Comment by Intermernet

As someone who started using Linux in 1996 (Slackware, of course), I learnt the hard way about compiling packages. I remember trying to compile the kernel, and doing "make config" and following hundreds of options, and not knowing that I then needed to do "make" or "make zimage" or "make install" after any of the config stuff. Obvious, dumb, rookie errors, but still understandable for a teenager coming from Windows. Doing LFS really taught me a lot about dependencies and complexity, as well as understanding of the actual boot process. All of this helped me greatly in later years.