From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from r3-19.sinamail.sina.com.cn (r3-19.sinamail.sina.com.cn [202.108.3.19]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 9A9A53019A6 for ; Sun, 17 May 2026 22:24:05 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=202.108.3.19 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1779056649; cv=none; b=iO5yxMIEdQc+XAualRBl/RKsB+Sq8DhUkAwqCZ8R2fFVIdSKVKJqpJicm92ArYbcxV96KDSCMGdZdLwCH72LWxI8T5ollQ1lKhlS1mBiUXU29adprmQ2Uiey7eyIOxyvnKEIHqGN5FG6+jnuAMLlbl65a5JUONFbj+BJFJ5ycS0= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1779056649; c=relaxed/simple; bh=mQ1IzJauxxLmfep97Ub3KVMJcXlaX7oC/C3QyYXK8fw=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:Message-ID:In-Reply-To:References: MIME-Version; b=MzhRyrNsRToWl6vNe0+lkaQvZbTWL0tVRypjPCfoGonVkpaFEPC2QkUPrikdgUANBV5Ps64XwKO5K7eqDmnspVFOcuIh3yYhl+07os7srTV4oraygzCZ23xORG8hkJ/H83SJ76ZYP7dsaT5Bu4a7uo9RTyGOPbPePnmZ08P+2zs= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=sina.com; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=sina.com; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=sina.com header.i=@sina.com header.b=xK1A+CaR; arc=none smtp.client-ip=202.108.3.19 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=sina.com Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=sina.com Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=sina.com header.i=@sina.com header.b="xK1A+CaR" DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=sina.com; s=201208; t=1779056645; bh=mQ1IzJauxxLmfep97Ub3KVMJcXlaX7oC/C3QyYXK8fw=; h=From:Subject:Date:Message-ID; b=xK1A+CaR5tODtAVyAUS3uTykl2uhrAz6Q5Ne8GFOrwJG8ch0d0IrQ5bD+ptCKugoL zXDypoeduAq16uD1lRM0GtwASxh3XPZiVI7u8k0WnAFVb7TudN0C9NCD4W5xDYRCEe +raesuZ/P4KDj+t/Obt3OTAgK3XfQs1Y/CaLT2wk= X-SMAIL-HELO: localhost.localdomain Received: from unknown (HELO localhost.localdomain)([114.249.62.144]) by sina.com (10.54.253.32) with ESMTP id 6A0A3FFA00004335; Sun, 18 May 2026 06:23:55 +0800 (CST) X-Sender: hdanton@sina.com X-Auth-ID: hdanton@sina.com Authentication-Results: sina.com; spf=none smtp.mailfrom=hdanton@sina.com; dkim=none header.i=none; dmarc=none action=none header.from=hdanton@sina.com X-SMAIL-MID: 8544854456644 X-SMAIL-UIID: 500A30E3A73A406AB70907333A5E86F1-20260518-062355-1 From: Hillf Danton To: Dovnar Ilya Cc: torvalds@linux-foundation.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Academic acceptance of custom LFS & kernel builds for student developers Date: Mon, 18 May 2026 06:23:43 +0800 Message-ID: <20260517222346.775-1-hdanton@sina.com> In-Reply-To: References: Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Sun, 17 May 2026 22:24:32 +0300 Dovnar Ilya > Hi Linus and the LKML community, > I am a 16-year-old student from Russia. Recently, I spent a year > studying the internal architecture of GNU/Linux distributions, which > culminated in building a complete Linux From Scratch (LFS) system and > manually compiling a custom-configured kernel from source for my > college project. > Unfortunately, my college administration completely rejected my work, > stating it has no practical value. At the same time, they highly > praised and accepted a project from another student that simply > focused on "Windows registry optimization and overclocking software > presets." > Since the academic board lacks low-level engineering experience, they > only care about visible UI changes rather than deep architectural > work. Could you please share your thoughts or brief advice on how a > young developer can technically prove the sheer volume of work behind > building an LFS system and configuring a kernel from scratch? What > technical metrics or artifacts are the most undeniable proof of > competency in the Linux kernel community? Like Equestrianism, archery, or playing basket ball or football or Swan Lake by fiddling a violin or watercolor painting, playing linux at best makes you happy two hours or a whole afternoon, instead of rich, famous and competitive in any shape. That is all. Or fortrunately enough playing linux may help you earn two pieces of bread a day, not including a pinch of salt. Feel free to turn to Alexey Kuznetsov (grep -nr Kuznetsov net/sched) for any thing else. > Thank you for your time and for inspiring young engineers to look > under the hood of operating systems. > Best regards, > [Dovnar Ilya]