lfs-support

The lfs-support list is the place to get help following the instructions in the LFS Book itself.

If you're finished with the LFS Book, use blfs-support instead.

lfs-dev

The lfs-dev list is for discussion of LFS book development.

lfs-announce

The lfs-announce list is a moderated list for those who want notification of new stable releases without the higher traffic of lfs-dev.

lfs-book

The lfs-book list is used for coordinating the LFS book's maintenance. Traffic on it is mostly Bugzilla and CVS commit messages. It is important that all development discussion of interest to the book's users take place on lfs-dev, not here.

lfs-chat

The lfs-chat list is the place for community chatter. It's a place where anything goes, nothing is off-topic. You can discuss the price of beer or what hardware to buy. Even GNU versus BSD and Microsoft versus Linux flame wars are okay in lfs-chat.

lfs-security

The lfs-security list discusses security issues. Vulnerability alerts, configuration questions, security related packages, and other things to do with secure systems are appropriate on this list.

alfs-discuss

The alfs-discuss list is for discussion of ALFS development.

blfs-dev

The blfs-dev list is for discussion of BLFS book development.

blfs-book

The blfs-book list is used for coordinating the BLFS book's maintenance. Traffic on it is mostly Bugzilla and CVS commit messages. It is important that all development discussion of interest to the book's users take place on blfs-dev, not here.

blfs-support

The blfs-support list is for the BLFS Book and beyond. It includes requests for help following the BLFS Book, requests for help with packages not (yet) in either the LFS Book or the BLFS Book, and other requests and discussion concerning software that might be installed on an LFS system. It does not include topics such as the price of beer, what hardware to buy, or GNU versus BSD or Microsoft versus Linux flame wars. These belong on lfs-chat, and since blfs-support is high traffic, please follow this rule strictly.

Mail archives

All these lists are archived and can be viewed online at http://archive.linuxfromscratch.org/mail-archives or downloaded from http://ftp.linuxfromscratch.org/mail-archives or ftp://ftp.linuxfromscratch.org/mail-archives.

How to post to a list

The post address for a list is in the format of listname@linuxfromscratch.org where listname is one of the above lists names. Example post addresses are lfs-support@linuxfromscratch.org and blfs-support@linuxfromscratch.org.

How to subscribe?

Any of the above-mentioned mailing lists can be subscribed to by sending an email to listar@linuxfromscratch.org and writing subscribe listname as the subject header of the message.

Multiple lists at the same time can be subscribed to by using one email. This is done by leaving the subject blank and putting all the commands in the body of the email. The email will look like:

To: listar@linuxfromscratch.org
Subject:

subscribe lfs-dev
subscribe blfs-support
subscribe alfs-discuss

After the email is sent, the Listar program will reply with an email requesting a confirmation of the subscription request. After this confirmation email is sent back, Listar will send an email again with the message that the user has been subscribed to the list(s) along with an introduction message for that particular list.

How to unsubscribe?

To unsubscribe from a list, send an email to listar@linuxfromscratch.org and write unsubscribe listname as the subject header of the message.

Multiple lists can be unsubscribed at the same time using one email. This is done by leaving the subject header blank and putting all the commands in the body of the email. The email will look like:

To: listar@linuxfromscratch.org
Subject:

unsubscribe lfs-dev
unsubscribe blfs-support
unsubscribe alfs-discuss

After the email is sent, the Listar program will reply with an email requesting a confirmation of the unsubscription request. After this confirmation email is sent back, Listar will send an email again with the message that the user has been unsubscribed from the list(s).

Other list modes

The modes that can be set by a user require sending an email to listar@linuxfromscratch.org. The modes themselves are set by writing the appropriate commands in the subject header of the message.

As the name implies, the Set command tells what to write to set a mode. The Unset command tells what to write to unset a mode.

The word "listname" in the example subject headers below should be replaced with the listname to which the mode is going to be applied. If more than one mode is to be set (to the same list or multiple lists) with one email, this can be done by leaving the subject header blank and writing all the commands in the body of the message instead.

Digests

Set command: set listname digest
Unset command: unset listname digest

All lists have the digest mode available which can be set after a user has subscribed to a list. Being in digest mode will cause you to stop receiving individual messages as they are posted to the list and instead receive one email a day containing all the messages posted to the list during that day.

There is a second digest mode called digest2. When a user is set to this mode he will receive the daily digests but will also continue to receive the individual messages to the lists as they are posted. To set this mode, substitute digest for digest2 in the command.

Vacation

Set command: set listname vacation
Unset command: unset listname vacation

If a user is going to be away for a while or wishes to stop receiving messages from the lists but doesn't want to unsubscribe, he can change to vacation mode. This has the same effect as unsubscribing, but without having to go through the unsubscribe process and then later through the subscribe process again.

Things to mention

Apart from a brief explanation of the problem you're having, the essential things to include in your request are:

• the version of the book you are using (being 4.1),

• the host distribution and version you are using to create LFS from,

• the package or section giving you problems,

• the exact error message or symptom you are receiving,

• whether you have deviated from the book at all.

(Note that saying that you've deviated from the book doesn't mean that we won't help you. After all, LFS is about choice. It'll just help us to see other possible causes of your problem.)

Configure problems

When something goes wrong during the stage where the configure script is run, look at the last lines of the config.log. This file may contain errors encountered during configure which weren't printed to the screen. Include those relevant lines if you decide to ask for help.

Compile problems

To help us find the cause of the problem, both screen output and the contents of various files are useful. The screen output from both the ./configure script and the make run can be useful. Don't blindly include the whole thing but on the other hand, don't include too little. As an example, here is some screen output from make:

gcc -DALIASPATH=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/share/locale:.\" -DLOCALEDIR=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/lib\" -DINCLUDEDIR=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -g -O2 -c getopt1.c gcc -g -O2 -static -o make ar.o arscan.o commands.o dir.o expand.o file.o function.o getopt.o implicit.o job.o main.o misc.o read.o remake.o rule.o signame.o variable.o vpath.o default.o remote-stub.o version.o opt1.o -lutil job.o: In function `load_too_high': /lfs/tmp/make-3.79.1/job.c:1565: undefined reference to `getloadavg' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make[2]: *** [make] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/lfs/tmp/make-3.79.1' make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/lfs/tmp/make-3.79.1' make: *** [all-recursive-am] Error 2

In this case, many people just include the bottom section where it says

make [2]: *** [make] Error 1

and onwards. This isn't enough for us to diagnose the problem because it only tells us that something went wrong, not what went wrong. The whole section, as in the example above, is what should be included to be helpful, because it includes the command that was executed and the command's error message(s).

An excellent article on asking for help on the Internet in general has been written by Eric S. Raymond. It is available online at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html. Read and follow the hints in that document and you are much more likely to get a response to start with and also to get the help you actually need.

Contents of Bash

Last checked against version 2.05a.

bash is the Bourne-Again SHell, which is a widely used command interpreter on Unix systems. The bash program reads from standard input (the keyboard). A user types something and the program will evaluate what he has typed and do something with it, like running a program.

Bash installs the following files:

Bash Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.05a.

Bash: bash, sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib, size
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Gawk: awk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info
Textutils: cat, tr, uniq

Installation of Bash

Before you attempt to install Bash, you have to check to make sure your distribution has the /usr/lib/libcurses.a and /usr/lib/libncurses.a files. If your host distribution is an LFS system, all files will be present if you followed the instructions of the book version you read exactly.

If both of the files are missing, you have to install the Ncurses development package. This package is often called something like ncurses-dev or ncurses-static. If this package is already installed, or you just installed it, check for the two files again. Often the libcurses.a file is (still) missing. If so, create libcurses.a as a symlink by running the following command as user root:

ln -s libncurses.a /usr/lib/libcurses.a

Now we can really start. Prepare Bash to be compiled by running the following command:

./configure --enable-static-link \     --prefix=$LFS/static --with-curses

The meaning of the configure options are:

• --enable-static-link: This option causes the bash program to be statically linked.

• --prefix=$LFS/static: This option installs all of Bash's files under the $LFS/static directory, which becomes the /static directory when chroot'ed or reboot'ed into LFS.

• --with-curses: This option causes bash to be linked against the curses library instead of the default termcap library which has become obsolete. Note, on most all Linux systems, the curses library is provided by the Ncurses package (so in truth we link against the ncurses library).

  It is not strictly necessary for the static bash to be linked against libncurses (it can link against a static termcap for the time being just fine because we will reinstall Bash in Chapter 6 anyway, where we will use libncurses), but it's a good test to make sure that the Ncurses package has been installed properly. If not, you will get in trouble later on in this chapter when you install the Texinfo package. That package requires ncurses, and termcap can't be used there.

Now we can continue with compiling Bash:

make

And finish off the installation by installing Bash:

make install

If the make install phase ends with something along the lines of the following:

install-info: unknown option `--dir-file=/mnt/lfs/usr/info/dir' usage: install-info [--version] [--help] [--debug] [--maxwidth=nnn] [--section regexp title] [--infodir=xxx] [--align=nnn] [--calign=nnn] [--quiet] [--menuentry=xxx] [--info-dir=xxx] [--keep-old] [--description=xxx] [--test] [--remove] [--] filename make[1]: *** [install] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/mnt/lfs/usr/src/bash-2.05a/doc' make: [install] Error 2 (ignored)

then that means that you are probably using Debian-2.2 (potato), and that you have an old version of the texinfo package and the info pages can't be installed at this time. This error is not a problem as the info pages will be installed when we recompile bash dynamically in Chapter 6, so you can ignore it. It is reported that the current release of Debian (3.0; also known as Woody) doesn't have this problem.

Contents of Binutils

Last checked against version 2.12.1.

Binutils is a collection of software development tools containing a linker, assembler and other tools to work with object files and archives.

Binutils installs the following files:

Binutils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.11.2.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, nm, ranlib, strip
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, rmdir, touch
Flex: flex
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: ldconfig
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, true, uname
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, sort, tr, uniq

Installation of Binutils

This package is known to behave badly when you have changed its default optimization flags (including the -march and -mcpu options). Therefore, if you have defined any environment variables that override default optimizations, such as CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, we recommend unsetting or modifying them when building binutils.

It is recommended by the Binutils installation documentation to build Binutils outside of the source directory in a dedicated directory:

mkdir ../binutils-build cd ../binutils-build

Next, prepare Binutils to be compiled:

../binutils-2.13.2/configure --prefix=$LFS/static --disable-nls

The meaning of the (new) configure switches are:

• --disable-nls: This option disables internationalization (also known as i18n). We don't need this for our static programs and nls often causes problems when you're linking statically.

Continue with compiling the package:

make LDFLAGS="-all-static"

The meaning of the make option is:

• LDFLAGS="-all-static": This is how we tell Binutils that all programs should be statically linked. Setting the LDFLAGS variable is the common way of specifying we want a static link to take place, however, its value and the way it is set is not always the same. You'll see with the remaining packages that there are different ways of setting up the LDFLAGS variable.

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Bzip2

Last checked against version 1.0.2

Bzip2 is a block-sorting file compressor which generally achieves a better compression than the traditional gzip does.

Bzip2 installs the following files:

Bzip2 Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.0.1.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Fileutils: cp, ln, rm
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Make: make

Installation of Bzip2

Since the Bzip2 package has no configure script we can't prepare it for compilation. Instead we just run the make program and start compiling, with a few variables changed to suit our environment:

make CC="gcc -static -s"

The meaning of the make option is:

• CC="gcc -static -s": The Bzip2 package does not honour the LDFLAGS variable, so instead we set the CC variable which defines which compiler to use. The -static option tells the compiler to link all programs statically.

And finish off installing the package:

make PREFIX=$LFS/static install

The meaning of the make option is:

• PREFIX=$LFS/static: Instead of passing a --prefix=$LFS/static to a configure script, we set the PREFIX variable to accomplish the same goal (since there is no configure script present).

Contents of Diffutils

Last checked against version 2.8.1.

The programs from this package show you the differences between two files or directories. It's most common use is to create software patches.

Diffutils installs the following files:

Diffutils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.7.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ld, as
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, mv, rm
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: date, hostname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Diffutils

Prepare Diffutils to be compiled:

LDFLAGS="-static" CPPFLAGS=-Dre_max_failures=re_max_failures2 \     ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static --disable-nls

The meaning of the configure options are:

• LDFLAGS="-static": This is the most common way to tell a package that all programs should be statically linked. This way the LDFLAGS environment variable is set, but only in the subshell that the configure script runs in. When configure has done its job, the LDFLAGS environment variable won't exist anymore and the Makefile files contain will contain this variable locally.

• CPPFLAGS=-Dre_max_failures=re_max_failures2: The CPPFLAGS variable is a variable that's read by the cpp program (C PreProcessor). The value of this variable tells the preprocessor to replace every instance of re_max_failures it finds with re_max_failures2 before handing the source file to the compiler itself for compilation. This package has problems linking statically on systems that run an older Glibc version and this construction fixes that problem.

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Fileutils

Last checked against version 4.1.

Fileutils is a package containing basic file manipulation programs. Included are programs to list and create directories, update timestamps, change permissions and so forth.

Fileutils installs the following files:

Fileutils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 4.1.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, rmdir
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
Make: make
Perl: perl
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Fileutils

There is a documented bug with the atexit() function in glibc-2.2.3 when it is compiled with gcc-2.95.3. This bug only occurs on some systems (primarily AMD, but not exclusively). This bug causes segmentation faults in fileutils-4.1 when it is compiled statically. This patch causes on_exit() to be called instead of atexit().

Note that in some cases using this patch will result in not being able to compile this package at all, even when your system has an AMD CPU and has Glibc-2.2.3 (or higher) installed. If that's the case, you'll need to remove the fileutils-4.1 directory and unpack it again from the tarball before continuing. We believe this may be the case when your distribution has altered Glibc-2.2.3 somehow, but the exact details are unknown.

To fix this package to compile properly on AMD/Glibc-2.2.3 machines, run the following command. Do NOT attempt this fix if you don't have Glibc-2.2.3 installed. It will more than likely result in all kinds of compilation problems.

patch -Np1 -i ../fileutils-4.1.patch

Prepare the package to be compiled:

LDFLAGS="-static" \     ./configure --disable-nls --prefix=$LFS/static

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Once you have installed Fileutils, you can test whether the segmentation fault problem has been avoided by running $LFS/static/bin/ls. If this works, then you are OK. If not, then you need to re-do the installation with the patch if you didn't use it, or without the patch if you did use it.

Contents of Findutils

Last checked against version 4.1.

The Findutils package contains programs to find files, either on-the-fly (by doing a live recursive search through directories and only showing files that match the specifications) or by searching through a database.

Findutils installs the following:

Findutils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 4.1.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, mv, rm
Grep: egrep, grep
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Make: make
Patch: patch
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, date, echo, hostname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installing Findutils

The Findutils package is quite old and it has problems compiling against newer Glibc versions (Glibc-2.0.x and up). You need to apply the patch, which fixes the following issues:

• Findutils declares a function called basename, but this function name is already used by the C standard libraries. This patch changes the Findutils version of basename function so that it is called basename2 instead.

• Findutils uses library files in an incorrect way. It declares library functions, to tell the compiler what the name of the function will be when the libraries are linked in. This syntax is invalid and causes compiler warnings/errors. This patch removes this improper syntax.

• Every GNU package is supposed use a macro called _GNU_SOURCE. This macro enables declarations of GNU library extension functions so the compiler will be able to detect name conflicts between functions more easily. This patch adds this macro to the source code.

patch -Np1 -i ../findutils-4.1.patch

Prepare Findutils to be compiled:

CPPFLAGS="-Dre_max_failures=re_max_failures2" \     LDFLAGS="-static" ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Gawk

Last checked against version 3.1.1.

Gawk is an awk implementation that is used to manipulate text files.

Gawk installs the following:

Gawk Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 3.1.0.

(No dependencies checked yet.)

Installation of Gawk

Prepare Gawk to be compiled:

CPPFLAGS=-Dre_max_failures=re_max_failures2 \     LDFLAGS="-static" ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static --disable-nls

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of GCC

Last checked against version 3.1.

The GCC package contains the GNU compiler collection, including the C and C++ compilers.

GCC installs the following files:

GCC Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.95.3.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, nm, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, touch
Find: find
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, dirname, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, true, uname
Tar: tar
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tail, tr

Installation of GCC

We won't be needing a C++ compiler until Chapter 6. So, only the gcc-core tarball needs to be unpacked at this time.

This package is known to behave badly when you have changed its default optimization flags (including the -march and -mcpu options). Therefore, if you have defined any environment variables that override default optimizations, such as CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, we recommend unsetting or modifying them when building GCC.

It is recommended by the GCC installation documentation to build GCC outside of the source directory in a dedicated directory:

mkdir ../gcc-build cd ../gcc-build

Prepare GCC to be compiled:

../gcc-3.2.1/configure --prefix=/static \    --disable-nls --disable-shared \    --with-as=$LFS/static/bin/as \    --with-ld=$LFS/static/bin/ld

The meaning of the configure options are:

• --prefix=/static: This is NOT a typo. GCC hard codes some paths while compiling and so we need to pass /static as the prefix during the configure stage. We will pass the real installation prefix ($LFS/static) during the installation stage later on.

• --disable-shared: This prevents the build of dynamic libraries. They are useless to us at the moment. We'll create them when we reinstall GCC in chapter 6.

• --with-as=$LFS/static/bin/as and --with-ld=$LFS/static/bin/ld: GCC can be miscompiled if your host distribution's Binutils package is quite old. We need a good working static GCC until we reinstall GCC later in chapter 6. So by using as and ld from the Binutils package we compiled earlier in this chapter we ensure that GCC will work correctly.

Continue with compiling the package:

make BOOT_LDFLAGS="-static" bootstrap

The meaning of the make options are:

• BOOT_LDFLAGS="-static": This is GCC's equivalent to make LDFLAGS="-static" as we use with other packages to compile them statically.

• bootstrap: The bootstrap target doesn't just compile GCC, but it compiles GCC a second time. It uses the first compiled programs to compile itself a second and third time to make sure the compiler was compiled properly and can compile itself properly.

And finish off installing the package:

make prefix=$LFS/static install-no-fixedincludes

The meaning of the make option is:

• install-no-fixedincludes: This prevents the fixincludes script from running. Preventing this is necessary because under normal circumstances the GCC installation will run the fixincludes script which scans your system for header files that need to be fixed. It might find that the Glibc header files of your host system need to be fixed. If so, it will fix them and put them in $LFS/static/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.2. Later on in chapter 6 you will install Glibc which will put its header files in /usr/include. Next you will install other programs that use the Glibc headers and GCC will look in /static/lib/gcc-lib before looking in /usr/include, with the result of finding and using the fixed Glibc header files from your host distribution, which are probably incompatible with the Glibc version actually used on the LFS system.

As the finishing touch we'll create the $LFS/static/bin/cc symlink. A lot of programs and scripts try to run cc instead of gcc This is to keep programs generic and usable on all kinds of Unix systems. Not everybody has GNU CC installed. Just running cc (C Compiler) leaves the user free to decide which C compiler to install. The symlink will point to the system's default compiler.

ln -s gcc $LFS/static/bin/cc

Contents of Grep

Last checked against version 2.5.

Grep is a program used to print lines from a file matching a specified pattern.

Grep installs the following:

Grep Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.4.2.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ls, mkdir, mv, rm
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Grep

Prepare Grep to be compiled:

LDFLAGS="-static" CPPFLAGS=-Dre_max_failures=re_max_failures2 \     ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static --disable-nls \     --disable-perl-regexp

The meaning of the configure option is:

• --disable-perl-regexp: This configure option makes sure grep is not linked against the PCRE library, which is often only available as a shared library in distributions. Not using this option might result in a compilation error.

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Gzip

Last checked against version 1.2.4a.

The gzip package contains programs to compress and decompress files using the Lempel-Ziv coding (LZ77).

Gzip installs the following:

Gzip Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.2.4a.

Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld, nm
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, mv, rm
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: hostname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Gzip

Prepare Gzip to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=$LFS/static

Continue with compiling the package:

make LDFLAGS="-static"

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Make

Last checked against version 3.79.1.

Make determines, automatically, which pieces of a large program need to be recompiled and issues the commands to recompile them.

Make installs the following:

Make Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 3.79.1.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chgrp, chmod, install, ls, mv, rm
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Make

Prepare Make to be compiled:

LDFLAGS="-static" ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static --disable-nls

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

During the make install phase you will see this warning:

chgrp: changing group of `/mnt/lfs/static/bin/make': Operation not permitted /mnt/lfs/static/bin/make needs to be owned by group kmem and setgid; otherwise the `-l' option will probably not work. You may need special privileges to complete the installation of /mnt/lfs/static/bin/make.

You can safely ignore this warning. The make program doesn't actually need to be owned by group kmem and setgid for the -l option to work. (This option tells make not to start any new jobs when a certain load on the system has been reached.)

Contents of Patch

Last checked against version 2.5.4.

The patch program modifies a file according to a patch file. A patch file usually is a list, created by the diff program, that contains instructions on how an original file needs to be modified.

Patch installs the following:

Patch Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.5.4.

Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, mv, rm
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: echo, expr, hostname, uname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Patch

Prepare Patch to be compiled:

CPPFLAGS=-D_GNU_SOURCE \     LDFLAGS="-static" ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static

The meaning of the configure option is:

• CPPFLAGS=-D_GNU_SOURCE: This flag fixes installation problems of this package on PPC and m68k platforms (that we know of). It doesn't hurt compilation on other platforms, such as x86, so we do it by default.

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Sed

Last checked against version 3.02.

sed is a stream editor. A stream editor is used to perform basic text transformations on an input stream (a file or input from a pipeline).

Sed installs the following:

Sed Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 3.02.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ls, mv, rm
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: echo, expr, hostname, sleep
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Sed

Prepare Sed to be compiled:

CPPFLAGS=-Dre_max_failures=re_max_failures2 \     LDFLAGS="-static" ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static --disable-nls

Continue with installing the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Sh-utils

Last checked against version 2.0.

The Sh-utils package contains a number of basic shell manipulation utilities.

Sh-utils installs the following:

Sh-utils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.0.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, chown, install, ls, mv, rm
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Perl: perl
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Tar: tar
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Sh-utils

Before Sh-utils is installed, the sh-utils patch file may need to be applied. This patch is needed to avoid a conflict of variable names with certain Glibc versions (usually glibc-2.1.x) when compiling sh-utils statically. It is however safe to apply the patch even if you are running a different glibc version. So, if you aren't sure, it's best to apply it.

patch -Np1 -i ../sh-utils-2.0.patch

Prepare Sh-utils to be compiled:

LDFLAGS="-static" ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static \     --disable-nls

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

During the make install stage you will see the following warning:

WARNING: insufficient access; not installing su NOTE: to install su, run 'make install-root' as root

You can safely ignore that warning. You need to be logged in as root in order to install su the way Sh-utils wants to install it, which is suid root. Because we don't need su during Chapter 6, and su will be properly installed when we re-install Sh-utils in Chapter 6.

Contents of Tar

Last checked against version 1.13.

Tar is an archiving program designed to store and extract files from an archive file known as a tar file.

Tar installs the following:

Tar Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.13.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ls, mv, rm
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Net-tools: hostname
Patch: patch
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Tar

A patch may be applied to give tar direct support for bzip2 files. This patch adds the -j option to tar, which is similar to the -z option used for gzip files.

Apply the patch by running the following command:

patch -Np1 -i ../tar-1.13.patch

Prepare Tar to be compiled:

LDFLAGS="-static" ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static --disable-nls

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Finish installing the package:

make install

Contents of Texinfo

Last checked against version 4.2.

The Texinfo package contains programs used for reading, writing and converting Info documents, which provide system documentation.

Texinfo installs the following:

Texinfo Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 4.0.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep
Texinfo: makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Texinfo

Prepare Texinfo to be compiled:

LDFLAGS="-static" ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static \     --disable-nls

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Finish installing the package:

make install

Contents of Textutils

Last checked against version 2.0.

The Textutils package contains several file manipulation and text processing programs.

Textutils installs the following:

Textutils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.0.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ls, mv, rm
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Net-tools: hostname
Perl: perl
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, sleep, uname
Tar: tar
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Textutils

Prepare Textutils to be compiled:

CPPFLAGS=-Dre_max_failures=re_max_failures2 \     LDFLAGS="-static" ./configure --prefix=$LFS/static \     --disable-nls

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Finish installing the package:

make install

Contents of Util-linux

Last checked against version 2.11t.

The Util-linux package contains a number of miscellaneous utility programs. Some of the more prominent utilities are used to mount, unmount, format, partition and manage disk drives, open tty ports and fetch kernel messages.

Util-linux installs the following:

Util-linux Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.11n.

Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chgrp, chmod, cp, install, ln, mv, rm
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp, cpp0
Glibc: rpcgen
Grep: grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: uname, whoami
Textutils: cat

Installation of Util-linux

Prepare Util-linux to be compiled:

LDFLAGS="-static" ./configure

Begin compiling the package:

make -C lib

We only need the mount and umount programs at the moment, so we won't be compiling the entire package. Compile these two programs by issuing the following command:

make -C mount mount umount

Finish installing these two programs:

cp mount/{mount,umount} $LFS/static/bin

FHS compliance note

We have based our directory tree on the FHS standard (available at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/). Besides the above created tree this standard stipulates the existence of /usr/local/games and /usr/share/games, but we don't much like these for a base system. However, feel free to make your system FHS-compliant. As to the structure of the /usr/local/share subdirectory, the FHS isn't precise, so we created here the directories that we think are needed.

Contents of MAKEDEV

Last checked against version 1.5.

The MAKEDEV script creates the static device nodes which usually reside in the /dev directory. Detailed information about device nodes may be found in the Documentation/devices.txt file under the Linux kernel source tree.

MAKEDEV installs the following:

MAKEDEV Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.5.

Bash: sh
Fileutils: chmod, chown, cp, ln, mknod, mv, rm
Grep: grep
Sh-utils: expr, id

Creating devices

Please note that unpacking the MAKEDEV-1.7.bz2 file doesn't create a directory for you to cd into, as the file contains one shell script.

Install the MAKEDEV script:

cp MAKEDEV-1.7 /dev/MAKEDEV

Prepare the script for execution:

cd /dev && chmod 754 MAKEDEV

Run the script to create the device files:

./MAKEDEV -v generic

If a device you need is missing, try running ./MAKEDEV -v <device>. Alternatively, you may create devices via the mknod program. Please refer to the man and info pages of mknod if you need more information.

If you intend to use devpts, pass the generic-nopty option to MAKEDEV. This creates the same devices as generic, but it skips the creation of pty devices so that devpts can manage those.

Contents of Linux

Last checked against version 2.4.18.

The Linux kernel is at the core of every Linux system. It's what makes Linux tick. When a computer is turned on and boots a Linux system, the very first piece of Linux software that gets loaded is the kernel. The kernel initializes the system's hardware components: serial ports, parallel ports, sound cards, network cards, IDE controllers, SCSI controllers and a lot more. In a nutshell the kernel makes the hardware available so that the software can run.

Linux installs the following files:

Linux Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.4.17.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, nm, objcopy
Fileutils: cp, ln, mkdir, mv, rm, touch
Findutils: find, xargs
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: grep
Gzip: gzip
Make: make
Gawk: awk
Modutils: depmod, genksyms
Net-tools: dnsdomainname, hostname
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, date, expr, pwd, stty, uname, whoami, yes
Textutils: cat, md5sum, sort, tail

Installation of the kernel headers

We won't be compiling a new kernel yet -- we'll do that when we have finished the installation of all the packages. But as some packages need the kernel header files, we're going to unpack the kernel archive now, set it up and copy the header files so they can be found by these packages.

It is important to note that the files in the kernel source directory are not owned by root. Whenever you unpack a package as user root (like we do here inside chroot), the files end up having the user and group IDs of whatever they were on the packager's computer. This is usually not a problem for any other package you install because you remove the source tree after the installation. But the Linux kernel source tree is often kept around for a long time, so there's a chance that whatever user ID the packager used will be assigned to somebody on your machine and then that person would have write access to the kernel source.

In light of this, you might want to run chown -R 0:0 on the linux-2.4.20 directory to ensure all files are owned by user root.

Kernel header installation requires the pwd program. In the kernel source the path to the pwd program is hard-wired as /bin/pwd. Create a symlink to account for that:

ln -s /static/bin/pwd /bin/pwd

Prepare for header installation:

make mrproper

This ensures that the kernel tree is absolutely clean. The kernel team recommends that this command be issued prior to each kernel compilation. You shouldn't rely on the source tree being clean after untarring.

Create the include/linux/version.h file:

make include/linux/version.h

Create the platform-specific include/asm symlink:

make symlinks

Install the platform specific-header files:

cp -HR include/asm /usr/include && cp -R include/asm-generic /usr/include

Install the cross-platform kernel header files:

cp -R include/linux /usr/include

There are a few kernel header files which make use of the autoconf.h header file. Since we do not yet configure the kernel, we need to create this file ourselves in order to avoid compilation failures. Create an empty autoconf.h file:

touch /usr/include/linux/autoconf.h

Since the /bin/pwd symlink we created earlier was only temporary, it can now be removed:

rm /bin/pwd

Why we copy the kernel headers and don't symlink them

In the past it was common practice to symlink the /usr/include/{linux,asm} directories to /usr/src/linux/include/{linux,asm}. This was a bad practice, as the following extract from a post by Linus Torvalds to the Linux Kernel Mailing List points out:

I would suggest that people who compile new kernels should: 

 - not have a single symbolic link in sight (except the one that the 
   kernel build itself sets up, namely the "linux/include/asm" symlink 
   that is only used for the internal kernel compile itself) 

And yes, this is what I do. My /usr/src/linux still has the old 2.2.13 
header files, even though I haven't run a 2.2.13 kernel in a _loong_ 
time. But those headers were what glibc was compiled against, so those 
headers are what matches the library object files. 

And this is actually what has been the suggested environment for at 
least the last five years. I don't know why the symlink business keeps 
on living on, like a bad zombie. Pretty much every distribution still 
has that broken symlink, and people still remember that the linux 
sources should go into "/usr/src/linux" even though that hasn't been 
true in a _loong_ time.

The essential part is where Linus states that the header files should be the ones which glibc was compiled against. These are the headers that should be used when you later compile other packages, as they are the ones that match the object-code library files. By copying the headers, we ensure that they remain available if later you upgrade your kernel.

Note, by the way, that it is perfectly all right to have the kernel sources in /usr/src/linux, as long as you don't have the /usr/include/{linux,asm} symlinks.

Contents of Man-pages

Last checked against version 1.54.

The Man-pages package contains over 1200 manual pages. This documentation details the C and C++ functions, describes a few important device files and provides documents which would otherwise be missing from other packages.

Man-pages installs the following:

Man-pages Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.47.

Bash: sh
Fileutils: install
Make: make

Installation of Man-pages

Install Man-pages by running the following command:

make install

Contents of Glibc

Last checked against version 2.2.5.

Glibc is the C library that provides the system calls and basic functions such as open, malloc, printf, etc. The C library is used by all dynamically linked programs.

Glibc installs the following files:

Glibc Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.2.5.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib, readelf
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, mknod, mv, mkdir, rm, touch
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Gzip: gzip
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: date, expr, hostname, pwd, uname
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, cut, sort, tr

Glibc installation

Before starting to install Glibc, you must cd into the glibc-2.3.1 directory and unpack Glibc-linuxthreads in that directory, not in /usr/src as you would normally do.

This package is known to behave badly when you have changed its default optimization flags (including the -march and -mcpu options). Therefore, if you have defined any environment variables that override default optimizations, such as CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, we recommend unsetting them when building Glibc.

Basically, compiling Glibc in any other way than the book suggests is putting your system at a very high risk.

We'll start by applying a patch that does the following:

• It converts all occurrences of $(PERL) to /usr/bin/perl in the malloc/Makefile file. This is done because Glibc can't autodetect the location of perl because the Perl package hasn't been installed yet. And if Glibc thinks Perl isn't installed, the perl program mtrace won't be installed either.

• It replaces all occurrences of root with 0 in the login/Makefile file. This is done because Glibc itself isn't installed yet and therefore username-to-userid resolving isn't working yet, so a chown root file would fail. Using numeric IDs (as in chown 0 file) works fine.

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.3.1-root-perl.patch

There is a potential problem that causes statically linked binaries to crash that were linked against Glibc-2.2 or older libraries. Even though static binaries have all the necessary parts of Glibc built-in, they still rely on one external library set: Glibc's NSS libraries. These libraries, among other things, tell programs where the system's password database is (in /etc/password, NIS, or whatever other scheme has been configured).

Glibc has undergone some changes since version 2.2.x and the new NSS code is incompatible with the old one. So when Glibc is installed it will install its new NSS libraries, and static programs will load these new NSS libraries and will abort with a segmentation fault error. This patch undoes some of the changes to overcome the problem.

If you started chapter 5 with a host system that uses Glibc-2.2.x or older, you must apply the following patch. We will install Glibc again at the end of this chapter to remove this patch so you'll have a pristine Glibc as the developers intended it.

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.3.1-libnss.patch

Glibc will check for the /etc/ld.so.conf file and abort with an error if the file is missing, so we must create it:

touch /etc/ld.so.conf

The documentation that comes with Glibc recommends to build the package not in the source directory but in a separate, dedicated directory:

mkdir ../glibc-build && cd ../glibc-build

Next, prepare Glibc to be compiled:

../glibc-2.3.1/configure --prefix=/usr \     --disable-profile --enable-add-ons \     --libexecdir=/usr/bin

The meaning of the configure options are:

• --disable-profile: This disables the building of the libraries with profiling information. Omit this option if you plan to do profiling.

• --enable-add-ons: This enables any add-ons that we installed with Glibc, in our case Linuxthreads.

• --libexecdir=/usr/bin: This will cause the pt_chown program to be installed in the /usr/bin directory.

During this stage you will see the following warning:

configure: warning: *** These auxiliary programs are missing or too old: msgfmt *** some features will be disabled. *** Check the INSTALL file for required versions.

The missing msgfmt program (from the Gettext package, which we'll install later) won't cause any problems. The msgfmt is used to generate the binary translation files that can make your system talk in a different language. Because these translation files have already been generated for you, there is no need for msgfmt. You'd only need the program if you change the translation source files (the *.po files in the po subdirectory), which would require you to regenerate the binary files.

Because Glibc hasn't been installed yet, one of the tests that was run by the configure script has failed. This test is supposed to test gcc to determine whether a cross-compiler is installed. However, Glibc needs to be already installed to run this test. Since the test failed, the configure script assumes we have a cross-compiler. We override that assumption by explicitly telling Glibc we're not cross-compiling. Not doing this would have a couple of unintended side effects, such as the timezone files not being installed.

echo "cross-compiling = no" > configparms

Continue with compiling the package:

make

We'll continue with installing the package. The Linuxthreads man pages are not going to be installed at this point because it requires a working Perl installation. We'll install Perl later on in this chapter, and the man pages will be installed when Glibc is installed for the second time at the end of this chapter.

make install

The locales (used by Glibc to make your Linux system talk in a different language) weren't installed when you ran the previous command, so we have to do that ourselves now:

make localedata/install-locales

An alternative to running the previous command is to install only those locales which you need or want. This can be achieved using the localedef command. Information on this can be found in the INSTALL file in the glibc-2.3.1 tree.

To finish off the installation we'll reload Bash so it will use the new libnss_* files. This will also get rid of the I have no name! message in the command prompt:

exec /static/bin/bash --login

Configuring Glibc

We need to create the /etc/nsswitch.conf file, because, although Glibc provides defaults when this file is missing or corrupt, the Glibc defaults don't work well with networking. Also, our timezone needs to be set up.

Create a new file /etc/nsswitch.conf by running the following:

cat > /etc/nsswitch.conf << "EOF" # Begin /etc/nsswitch.conf passwd: files group: files shadow: files publickey: files hosts: files dns networks: files protocols: db files services: db files ethers: db files rpc: db files netgroup: db files # End /etc/nsswitch.conf EOF

To find out what timezone you're in, run the following script:

tzselect

When you've answered a few questions about your location, the script will output the name of your timezone, something like EST5EDT or Canada/Eastern. Then create the /etc/localtime symlink by running:

ln -sf ../usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Eastern /etc/localtime

Of course, instead of Canada/Eastern, fill in the name of the timezone that the tzselect script gave you.

Configuring Dynamic Loader

By default, the dynamic loader (/lib/ld-linux.so.2) searches through /lib and /usr/lib for dynamic libraries that are needed by programs when you run them. However, if there are libraries in directories other than /lib and /usr/lib, you need to add them to the /etc/ld.so.conf file for the dynamic loader to find them. Two directories that are commonly known to contain additional libraries are /usr/local/lib and /opt/lib, so we add those directories to the dynamic loader's search path.

Create a new file /etc/ld.so.conf by running the following:

cat > /etc/ld.so.conf << "EOF" # Begin /etc/ld.so.conf /usr/local/lib /opt/lib # End /etc/ld.so.conf EOF

Contents of GCC

Last checked against version 3.1.

The GCC package contains the GNU compiler collection, including the C and C++ compilers.

GCC installs the following files:

GCC Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.95.3.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, nm, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, touch
Find: find
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, dirname, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, true, uname
Tar: tar
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tail, tr

Installation of GCC

This package is known to behave badly when you have changed its default optimization flags (including the -march and -mcpu options). Therefore, if you have defined any environment variables that override default optimizations, such as CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, we recommend unsetting or modifying them when building GCC.

We will be building the C and C++ compilers at this time, so you'll need to unpack both the gcc-core and gcc-g++ tarballs. Other compilers are available in the full gcc package; instructions for building them may be found at http://beyond.linuxfromscratch.org/view/cvs/general/gcc.html.

It is recommended by the GCC installation documentation to build GCC in a dedicated directory outside of the source tree. Create the build directory:

mkdir ../gcc-build && cd ../gcc-build

Prepare GCC to be compiled:

../gcc-3.2.1/configure --prefix=/usr --enable-shared \     --enable-threads=posix --with-slibdir=/lib \     --enable-__cxa_atexit --enable-clocale=gnu

The meanings of the configure options are:

• --enable-threads=posix: This enables C++ exception handling for multi-threaded code.

• --enable-__cxa_atexit: This option will result in C++ shared libraries and C++ programs that are interoperable with other Linux distributions.

• --enable-clocale=gnu: There is a risk that some people will build ABI incompatible C++ libraries if they didn't install all of the glibc localedata. Using --enable-clocale=gnu ensures that the "right thing" is done in all cases. If you don't wish to use this option, then at least build the de_DE locale. When GCC finds this specific locale, then the correct locale mode (gnu) is implemented.

Continue with compiling the package:

make bootstrap

The bootstrap target doesn't just compile GCC, but it compiles GCC multiple times. It uses the first compiled programs to compile itself a second and third time to make sure the compiler was compiled properly.

Finish installing the package:

make install-no-fixedincludes

Some packages expect the C PreProcessor to be installed in the /lib and /usr/lib directories. To honor those packages, create two symlinks:

ln -s ../usr/bin/cpp /lib && ln -s ../bin/cpp /usr/lib

Many packages compile using cc as the name for the C compiler. To satisfy those packages, create a cc symlink:

ln -s gcc /usr/bin/cc

Contents of Zlib

Last checked against version 1.1.4.

The Zlib package contains the zlib library, which is used by many programs for its compression and uncompression functions.

Zlib installs the following:

Zlib Installation Dependencies

No dependencies checked yet.

Installation of Zlib

Prepare Zlib to be compiled:

CFLAGS="$CFLAGS -fPIC" \     ./configure --prefix=/usr --shared

The -fPIC flag helps to assure quality in the dynamic zlib library.

Some packages expect a static zlib library to be present on the system. To satisfy those programs, compile both the shared and static libraries:

make LIBS="libz.so.1.1.4 libz.a"

Install the libraries:

make LIBS="libz.so.1.1.4 libz.a" install

The shared zlib library should be installed in the /lib directory. That way, in the event that you must boot without the /usr directory, vital system programs will still have access to the library:

mv /usr/lib/libz.so.* /lib

The /usr/lib/libz.so symlink is linked to a file which no longer exists, because we moved it. Create a symbolic link to the new location of the library:

ln -sf ../../lib/libz.so.1 /usr/lib/libz.so

Zlib does not install its manual page. Issue the following command to install this documentation:

cp zlib.3 /usr/share/man/man3

Contents of Findutils

Last checked against version 4.1.

The Findutils package contains programs to find files, either on-the-fly (by doing a live recursive search through directories and only showing files that match the specifications) or by searching through a database.

Findutils installs the following:

Findutils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 4.1.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, mv, rm
Grep: egrep, grep
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Make: make
Patch: patch
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, date, echo, hostname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installing Findutils

The Findutils package is quite old and it has problems compiling against newer Glibc versions (Glibc-2.0.x and up). You need to apply the patch, which fixes the following issues:

• Findutils declares a function called basename, but this function name is already used by the C standard libraries. This patch changes the Findutils version of basename function so that it is called basename2 instead.

• Findutils uses library files in an incorrect way. It declares library functions, to tell the compiler what the name of the function will be when the libraries are linked in. This syntax is invalid and causes compiler warnings/errors. This patch removes this improper syntax.

• Every GNU package is supposed use a macro called _GNU_SOURCE. This macro enables declarations of GNU library extension functions and so the compiler will be able to detect name conflicts between functions more easily. This patch adds this macro to the source code.

patch -Np1 -i ../findutils-4.1.patch

There is a bug in locate.c of Findutils that causes a segmentation fault to occur on very long path names. The problem is caused by the get_short() function calculating negative numbers incorrectly. This patch corrects this bug.

patch -Np1 -i ../findutils-4.1-segfault.patch

Prepare Findutils to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

By default, the location of the updatedb database is in /usr/var. To make the location of /var/lib/misc/locatedb file FHS compliant, pass the localstatedir=/var/lib/misc option to both make commands below.

Continue with compiling the package:

make libexecdir=/usr/bin

Finish installing the package:

make libexecdir=/usr/bin install

Contents of Gawk

Last checked against version 3.1.1.

Gawk is an awk implementation that is used to manipulate text files.

Gawk installs the following:

Gawk Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 3.1.0.

(No dependencies checked yet.)

Installation of Gawk

Before installing the Gawk package you have to apply a patch, which fixes the following issues:

• Gawk's default location for libexecdir is $prefix/libexecdir/awk. This location doesn't comply with FHS (which never mentions a directory called libexecdir).

• The patch allows us to pass --libexecdir to the configure script (without gawk tacking on /awk to the end), so that we can use a more appropriate location for gawk's libexecdir (/usr/bin in the book).

• The default data directory for gawk is $prefix/share/awk. A package specific directory should be named using the package and version (like gawk-3.1.1 instead of awk) because there may be more than one awk interpreter on a system (and more than one version of gawk). The patch changes this to $prefix/share/gawk-3.1.1 to be more correct.

• The patch ensures that this directory ($prefix/share/gawk-3.1.1) is removed along with its contents on a make uninstall.

patch -Np1 -i ../gawk-3.1.1-3.patch

Prepare Gawk to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr --libexecdir=/usr/bin

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Finish installing the package:

make install

Contents of Ncurses

Last checked against version 5.2.

The Ncurses package provides character and terminal handling libraries, including panels and menus.

Ncurses installs the following:

Ncurses Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 5.2.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, mkdir, mv, rm
Gcc: c++, cc1, cc1plus, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: ldconfig
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, date, echo, expr, hostname, uname
Textutils: cat, sort, tr, wc

Installation of Ncurses

Prepare Ncurses to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr --with-shared

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Give the ncurses libraries executable permission:

chmod 755 /usr/lib/*.5.3

Move the libraries to the /lib directory, where they're expected to reside:

mv /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5* /lib

Since the libraries have been moved to /lib, a few symlinks are currently pointing towards non-existing files. Recreate those symlinks:

ln -sf libncurses.a /usr/lib/libcurses.a && ln -sf ../../lib/libncurses.so.5 /usr/lib/libncurses.so && ln -sf ../../lib/libncurses.so.5 /usr/lib/libcurses.so

Contents of Vim

Last checked against version 6.1.

The Vim package contains a configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing.

Vim installs the following:

Alternatives to Vim

• emacs, joe and nano

  http://beyond.linuxfromscratch.org/view/cvs/postlfs/editors.html

Vim Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 6.0.

Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld, strip
Diffutils: cmp, diff
Fileutils: chmod, cp, ln, mkdir, mv, rm, touch
Find: find
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Net-tools: hostname
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: echo, expr, uname, whoami
Textutils: cat, tr, wc

Installation of Vim

This package requires its patch to be applied before you can install it. This patch fixes a compile problem with GCC-3.2:

patch -Np1 -i ../vim-6.1.patch

Prepare Vim to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make CPPFLAGS=-DSYS_VIMRC_FILE=\\\"/etc/vimrc\\\"

The meaning of the make option is:

• CPPFLAGS=-DSYS_VIMRC_FILE=\\\"/etc/vimrc\\\": This option causes vim to look for the /etc/vimrc file which contains vim's global settings. Normally, this file is assumed to be located in /usr/share/vim, but we feel that /etc is a more logical place for this kind of file.

Finish installing the package:

make install

Vim can run in old-fashioned vi mode by creating a symlink, which may be created with the following command:

ln -s vim /usr/bin/vi

If you plan to install the X Window system on your LFS system, you might want to re-compile Vim after you have installed X. Vim comes with a nice GUI version of the editor which requires X and a few other libraries to be installed. For more information read the Vim documentation.

Configuring Vim

By default, vim runs in vi compatible mode. Some people might like this, but we have a high preference to run vim in vim mode (else we wouldn't have included vim in this book, but the original vi). Create the /root/.vimrc by running the following:

cat > /root/.vimrc << "EOF" " Begin /root/.vimrc set nocompatible set bs=2 " End /root/.vimrc EOF

Contents of M4

Last checked against version 1.4.

M4 is a macro processor. It copies input to output, expanding macros as it goes. Macros are either built-in or user-defined and can take any number of arguments. Besides just doing macro expansion, m4 has built-in functions for including named files, running Unix commands, doing integer arithmetic, manipulating text in various ways, recursion, etc. The m4 program can be used either as a front-end to a compiler or as a macro processor in its own right.

M4 installs the following:

M4 Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.4.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, mv, rm
Make: make
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: date, echo, hostname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of M4

Prepare M4 to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Finish installing the package:

make install

Contents of Bison

Last checked against version 1.35.

Bison is a parser generator, a replacement for yacc. Bison generates a program that analyzes the structure of a text file.

Bison installs the following:

Bison Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.31.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, rmdir
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, dirname, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info
Textutils: cat, head, tr, uniq

Installation of Bison

Prepare Bison to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Finish installing the package:

make install

Contents of Less

Last checked against version 374.

Less is a file pager, or text viewer. It displays the contents of a file, or stream, and has the ability to scroll. Less has a few features not included in the more pager, such as the ability to scroll backwards.

Less installs the following:

Less Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 358.

Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, mv, rm, touch
Grep: egrep, grep
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: expr, hostname, uname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Less

Prepare Less to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin --sysconfdir=/etc

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Finish installing the package:

make install

Contents of Groff

Last checked against version 1.17.2.

The Groff package includes several text processing programs for text formatting. Groff translates standard text and special commands into formatted output, such as what you see in a manual page.

Groff installs the following:

Groff Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.17.2.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Bison: bison
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, touch
Gcc: cc1, cc1plus, collect2, cpp0, g++, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Gawk: awk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, date, echo, expr, hostname, uname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Groff

Prepare Groff to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Some groff/man document programs, such as xman, will not work work properly without the following symlinks:

ln -s soelim /usr/bin/zsoelim && ln -s eqn /usr/bin/geqn && ln -s tbl /usr/bin/gtbl

Contents of Textutils

Last checked against version 2.0.

The Textutils package contains several file manipulation and text processing programs.

Textutils installs the following:

Textutils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.0.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ls, mv, rm
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Net-tools: hostname
Perl: perl
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, sleep, uname
Tar: tar
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Textutils

Prepare Textutils to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Finally, complete the installation of this package by moving some of its programs to a more appropriate directory:

mv /usr/bin/{cat,head} /bin

Contents of Sed

Last checked against version 3.02.

sed is a stream editor. A stream editor is used to perform basic text transformations on an input stream (a file or input from a pipeline).

Sed installs the following:

Sed Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 3.02.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ls, mv, rm
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: echo, expr, hostname, sleep
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Sed

Prepare Sed to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Finish installing the package:

make install

Contents of Flex

Last checked against version 2.5.4a.

The Flex package is used to generate programs which recognize patterns in text.

Flex installs the following:

Flex Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.5.4a.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Bison: bison
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, mv, rm, touch
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: echo, hostname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Flex

Prepare Flex to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

There are packages which expect to find the lex library in the /usr/lib directory. Create a symlink to account for this:

ln -s libfl.a /usr/lib/libl.a

Some programs don't know about flex and try to find the lex program (flex is a (better) alternative for lex). To please those programs, create a shell script named lex which calls flex in emulation mode:

cat > /usr/bin/lex << "EOF" #!/bin/sh # Begin /usr/bin/lex exec /usr/bin/flex -l "$@" # End /usr/bin/lex EOF chmod 755 /usr/bin/lex

Contents of Binutils

Last checked against version 2.12.1.

Binutils is a collection of software development tools containing a linker, assembler and other tools to work with object files and archives.

Binutils installs the following files:

Binutils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.11.2.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, nm, ranlib, strip
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, rmdir, touch
Flex: flex
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: ldconfig
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, true, uname
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, sort, tr, uniq

Installation of Binutils

This package is known to behave badly when you have changed its default optimization flags (including the -march and -mcpu options). Therefore, if you have defined any environment variables that override default optimizations, such as CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, we recommend unsetting or modifying them when building binutils.

It is recommended by the Binutils installation documentation to build Binutils outside of the source directory:

mkdir ../binutils-build && cd ../binutils-build

Next, prepare Binutils to be compiled:

../binutils-2.13.2/configure --prefix=/usr --enable-shared

Continue with compiling the package:

make tooldir=/usr

Normally, the tooldir (the directory where the executables end up) is set to $(exec_prefix)/$(target_alias) which expands into, for example, /usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu. Since we only build for our own system, we don't need this target specific directory in /usr. That setup would be used if the system was used to cross-compile (for example compiling a package on the Intel machine that generates code that can be executed on Apple PowerPC machines).

Install the package:

make tooldir=/usr install

Install the info pages:

make tooldir=/usr install-info

Some packages require the libiberty header in order to build. To honor those packages, install the file:

cp ../binutils-2.13.2/include/libiberty.h /usr/include

Contents of Fileutils

Last checked against version 4.1.

Fileutils is a package containing basic file manipulation programs. Included are programs to list and create directories, update timestamps, change permissions and so forth.

Fileutils installs the following files:

Fileutils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 4.1.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, rmdir
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
Make: make
Perl: perl
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Fileutils

Prepare Fileutils to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Some packages hardwire the path to the install program as /usr/bin/install. Create a symlink to account for this:

ln -s ../../bin/install /usr/bin

Contents of Sh-utils

Last checked against version 2.0.

The Sh-utils package contains a number of basic shell manipulation utilities.

Sh-utils installs the following:

Sh-utils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.0.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, chown, install, ls, mv, rm
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Perl: perl
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Tar: tar
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Sh-utils

This package requires its hostname-patch to be applied before you can install it. This patch suppresses the build of the hostname program which will be installed later with the net-tools package. The hostname program from the net-tools package is a much better version (and in some cases even required since it supports options that are needed by some programs such as XFree86). Apply the patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../sh-utils-2.0-hostname.patch

Prepare Shellutils to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Finally, move some of the programs to more appropriate locations:

mv /usr/bin/{basename,date,echo,false,pwd} /bin && mv /usr/bin/{sleep,stty,su,test,true,uname} /bin && mv /usr/bin/chroot /usr/sbin

FHS compliance notes

There is a command installed in this package which is named test. It is often used in shell scripts to evaluate conditions, but is more often encountered in the form of [ condition ]. These brackets are built into the bash interpreter, but the FHS dictates that there should be a [ binary. Create it by running:

ln -s test /bin/[

Contents of Gettext

Last checked against version 0.11.2.

The Gettext package is used for internationalization and localization. Programs can be compiled with Native Language Support (NLS) which enable them to output messages in the user's native language.

Gettext installs the following:

Gettext Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 0.10.40.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, nm, ranlib, strip
Bison: bison
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, rmdir
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, sort, tr, uniq

Installation of Gettext

Prepare Gettext to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Finish installing the package:

make install

Contents of Net-tools

Last checked against version 1.60.

The Net-tools package contains a collection of programs which form the base of Linux networking.

Net-tools installs the following:

Net-tools Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.60.

Bash: bash, sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld
Fileutils: install, ln, ls, mv, rm
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0
Make: make
Sh-utils: echo

Installation of Net-tools

If you don't know what to answer to all the questions asked during the make phase, then just accept the defaults, which will be just fine in the majority of the cases. What you are asked here are a bunch of questions relating to the kind of network protocols that you have enabled in your kernel.

The default answers will enable the tools from this package to work with the most common protocols such as TCP, PPP and a bunch of others. You still need to actually enable these protocols in the kernel. What you do here is merely telling the programs to be able to use those protocols, but it's up to the kernel to make them available to the system.

Compile the package:

make

If you intend to accept the default settings, you may skip the questions generated by make by running yes "" | make instead.

Finish installing the package:

make update

The update option to make works similarly to the install option, with one exception: it doesn't make backups of files it's replacing.

If you decide to reinstall this package at some point in the future, a make update won't backup all the files from a previous net-tools installation.

Contents of Perl

Last checked against version 5.6.1.

The Perl package contains perl, the Practical Extraction and Report Language. Perl combines some of the best features of C, sed, awk and sh into one powerful language.

Perl installs the following:

Perl Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 5.6.1.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, nm
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, touch
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Gawk: awk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, date, echo, expr, hostname, pwd, uname, whoami
Textutils: cat, comm, sort, split, tr, uniq, wc

Installation of Perl

Prepare Perl to be compiled:

./configure.gnu --prefix=/usr

If you want more control over the way perl sets itself up to be built, you can run the interactive Configure script instead and modify the way perl is built. If you think you can live with the (sensible) defaults perl auto-detects, then just use the command listed above.

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Texinfo

Last checked against version 4.2.

The Texinfo package contains programs used for reading, writing and converting Info documents, which provide system documentation.

Texinfo installs the following:

Texinfo Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 4.0.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep
Texinfo: makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Texinfo

Prepare Texinfo to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Install the texinfo components which belong in a TeX installation:

make TEXMF=/usr/share/texmf install-tex

Contents of Autoconf

Last checked against version 2.53.

Autoconf produces shell scripts which automatically configure source code.

Autoconf installs the following:

Autoconf Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.52.

Bash: sh
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm
Grep: fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Autoconf

Prepare Autoconf to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Automake

Last checked against version 1.6.2.

Automake generates Makefile.in files, intended for use with Autoconf.

Automake installs the following:

Automake Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.5.

Bash: sh
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, rmdir
Grep: fgrep, grep
Make: make
Perl: perl
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: echo, expr, hostname, sleep
Texinfo: install-info
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Automake

Prepare Automake to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling and installing the package:

make install

Create a necessary symbolic link:

ln -s automake-1.7 /usr/share/automake

Contents of Bash

Last checked against version 2.05a.

bash is the Bourne-Again SHell, which is a widely used command interpreter on Unix systems. The bash program reads from standard input (the keyboard). A user types something and the program will evaluate what he has typed and do something with it, like running a program.

Bash installs the following files:

Bash Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.05a.

Bash: bash, sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib, size
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Gawk: awk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info
Textutils: cat, tr, uniq

Installation of Bash

Prepare Bash to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Reload the newly compiled Bash:

exec /bin/bash --login

Contents of File

Last checked against version 3.39.

File is a utility used to determine file types.

File installs the following:

File Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 3.37.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ln, ls, mv, rm, touch
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: echo, expr, hostname, sleep
Texinfo: makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of File

Prepare File to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr --datadir=/usr/share/misc

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Libtool

Last checked against version 1.4.2.

GNU libtool is a generic library support script. Libtool hides the complexity of using shared libraries behind a consistent, portable interface.

Libtool installs the following:

Libtool Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.4.2.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, nm, ranlib, strip
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mv, rm, rmdir
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0
Glibc: ldconfig
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info
Textutils: cat, sort, tr, uniq

Installation of Libtool

Prepare Libtool to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Bin86

Last checked against version 0.16.3

Bin86 is a simple assembler and linker for 8086 - 80386 machine code.

Bin86 installs the following:

Bin86 Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 0.16.0.

Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld, strip
Fileutils: chmod, install, ln, mv
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0
Make: make
Sed: sed

Installation of Bin86

This package is only needed if you decide to use Lilo on your LFS system. If you're going to use something else like Grub you won't need bin86. Check the documentation for your favorite boot loader to see if you need the bin86 package (usually only ld86 and/or as86 from this package are required).

Keep in mind, though, that it's not just boot loaders that use the bin86 package. There is always the chance that some other package needs programs from this package, so keep that in mind if you decide to skip this.

Compile the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make PREFIX=/usr install

Contents of Bzip2

Last checked against version 1.0.2

Bzip2 is a block-sorting file compressor which generally achieves a better compression than the traditional gzip does.

Bzip2 installs the following files:

Bzip2 Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.0.1.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Fileutils: cp, ln, rm
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Make: make

Installation of Bzip2

Begin compiling the package:

make -f Makefile-libbz2_so

The -f flag will cause bzip2 to be built using a different Makefile file, in this case the Makefile-libbz2_so file, which creates a dynamic libbz2.so library and links the bzip2 utilities against it.

Continue compiling the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Copy the Bzip2 binary into the /bin directory, make some necessary symbolic links and clean up.

cp bzip2-shared /bin/bzip2 && cp -a libbz2.so* /lib && ln -s ../../lib/libbz2.so.1.0 /usr/lib/libbz2.so && rm /usr/bin/{bunzip2,bzcat,bzip2} && mv /usr/bin/{bzip2recover,bzless,bzmore} /bin && ln -s bzip2 /bin/bunzip2 && ln -s bzip2 /bin/bzcat

Contents of Ed

Last checked against version 0.2.

GNU ed is an 8-bit clean, POSIX-compliant line editor.

Ed installs the following:

Ed Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 0.2.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, mv, rm, touch
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: hostname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Ed

Ed uses mktemp to create temporary files in /tmp, but this function has a security vulnerability (see section on Temporary Files in http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Secure-Programs-HOWTO/avoid-race.html). This patch makes Ed use mkstemp instead, which is the recommended way to create temporary files.

Apply the patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../ed-0.2.patch

Prepare Ed to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

We need to move the Ed binaries to the /bin directory so they may be used in the event that the /usr partition is unavailable.

mv /usr/bin/{ed,red} /bin

Contents of Kbd

Last checked against version 1.06.

Kbd contains keytable files and keyboard utilities.

Kbd installs the following:

Kbd Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.06.

Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld, strip
Bison: bison
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: cp, install, ln, mv, rm
Flex: flex
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: grep
Gzip: gunzip, gzip
Make: make
Patch: patch
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: uname

Installation of Kbd

Kbd doesn't install some of its utilities (setlogcons, setvesablank and getunimap) by default. The kbd patch enables the compilation of these utilities. Apply the patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../kbd-1.08.patch

Prepare Kbd to be compiled:

./configure

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Diffutils

Last checked against version 2.8.1.

The programs from this package show you the differences between two files or directories. It's most common use is to create software patches.

Diffutils installs the following files:

Diffutils Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.7.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ld, as
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, mv, rm
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: date, hostname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Diffutils

Prepare Diffutils to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of E2fsprogs

Last checked against version 1.27.

E2fsprogs provides the filesystem utilities for use with the ext2 filesystem. It also supports the ext3 filesystem with journaling support.

E2fsprogs installs the following:

E2fsprogs Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.25.

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib, strip
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, mkdir, mv, rm, sync
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0
Glibc: ldconfig
Grep: egrep, grep
Gzip: gzip
Make: make
Gawk: awk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, uname
Texinfo: makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of E2fsprogs

It is recommended to build E2fsprogs outside of the source tree:

mkdir ../e2fsprogs-build && cd ../e2fsprogs-build

Prepare E2fsprogs to be compiled:

../e2fsprogs-1.32/configure --prefix=/usr --with-root-prefix="" \     --enable-elf-shlibs

The meaning of the configure options are:

• --with-root-prefix="": Certain programs (such as the e2fsck program) are considered essential programs. When, for example, /usr isn't mounted, these essential program have to be available. They belong in directories like /lib and /sbin. If this option isn't passed to E2fsprogs's configure, the programs are placed in the /usr directory, which is not what we want.

• --enable-elf-shlibs: This creates the shared libraries which some programs in this package make use of.

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Begin installing the package:

make install

Install the shared libraries:

make install-libs

Update the /usr/share/info/dir file to include E2fsprogs' info pages in the index:

install-info /usr/share/info/libext2fs.info /usr/share/info/dir

Contents of Grep

Last checked against version 2.5.

Grep is a program used to print lines from a file matching a specified pattern.

Grep installs the following:

Grep Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 2.4.2.

Autoconf: autoconf, autoheader
Automake: aclocal, automake
Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, install, ls, mkdir, mv, rm
Gettext: msgfmt, xgettext
Gcc: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: getconf
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
M4: m4
Make: make
Gawk: gawk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, echo, expr, hostname, sleep, uname
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Grep

Prepare Grep to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin

Continue with compiling the package:

make

And finish off installing the package:

make install

Contents of Gzip

Last checked against version 1.2.4a.

The gzip package contains programs to compress and decompress files using the Lempel-Ziv coding (LZ77).

Gzip installs the following:

Gzip Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.2.4a.

Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld, nm
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, ln, mv, rm
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp, cpp0, gcc
Grep: egrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: hostname
Textutils: cat, tr

Installation of Gzip

The following patch fixes a buffer overflow that occurs when a filename is longer than 1020 characters. It does this by inserting a check that the buffer is large enough for the given filename. The program exits with the message "Filename too long" if the buffer is not large enough.

patch -Np1 -i ../gzip-1.2.4b.patch

Prepare Gzip to be compiled:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Change the default installation directory for Gzip so it will be installed in the /bin directory:

cp gzexe.in{,.backup} && sed 's%"BINDIR"%/bin%' gzexe.in.backup > gzexe.in

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Move the Gzip binaries to the /bin directory:

mv /usr/bin/gzip /bin && rm /usr/bin/{gunzip,zcat} && ln -s gzip /bin/gunzip && ln -s gzip /bin/zcat && ln -s gunzip /bin/uncompress

Contents of Man

Last checked against version 1.5k.

Man is a man pager.

Man installs the following:

Man Installation Dependencies

Last checked against version 1.5i.

Bash: sh
Binutils: as, ld
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, mkdir, rm
Gcc: c11, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Grep: grep
Make: make
Gawk: awk
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: echo
Textutils: cat

Installation of Man

There are three patches for Man. The first patch comments out one of the lines in the man.conf file (MANPATH /usr/man) to prevent redundant results when using programs such as whatis:

patch -Np1 -i ../man-1.5k-manpath.patch

The second patch adds the -R option to the PAGER variable so that escape sequences are handled properly:

patch -Np1 -i ../man-1.5k-pager.patch

The last patch prevents problem when man pages not formatted with more than 80 columns are used in conjunction with recent releases of groff:

patch -Np1 -i ../man-1.5k-80cols.patch