For those who prefer to build their own version of Linux, the Linux From Scratch project has released their latest offering, version 12.0. The latest iteration has been released along with Beyond Linux From Scratch 12.0, which includes a systemd variant.

The latest release updates a number of packages including GCC 13.2, Glibc 2.38, GNU Binutils 2.41, and the Linux 6.4.12 upstream kernel. In fact, you'll find 38 packages were updated since the last release. Other updates include libxcrypt and the new Python module flit-core.

As well, Linux From Scratch now makes use of pkgconf (in place of pkg-config), which is an application that helps to configure compiler and linker flags for development libraries.

There was one major deprecation notice announced with LFS 12.0, which is that future versions of BLFS will remove the LXDE Desktop environment and the Reiser file system, both of which are no longer maintained.

Linux From Scratch isn't just a system for building your own Linux distribution. It's also a book (or a collection of books) that provides step-by-step instructions for building your own, customized Linux distribution.

You can read the new Linux From Scratch 12.0 book on line or download a PDF version.