So picture this: me, new to Linux, big-brained on caffeine, chest puffed with the pride of a thousand basic terminal commands, thinking “I know Linux. I can ls and cd like a wizard. Time to build my own distro.”
Enter: Linux From Scratch (LFS). The mythical book. The sacred scroll. And by “scroll” I mean a PDF that’s basically 400 pages of “oh you thought it was build time? nah mate, read 12 more chapters about environment variables plus these other 2 books.”
Stage One: Optimism.exe
I download the book. I skim the first few pages. It’s hyping me up—“you’re about to build an operating system from source, hacker-style, no training wheels, just you and the compiler gods.”
I’m in. I spin up a VM. Give it a few GB of space. That’ll do. It's a kernel, how big can it be?
Stage Two: The Partition Saga
40 pages later: the book still hasn’t actually told me to partition anything. Then—sucker punch—“btw you need 10GB for a partition.” I had about 5GB left after the mint install because I jumped the gun.
Me: oh cool, thanks, wish you mentioned that before I already installed Mint three times today like an caffeinated spider-monkey slapping buttons in VirtualBox. (I was working on some other stuff prior to starting LFS)
Stage Three: Hardware Joins the Fight
Meanwhile, I glance at my temps: CPU: 97°C.
I’m smashing yes on prompts left and right while trying to install software to actually control my fans, because of course my Alienware wasn’t built with Linux in mind.
The CPU is basically on fire. My GPU is screaming at me. I'm debating if this is a good time to cook breakfast and maybe just go ahead and throw a pan on the keyboard and crack some eggs.
I'm still not even sure what the issue was.
I prop the laptop up with whatever junk’s on the table. Congrats: instant 20°C drop. True Linux optimization.
Stage Four: Acceptance
By this point, I’ve reinstalled Mint three times, threatened VirtualBox, yelled at the LFS book’s author (who I imagine cackling in a basement surrounded by failed builds), and learned that ext4 is apparently the One True Filesystem unless you like pain.
And I haven’t even compiled a single package yet.
The Moral
Linux From Scratch is not a distro. It’s a rite of passage. A trial by compiler (or CPU induced house fire). It’s the universe asking: “how much tedium can your soul endure before enlightenment?”
So yeah. Will I finish it? Eventually. Will I rage along the way? Absolutely.
But when it boots—when that custom LFS kernel finally whispers login: at me, I’ll know it was worth the blood, sweat, and roasted silicon.
All in all, it more or less went as expected.
Next time on **Me vs LFS: actually making the damn partition without bricking another VM and then MAYBE I can finally compile something.
Curious to hear from anyone else who’s wrestled with LFS, kernel builds, or just Linux that hates you for fun. what’s the worst “why is this on fire?” moment you’ve survived? Drop your war stories in the comments—I’m collecting misery badges.
// Ghotet
Top comments (5)
😂😂😂
No, I have not gone THIS far. Not yet. But thanks. I think shed a tear from laughing. Reminds me of setting up my first ubuntu server for the first time, never having built a server before at that point and configuring the whole thing....
Long story short. It was "interesting"
I tried to run modern ubuntu on a retired office server from 2009 and fortunately i had ok luck with it but it definitely took a lot of trial and error to get it running properly lol.
Im glad you enjoyed the read I do my best to sprinkle some comedy into my writing wherever I can. I was laughing while proof reading it haha
Things just get so insane at a certain point, all you can really do is laugh at the chaos.
Yeah that LFS thing is for experts but I'm nothing if not persistent and I'll figure it out lol. Not today though, I'm trying to give my personal AI the power of actual speech! I'm sure that will also be a headache and I'll probably post about it after.
Can't wait to see what you come up with!