I made a "linux from scratch" years ago and sometimes i consider doing it again (this time i will try to write some scripts to automate some things so it can be easier to update stuff)... but last time i did that was many years ago and i do not remember needing much more than automake. The modern proliferation of build tools makes me think that i'll end up wasting more space on auxiliary tools than on the actual software and libraries i want to build myself.

How founded are my fears? :-P