Re: Future direction for LinuxFromScratch

Sad news.

I have been using LFS exclusively since before systemd was around and,
for the last few years, using another init system with the sole purpose
of avoiding systemd encroachment via udev.

I understand the workload problem and have always appreciated the work
you guys do but, my personal opinion is that dropping systemd ( and
Gnome and KDE if necessary) would be a better solution.

Once you are comfortable building LFS, most users may have learned
enough to "choose" how they want to continue into the world of BLFS and
not have their path dictated to them.

Please don't interpret this as a criticism of the great work you have
all done.

So long and thanks for the fish.
 

On Sun, 1 Feb 2026 20:08:14 -0600
"Bruce Dubbs" ([email protected] via blfs-support Mailing
List) <[email protected]> wrote:

> With some regret, LFS/BLFS will no longer be developing the System V
> versions of the books.
> 
> There are two reasons for this decision. The first reason is
> workload. No one working on LFS is paid. We rely completely on
> volunteers. In LFS there are 88 packages. In BLFS there are over
> 1000. The volume of changes from upstream is overwhelming the
> editors.  In this release cycle that started on the 1st of September
> until now, there have been 70 commits to LFS and 1155 commits to BLFS
> (and counting). When making package updates, many packages need to be
> checked for both System V and systemd. When preparing for release,
> all packages need to be checked for each init system.
> 
> The second reason for dropping System V is that packages like GNOME
> and soon KDE's Plasma are building in requirements that require
> capabilities in systemd that are not in System V. This could
> potentially be worked around with another init system like OpenRC,
> but beyond the transition process it still does not address the
> ongoing workload problem.
> 
> In the future, the LFS/BLFS 12.4 System V books will continue to be
> available. For the most part newer versions of packages in those
> books will be able to be built with the instructions from there, but
> will not be tested by the LFS editors.
> 
> The next version of LFS/BLFS will be version 13.0 and is currently
> has a target release data of March 1st.
> 
> As a personal note, I do not like this decision. To me LFS is about
> learning how a system works. Understanding the boot process is a big
> part of that. systemd is about 1678 "C" files plus many data files.
> System V is "22" C files plus about 50 short bash scripts and data
> files. Yes, systemd provides a lot of capabilities, but we will be
> losing some things I consider important.
> 
> However, the decision needs to be made.
> 
>    -- Bruce Dubbs
>       linuxfromscratch.org

-- 
http://lists.linuxfromscratch.org/sympa/info/blfs-support
Unsubscribe: See the above information page