> On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 7:28 AM, Alexander E. Patrakov > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> Dan Nicholson wrote: >> > On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 8:15 PM, Alexander E. Patrakov >> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> Dan Nicholson wrote: >> >> > You really need gawk, not mawk. >> >> >> >> Then please add gawk and bison in Chapter 5 before binutils, to >> accomodate >> >> Debian-based LiveCDs and PCLinuxOS, respectively. >> > >> > The host requirements specify _Gawk_ 3.0. I really would prefer people >> > just check the host requirements instead of shoehorning temporary >> > packages at the beginning of the chapter. For an automated >> > environment, maybe, but it would just be clutter in the book. >> >> For a regular distro, I would agree. For a third-party LiveCD, I >> disagree. > > I still don't think instructions should be special for this situation. > If you chose a host that doesn't provide the necessary development > environment and doesn't provide the means to acquire the necessary > environment, then that probably wasn't the best choice. Instead, I'd > rather that the hostreqs page said "If you're host doesn't contain the > necessary requirements and doesn't provide a means to acquire them, > see the instructions in Ch. 6 as a guide to building them." > > Today it's bison and gawk. Maybe tomorrow it's make or flex. The > entire point of the Host System Requirements page is to establish a > baseline from where to start. I don't think it's wise to start adding > workarounds for that unless there's a really compelling reason. IMO, > these are compelling enough reasons.
I think that the spirit of the Linux From Scratch project needs to be protected here. You should choose what you are trying to sell here, either the user can start with bare minimum or not. In my case I fell that all you need is some libs and a compiler and then you can build the rest yourself. Building make and bison and flex with a default install into /usr/local is trivial. There is no valid reason why the basic bare minimum requirements can not be dropped down to a compiler and maybe make. Nothing more is needed. The other alternative is that people just install Ubuntu or Debian or Fedora Core or Solaris and never look back again. What is Linux From "Scratch" all about? Linux From "Some Distro" ? Dennis -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ Unsubscribe: See the above information page
