Dear List,
I present a few nits I have picked out of the
hair of blfs-6.1-pre1 (the book):
I've decided to send this collection as it is rather than wait for
"completion". I dare say I will find others later.
6.58.1
"compliment" should be "complement"
Preface.2 (gosh, a preface with numbered sections!)
"principle" should be "principal"
Preface.7 refers to
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/errata-6.1-pre1/
which seems not to exist (!)
1.1 refers to "SuSE", which is now "SUSE". This makes no
particular sense (the "u" is for "und"), but there it is.
It also refers to "Mandrake", which is now "Mandriva".
Both changes are recent enough to be confusing, so I don't
suggest removing the old names yet, but the new names
should be listed with the old names as alternatives.
Yes, if you merely change "SuSE" to "SUSE" I shall
complain about that too. I'm like that.
Actually disputed, though for no good reason:
[I'm illiterate, and that makes me part of a MAJORITY, so THERE dept.]
The word is "programme". Yes, it really is, unless you
are writing American. It is a curiosity of the LFS book
that it's not instantly obvious whether it's written in
American English or not. The use of "alternative"
suggests that it isn't mid-American, though it could
still be from darkest New England. On the other hand,
you have "stabilized" rather than "stabilised".
For the rest of us:
"Program" is merely an American (mis-)spelling,
adopted by people who failed to know better.
Grim determination to believe that there *must*
be a justification for what one finds oneself
doing can lead people into odd places. Washing-
machines have programmes; VCRs have programmes;
why is a computer different? Likewise with "disk"
and "disc", though "disk" has slightly better
claims as a once-unobjectionable spelling now
discarded.
More disputable:
Preface.1
"for awhile": "awhile" is an adverb - "for a while" is the adverbial
*phrase* (with just about the same meaning).
People who think that "everyday" is an adverb will very
likely disagree. What odd people...
"alternate" occurs in a few places, where "alternative" would be better
(and more consistent: "alternative[ly]" is the preponderating
form). Just change them all to "alternative"...
Preface.5
I prefer "fixed-width text" to "fixed width text".
People seem to find hyphens very confusing.
1.4.2
I prefer "configuration problems" to "configure problems",
and "compilation problems" to "compile problems".
4.1
I prefer "re-enter" to "reenter", though not by much.
(also in 6.61 and 6.62)
4.6, and _passim_:
I prefer "test-suite" to "test suite", though not by much.
I actively dislike using verbs as nouns as attributive
adjectives, but mere nouns as attributive adjectives
rattle my teeth less.
Just a thought:
6.46.1
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but wouldn't it be
safer to patch gzexe.in *before* invoking './configure'? It
seems to work as it is, but this could easily break in the
future.
The GCC build steps (5.4, 5.11, 6.14)
It may be useful to warn people who like GCC Ada that they will
be in trouble if they don't build the Ada components of GCC
in chapter 5 *and* chapter 6! From GCC 3.0 onwards, the GCC
Ada front end has included Ada code. Moreover, the code now
uses GCC extensions, so you need GNAT 3.14 or GCC >= 3.1
for the current version.
I may be missing something, but there doesn't seem to be an
obvious way to build using GCC and a separate Ada compiler,
such as one built with a different GCC version. The GCC
installation instructions imply it's possible, but offer no
help. I suppose I should investigate this myself.
Bootstrapping requires
(a) adjoining a sufficiently recent GNAT version to a
sufficiently recent GCC to use as a bootstrap compiler
(but how?)
or
(b) an existing build of GCC with Ada
or
(c) (i) bootstrapping GCC in an early version, e.g.
gcc-2.95.3, with at least C and Ada enabled
(ii) using this to bootstrap a recent, but not
current, GCC (e.g., gcc-3.4.1) with C and Ada
enabled
Use this GCC version to bootstrap the desired version of
GCC, with at least C and Ada: e.g., for the Phase 1
bootstrapping of GCC in 5.4
The Phase 2 build in 5.11 should then enable Ada as well as C and
C++.
Finally, the build in 6.14 may as well enable everything
you want. If you build C, C++ and Ada then you won't
save much by omitting f77, objc and treelang, but if you
don't want gcj then you can spare yourself a lot of building
time and space by omitting that - not that the VM is very
large, but the Java libraries are (very).
***************************
Finally, I'd like to say how impressed I am with the quality of
the writing, and the general will-to-accuracy. Observing the
many, many careful improvements even between 6.0 and 6.1 warms
the cockles of my heart to only a little below freezing-point.
If I ever tire of the universe and sweep it into oblivion, it
may perhaps console you to think that you have deferred this
by a few minutes.
Bernard Leak.
--
Before they made me, they broke the mould
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