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How to Build Your Own Linux DistributionBy Frank Pohlmann2005-07-06 
Why UNIX internals matter
Different Unix kernels do not agree on much apart from what could be described as a certain family resemblance. The various UNIX flavors have an advantage, though, that Linux seems to lack: All UNIX flavors are supposed to be full operating systems. Linux, often described as "just a kernel" (an arbitrary definition if ever there were one), presents a core of common functionality and implementations that do not change fundamentally whether the kernel runs on an underpowered Pentium® II machine or on a Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) system. To simplify matters even more, one could say that the further you get from a Linux kernel, the more variety you're likely to find, while UNIX systems tend to be diverging implementations of various UNIX/POSIX standards. Things are never quite as simple as that. Inspecting Linux kernel and system-level code is likely to be a time-intensive affair and of somewhat limited use in the real world. The LFS project aims to remedy the problem of limited system-level intelligibility on Linux. The very fact that the kernel needs a large number of libraries and tools to get a Linux system to perform even basic tasks has been commented upon, but what if a somewhat more sophisticated user who has a slim-line Linux distribution does not like to download several gigabytes of binaries that lock him out of any chance to optimize a system and do not allow him to throw out all those pesky, unnecessary tools? What if a very sophisticated user refuses to accept the diktat of various community distributions and wants to run a Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP (LAMP)-type application stack from a CD? LFS comes to the rescue. Tutorial Pages: » Go to the source to learn Linux basics and build the right Linux for you » Why UNIX internals matter » Linux From Scratch » Beyond LFS » Hardened LFS » The growing LFS family » Resources First published by IBM DeveloperWorks
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