up to speed with the minimum requirements I posted in my prior post.

From there I will research into other graphics programs, and perhaps music creation programs. I will see what I find. 🙂

Ok, this is what I have been up too, and what my status is.

I have been doing a total rebuild of the Linux system on my laptop.

    “What distro is the lazy blogger using this week?” one might ask.

    “Why LFS of course!”

Now, for those who know what LFS is, the thought of attempting it on a mostly modern laptop probably seems a little foolish.  For those who don’t know what it is, check out The LFS Website.  It is a great concept, but not for the squeamish or weak of heart.

Imagine, installing Linux on your computer without a package manager such as emerge or apt.  For that matter, imagine installing Linux on your computer without a distro all together.  >:P  That my friend is the point to LFS.  Linux From Scratch is a guide to building a functional GNU/Linux system from the ground up.  The first step is to build a temporary tool chain, then use it to chroot into a encapsulated environment and build the system from the bottom up starting with glibc, and the compiler package and going from there.

It is not as hard as it sounds, but the initial setup from c-lib to X is time consuming.  Now for the status report:

My system will now boot, and load into Xorg with twm (Tab Window Manager).  It is a rather horrid looking interface, but it works.  The only glitch I am now having is that my touchpad works just fine, but the USB mouse I am trying to use is not properly detecting.  Everything else seems fine.

The next step of course is to get that mouse to work.  After the mouse is working, I will move on to installing the GTK libraries and their dependencies.  From there I will move on to install Xfce and it’s dependencies.  Hopefully by the time I  have GTK working properly, I will have most of those covered already.

Of course somewhere in there, I will install FireFox, just as quick as all of it’s dependencies are met.  I may even make it higher priority than Xfce.  As I said, twm is rather horrid to look at, but it is sufficiently functional for my purposes for the moment.  However, once I have installed Xfce, and maybe Window Maker, I will likely never log into twm again unless I absolutely have to for some bizarre reason.

Once I get the above items installed and functioning, I intend to insure that Mesa is functional, and then install the newest stable versions (and in some cases the development versions) of my favorite office and graphical apps.

Packages I intend to install (at a minimum):

OpenOffice.org (Newest stable release)

Ogrelib (Newest stable release)

Blender (Newest available release)

Gimp (Newest Stable)

Before installing Blender of course, I will insure that my Python interpreter is up to date.

My goal is to have my development environment properly set up before I go offline the next time.   The next offline period may be a long one.  Having a proper development environment to play with will help to keep me distracted. 🙂