#HACKATH0N [2.5]: Meet up of the Backbenchers

Mark this day, an example of destiny. Only the backbenchers of the BD-LFS group met up today. Somehow the good boys didn't show up. Robin Bhai had leg pain due to dancing rehearsals. Kabir Bhai had set foot for the meet up only to find himself hurt in the leg and returning home. We almost thought today should be announced "Leg Injury Day" but didn't do so because Tapan bhai didn't show up without reporting any leg injury. All in all we just had one mentor #R!NE to lead us to the same level as the regular good guys.


We ended up doing the things that #Hackathon-2 had left us with. Me and RINE were not present in that due to personal issues. So, I just made the best use of this day to improve my knowledge and sync up with the rest of the group.

Initially we had problems regarding VM setup which was almost dragging us towards failure. But somehow, by the hand of God we recovered from that state after me, Rahid Bhai and Mamun Bhai managed to build the systems up. We ended up creating the LFS system's base camp for compilation and tool sets. It was fun and in between Rine was helping us understand the concepts that were in play with what we were doing.

We shared a lot about our experiences with different OS setups. I liked the way we shared knowledge about shells. Came to know about some of those from Mamun bhai.

Particularly, the venue this time was Sphinx Corporations. Shihan Bhai's new software company. We had a great venue indeed since the sitting arrangements allowed us to really enjoy the mash up. The lunch was fun too since there was great gossip and knowledge sharing. All in all it was awesome, for the Backbenchers ;p

Participants:

1. Tafhim (Me)
2. Rine (Rine Toufique Anam)
3. Mamun bhai (Abdullah al Mamun)
4. Rahid bhai (Rahid Hasan)
5. Aman bhai (Md. Aman Ullah)

Topics covered:

1. Preparing LFS Partition
2. Setting up LFS usergroup and account
3. Compiled BinUtils (First phase)
4. Compiled GCC (First phase)

Issues:

1. VBox machine setup [20 GB Partition, 2 GB swap, 8 GB Host OS, 10 GB LFS Partition
2. Dependency resolving issue during G++, GAWK, BISON installation. Fixed by choosing an Australia based server. Even though using "Choose the best server" solved the slow download issue but it doesn't always choose a repo that can resolve all dependencies. We tried different repos and had zero dependency issues of packages using Australian servers.
3. In case of slow download speed of packages you should change your repo and choose a good one using Synaptic
4. We primarily came to a unified decision to arrange the next Hackathon atleast 1 and 1/2 months from today so that all of us can complete the LFS book before that.

Target of the next Hackathon (3): Start [B/C]LFS

[LFS] Hackathon 001 - A hacker's day out

I attended in Bangladesh's first ever Hackathon on Linux From Scratch today. A whole night inter city travel and we were at the very first phenomenal arrangement of Hacking Linux. Some of the craziest Linux enthusiasts met up at Ankur ICT Development there. Our favorite MAK Bhai (Mahey Alam Khan), Shihan Bhai and new Hacker Robin Mehdee and a bunch of other awesome Linux enthusiasts including my friends Saadi and Ri Ne.

Although we had planned for a whole LFS completion throughout the day, we ultimately ended up only compiling the Linux kernel. Today what we really gained from the meet up are:

1. Ideas about conducting a successful Hackathon (on LFS)
2. Suggestions about what to do on the next Hackathon
3. Ultimate goal of the LFS Hacking project
4. Gained insights on the Linux building method
5. Some great ideas about projects (using LFS) other than building a distro. Some of them are

• Building lightweight OS for POS (Point of sales) systems
• An OS for ATM Booths that doesn't use the extra payload of Windows XP, built entirely from LFS project
• A Library system built on LFS

Shihan bhai talked about taking over the IT sector by pure enthusiastic and passionate IT lovers from unethical administrators. MAK bhai pointed out how robustly developed system can change the outlook of people towards the underrated IT sector of Bangladesh. We also heard some great stories on Hackathons outside the country where people actually focus on the fun of gossiping about geeky and on the spot hacks rather than waste useless time on formalities of events. We all agreed upon how Hackathons should be like. Hackathons should be like a breeding ground of new ideas, hacks, productive usage of the topics under consideration rather than going round and round on the formalities of the events.

We compiled a Linux Kernel from source and talked about problems experienced during compilation. During compilation various issues such as toolchain problems, cyclic execution of the compilation process etc might take place.

Shihan bhai also showed us why the Kernel is actually called the heart of OS. He explained in depth about booting, master boot records, execution of instructions by the OS etc.

The commands used during the compilation of the kernel are: 

Install qemu
  sudo apt-get install qemu
Install Busybox
  sudo apt-get install busybox
Install Clibs: glibs, ulibc
  sudo apt-get install linux-libc-dev libucommon3
Check CPU
  cat /proc/cpuinfo
Download & extract kernel to /usr/src/
  uname -r
Move to linux kernel folder
  sudo nano Makefile
Change EXTRAVERSION to ‘uname -r’ value
  sudo make mrproper
  sudo make mproper
  sudo make oldconfig
  sudo cp /boot/config-3.2.0-23-generic-pae .config
  sudo make prepare
  sudo make allnoconfig
  sudo make menuconfig
  sudo make