Linux From Scratch HOWTO Gerard Beekmans Version 1.3, February 11th, 2000 This document describes the process of creating your own Linux system from scratch from an already installed Linux distribution, using nothing but the source code of software that we need Introduction What's this all about?

I started this document around May 1999. I tried a few Linux distributions and came to the conclusion that there's wasn't a distribution I totally liked. Every distribution has it's own advantages and disadvantages, but I was never satisfied with what I had (although Debian comes very close to what I want), so I decided to explore the possibility of building my own Linux distribution using nothing but source code of programs. As I found out there's quite a bit of work involved, but it's also a lot of fun and you really learn a lot by doing it, since you need to configure every single aspect of the system. This forces you to read a lot of manuals on how to configure various software. It also gives you total control over your system (well, that's the idea). You know exactly what software is installed, how it is configured and where all the configuration files reside.

I started writing a series of articles for a Dutch/Belgium E-zine on this subject. Not soon after I got stuck getting a compiler to work. I decided to give this project a rest at that point, since a lot of things at that time needed my attention (I was about to move from The Netherlands to Canada to get married. There were a lot of things to arrange regarding the move abroad and a lot of immigration stuff to sort out).

A few months after my arrival in Canada and getting married, I decided to continue my work on this project. Pretty much starting all over again from scratch and following a different approach, I got things to work out finally. The end result is what you are reading right now.

New versions

The latest version of the document can always be found at

Version history

1.3 - February 11th, 2000

Two mailinglists are available. Read section 1.6 for more details Changed the compiler setup. Gcc-2.95.2 no longer is being used. In stead gcc-2.7.2.3 is the new C compiler and egcs-2.91.60 is the C++ compiler. Updated sections that contained compile instructions by running make CC=/usr/gcc2723/bin/gcc. A simple 'make' suffices now since gcc-2.7.2.3 is our default C compiler now. Changed the 'abstract' line to be more accurate. Fixed typos that were left behind in the previous versions Moved section 1.4 (TODO) to section 1.5. Section 2: Added the version numbers of the software that are known to work with this document. Section 2: Mawk link was broken (thanks to David McCauley (and various other people) for informing me about this). Section 2: Sysklogd link was broken (thanks to David McCauley for informing me about this). Section 2: divided the list into mandatory and optional software (the separation is software for section 13 and above) Inserted new section 1.4: Current projects. Inserted new section 3.1: How we are going to do things. In this section I briefly explain that you need to already have Linux installed to use this HOWTO and also explained there is no need for any kind of boot disk. Section 3.3: Clarified the currently used kernel image is to be used (thanks to Andrew Blais for pointing this out). Section 3.4: Added the usr/share directory to the list of directories that need to be created. Section 5: Clarified that the kernel source tree must be copied to the LFS partition Section 6.1.2: Pointed out availability of fixed package in case compilation fails Section 6.1.4: Rather than renaming ginstall to install we create a symlink install Section 6.1.8: Pointed out availability of fixed package in case compilation fails Section 6.1.10: Pointed out availability of fixed package in case compilation fails Section 6.1.13: Pointed out availability of fixed package in case compilation fails Section 6.1.14: Pointed out availability of fixed package in case compilation fails Section 6.1.17: Pointed out availability of fixed package in case compilation fails Section 6.1.18: Pointed out availability of fixed package in case compilation fails Section 7.2: The gcc-2.7.2.3 compiler needs to be linked statically at first (to avoid possible Library conflicts between the normal and LFS system). Inserted section 11.1: Reinstalling GCC 2.7.2.3 Section 11.13: Pointed out availability of fixed package in case compilation fails Section 11.19: Pointed out availability of fixed package in case compilation fails Section 14.4: Failed to mention that the package needs to be configured prior to compilation. Section 15.2: Failed to mention that the package needs to be configured prior to compilation. Inserted a new section 19 (old section 19 has become section 20) that contains migrating information, in case you need to do some re-modeling to change a setup (like migrating to the new compiler setup in this version).

1.2 - January 9th, 2000

Section 2: Owen Cook pointed out that the link for the sysvinit package was wrong. It said cistron.nl. It should be ftp.cistron.nl Section 3.4: Added the usr/include directory to the list of directories that need to be created Section 4.3: Made a notion of the possibility that somebody's system might be using shadowed passwords. Section 6.1.3: The majority of the files that need to be copied was missing (the files that need to be copied to $LFS/usr/bin). Section 6.1.4: Forgot to mention that the mv program needs to be copied as well Section 6.1.14: Forgot to mention that the cmp program needs to be copied as well Section 7: Just to make sure nobody runs into problems, I added the comment that all file systems must be unmounted and the root file system must be mounted read-only before the computer is rebooted Section 7.2: Added the --local-prefix=/usr/gcc2723 switch to the configure command line Section 11.7: Fixed a typo in one of the programs: patchchk should be pathchk Section 11.9: Added compilation and copying of the mkswap program

1.1 - December 20th, 1999

Fixed a few typos Modified section 18 (Configuring system for Internet) from just a reference to the ISP-Hookup-HOWTO to a basic explanation on how to setup Internet Fixed error in /etc/syslog.conf (in section 12.8.2)

1.0 - December 16th, 1999

Initial release

Current Projects

Projects related to this HOWTO that are currently underway.

The HOWTO is under the process of being translated into Spanish

TODO

Things that need to be done for future releases. If you feel you want to help out on one of these items, let me know first (in case you end up doing something somebody else is doing already or is already finished).

Translate the HOWTO into Dutch. Although I'm Dutch myself, I can't seem to find time to do the work myself.

Mailinglists

There are two mailinglists you can subscribe to. The lfs-discuss and the lfs-announce list. The former is an open non-moderated list discussing anything that has got anything to do with this HOWTO (asking questions, inform about mistakes in this HOWTO and so on). The latter is an open moderated list. Anybody can subscribe to it, but you cannot post messages to it (only the moderator(s) can). This list is primarily used for announcements of new versions of the HOWTO.

If you're subscribed to the lfs-discuss list you don't need to be subscribed to the lfs-announce list as well. Everything that is sent over the lfs-announce list is also sent over the lfs-discuss list.

Subscribing

To subscribe to a list, send an email to and type in the body either subscribe lfs-discuss or subscribe lfs-announce

Majordomo will send you a confirmation-request email. This email will contain an authentication code. Once you send this email back to Majordomo (instructions are provided in that email) you will be subscribed.

Unsubscribing

To unsubscribe from a list, send an email to and type in the the body either unsubscribe lfs-discuss or unsubscribe lfs-announce

Contact info

You can reach me, Gerard Beekmans, at

Software packages you need to download

Below is a list of all the software that you need to download for use in this document. I display the sites and directories where you can download the software, but it is up to you to make sure you download the source archive and the latest version. The version numbers correspondent to versions of the software that is known to work.

Mandatory software

Sysvinit (2.78) :

Bash (2.03) :

Linux Kernel (2.2.14) :

Make (3.77) :

Sed (3.02) :

Shell Utils (2.0) :

File Utils (4.0) :

Util Linux (2.9z) :

Text Utils (1.22) :

Tar (1.12) :

Gzip (1.2.4) :

Binutils (2.9.1.0) :

Grep (2.2) :

Bison (1.25) :

Mawk (1.3.3) :

Find Utils (4.1) :

Diff Utils (2.7) :

Ld.so (1.9.10) :

Perl (5.005_03) :

M4 (1.4) :

Texinfo (4.0) :

Automake (1.3) :

Autoconf (2.13) :

Glibc (2.0.7pre6) :

Glibc-crypt (2.0.pre6) :

Glibc-linuxthreads (2.0.7pre6) :

Libstdc++-2.91.60 :

Libstdc++-2.91.660-dev :

GCC (2.7.2.3) :

G++-2.91.60 :

Ncurses (4.2) :

Vim (5.5) :

Readline Library (4.0) :

Termcap Library (1.3) :

Flex (2.5.4a) :

Less (332) :

E2fsprogs (1.12) :

File (3.26) :

Libtool (1.2) :

Modutils (2.3.7) :

Linux86 (0.14.3) :

Lilo (21) :

DPKG (1.4.0.35) :

Sysklogd (1.3.31) :

Groff (1.11.1) :

Man-db (2.3.10) :

Procps (2.0.6) :

Procinfo (17) :

Procmisc (19) :

Shadow Password Suite (19990827) :

Optional software

All software below is used in sections 13 and above and are not strictly necessary. You have to determine for yourself if you want to install certain packages. If, for example, you don't intend to go online with the LFS system, you might not want to install the email, telnet, ftp, www, etc. utilities. You can omit those. I suggest you read the sections 13 and above first to determine which software packages you want and which software packages you don't want to install.

Netkit-base :

Net-tools (1.53) :

Procmail (3.13.1) :

Sendmail (8.9.3) :

Mailx (8.1.1) :

Mutt (1.0i) :

Fetchmail (5.2.0) :

Netkit-telnet :

Proftpd (1.2.0pre9) :

Netkit-ftp :

Apache (1.3.3) :

Slang Library (1.3.10) :

Zlib Library (1.1.3) :

Lynx (2.8.1) :

Xfree86 (3.3.2.3) :

libPropList (0.9.1) :

libXpm (4.7) :

libpng (1.0.3) :

libtiff (3.4) :

libjpeg (6b) :

libungif (4.1.0) :

WindowMaker (0.61.1) :

PPP (2.3.10) :

Preparing the new system How we are going to do things

We are going to build the LFS system using an already installed Linux distribution such as Debian, SuSe, Slackware, Mandrake, RedHat, etc. You don't need to have any kind of bootdisk. We will use an existing Linux system as the base (since we need a compiler, linker, text editor and other tools).

If you don't have Linux installed yet, you won't be able to put this HOWTO to use right away. I suggest you first install a Linux distribution. It really doesn't matter which one you install. It also doesn't need to be the latest version (though it shouldn't be a too old one. If it is about a year old or newer it'll do just fine).

Creating a new partition

Before we can build our new Linux system, we need to have an empty Linux partition on which we can build our new system. If you already have a Linux Native partition available, you can skip this subsection.

Start the fdisk program (or cfdisk if you prefer that program) with the appropriate hard disk as the option (like /dev/hda if you want to create a new partition on the primary master IDE disk). Create a Linux Native partition, write the partition table and exit the (c)fdisk program. If you get the message that you need to reboot your system to ensure that that partition table is updated, then please reboot your system now before continuing.

Creating an ext2 file system on the new partition

Once the partition is created, we have to create a new ext2 file system on that partition. From now on I'll refer to this newly created partition as $LFS. $LFS should be substituted with the partition you have created. If you created your partition on /dev/hda4, you mounted it on /mnt/hda4 and this document tells you to copy a file to $LFS/usr/bin then you need to copy that file to /mnt/hda4/usr/bin.

To create a new ext2 file system we use the mke2fs command. Give $LFS as the only option and the file system will be created.

Adding an entry to LILO

In order to be able to boot from this partition later on, we need to update our /etc/lilo.conf file. Add the following lines to lilo.conf:

image=<currently used image> label=<label> root=$LFS read-only

Replace <currently used image> by the kernel image file that you are using to boot your normal Linux system. <label> can be anything you want it to be. I named the label "lfs" What you enter as <label> is what you enter at the LILO-prompt when you choose with system to boot.

Now run the lilo program to update the boot loader.

Creating directories

Let's create a minimal directory tree on the $LFS partition. issuing the following commands will create the necessary directories. Make sure you first mount the $LFS partition before you attempt to create the directories.

cd $LFS mkdir boot etc home lib mnt proc root tmp var usr mkdir bin sbin usr/bin usr/sbin usr/src mkdir usr/man usr/include usr/share cd usr/man mkdir man1 man2 man3 man4 man5 man6 man7 man8 cd .. ln -s . local ln -s /etc etc ln -s /var var ln -s /usr/man share/man

I am aware that a number of directories you have created above are in total violation with the FHS (File Hierarchy Standard - ). The reason why I do this is just a preference. I want to keep certain files all together. For example the old standard was that man pages go in /usr/man and /usr/local/man. The most recent standard dictates that man pages should go in /usr/share/man (and possibly /usr/local/share/man). I just want them all to be in /usr/man so I know exactly in what directory a certain man page is and I don't have to start looking in various directories to find out where it is (although I can simply find a file with the 'locate' command I still prefer the way I do things).

If you want to create a file system that it completely according the FHS, then I urge you to take a look at www.pathname.com/fhs and create your directories accordingly.

Copying the /dev directory

We can create every single file that we need to be in the $LFS/dev directory using the mknod command, but that just takes up a lot of time. I choose to just simply copy the current /dev directory to the $LFS partition. Use this command to copy the entire directory while preserving original rights, symlinks and owner ships:

cp -av /dev $LFS

Feel free to strip down the $LFS/dev directory, only leaving the devices you really need.

Installing Sysvinit Preparing Sysvinit

Under normal circumstances, after the kernel's done loading and initializing various system components, it attempts to load a program called init which will finalize the system boot process. The program found on most Linux systems is called Sysvinit and that's the program we're going to install on our LFS system.

Unpack the Sysvinit archive Go to the src directory Edit the Makefile file Somewhere in this file, but before the rule all: putt his variable: ROOT = $LFS Precede every /dev on the last four lines in this file by $(ROOT)

After applying the $(ROOT) parts to the last four lines, they should look like this:

@if [! -p $(ROOT)/dev/initctl ]; then \ echo "Creating $(ROOT)/dev/initctl" \ rm -f $(ROOT)/dev/initctl; \ mknod -m 600 $(ROOT)/dev/initctl p; fi

Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Install the package by running make install

Configuring Sysvinit

In order for Sysvinit to work, we need to create it's configuration file. Create the $LFS/etc/inittab file containing the following:

# Begin /etc/inittab id:2:initdefault: si::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS ˜˜:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin l0:0:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 0 l1:1:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 1 l2:2:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 2 l3:3:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 3 l4:4:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 4 l5:5:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 5 l6:6:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 6 z6:6:wait:/sbin/sulogin ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -r now 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/sulogin # End /etc/inittab

Copying passwd & group files

As you can see from the inittab file, when we boot the system, init will start the sulogin program and sulogin will ask you for root's password. This means we need to have at least a passwd file present on the LFS system. We'll use the passwd and group files from the current running Linux system. Since the passwords are encoded it's just easier to copy the already present file and use that, instead of retyping the encoded password. Mistakes are easily made and this way we can avoid extra hassle afterwards.

Copy the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files to $LFS/etc/ Edit the $LFS/etc/passwd file and remove every line, except the line for the user root Edit the $LFS/etc/group file and remove every line, except the line for the group root

It might be the case that your system uses shadowed passwords. In that case the /etc/passwd files will not contain the root password, but the /etc/shadow file does (this file is only accessible by user root and programs who run as root). The password field of /etc/passwd contains a x usually (the first field after the username). Remove that x and replace it with the encoded password you have in /etc/shadow. The encoded password is the second field in the /etc/shadow file (so the first field after the username, without the colons). Make sure you copy it exactly as it is. Remember: it is case sensitive.

Installing a root shell

When sulogin asks you for the root password and you've entered the password, a shell needs to be started. Usually this is the bash shell. Since there are no libraries installed yet, we need to link bash statically, just like we did with Sysvinit.

Unpack the Bash archive Configure the package by running configure --enable-static-link Compile the package by running make Copy the binary bash to $LFS/bin Create a symlink that links $LFS/bin/sh to $LFS/bin/bash

Testing the system

After you've completed this section, we can test the system and see if we can log on to it. Please note that you will get errors regarding the init program not being able to start the rcS and rc scripts. Ignore those error s for now. It is normal. We will install these scripts in a later stage.

Also note that you won't be able to shutdown the system with a program like shutdown. Although the program is present, it will give you the following error: "You don't exist. Go away." when you try to use the program. The meaning of this error is that the system isn't able to locate the password file. Although the shutdown program is statically linked against the libraries it needs, it still depends on the nss library (Name Server Switch) which is part of the GNU C Library, which also will be installed in a later stage. This NSS library passes on information where (in this case) the passwd file can be found.

For now you can reboot the system using the reboot -f command. This will bypass shutting down the system using the shutdown program and reboot immediately. Since the file system is mounted read-only this will not harm our system in any way (though you might get a warning next time you try to mount the system that it wasn't unmounted cleanly the last time and that you should run e2fsck to make sure the file system is OK).

Installing a kernel Note on ftp.kernel.org

In section 2 above I mentioned you can download a new kernel from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/ However, this site is often too busy to get through and the maintainers of this site encourage you to download the kernel from a location near you. You can access a mirror site by going to ftp://ftp.<country code>.kernel.org/ (like ftp.ca.kernel.org).

Configuring the kernel

Unpack the Kernel archive in the /usr/src/ directory Choose a method to configure the kernel (see the README file for more details on configuration methods) and make sure you don't configure anything as modules at this point. This is because we won't have the necessary software available to load kernel modules for a while. After you're done with your kernel configuration, run make dep Compile the kernel by running make bzImage Copy the arch/<cpu>/boot/bzImage file to the /boot directory (or some place else if your Linux system uses a different convention where kernel images and the like are stored) Optionally you can rename the /boot/bzImage file to something like /boot/lfskernel Copy the entire kernel source tree from to the LFS partition by running: cp -av /usr/src/linux $LFS/usr/src Create the $LFS/usr/include/linux symlink by running ln -s $LFS/usr/include/linux /usr/src/linux/include/linux Create the $LFS/usr/include/asm symlink by running ln -s $LFS/usr/include/asm /usr/src/linux/include/asm

Updating LILO

Edit the /etc/lilo.conf file and go to the LFS section Change the image name to lfskernel (or whatever you've named the originally called bzImage file) Run lilo to update the boot loader.

Testing the system

Reboot your system and start your LFS system. Verify that the newly installed kernel doesn't perform out-of-the-ordinary actions (like crashing).

Installing the GNU C and C++ Libraries Preparing the system for the GNU C Library installation

In this section we're going to install Glibc. But before we'll be able to install these libraries, we need to have a bunch of other software installed on the LFS system. Therefore all these programs need to be linked statically. This means quite a bit of extra work, because after Glibc and the GNU CC compilers are installed, we're going to re-install all these programs so they'll be linked dynamically. If somebody knows of a better way to accomplish this, without first building all the software statically and then rebuild them dynamically, please let me know.

I know of one other way and that's by installing Glibc using pre-compiled binaries. But that would be directly against what we're doing here. So that's not an option.

All software that is being installed in this section will be compiled on our normal working Linux system and then copied to the LFS system.

You'll notice that the installation of this software is very straightforward is most cases. I also won't explain what this software does, since it's all trivial software and if you don't know what some program does, you can always read the README file and other documentation.

Installing Make

Unpack the Make archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the make binary to $LFS/usr/bin

Installing Sed

Unpack the Sed archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the sed/sed binary to $LFS/usr/bin

There is a possibility you will experience compilation problems. If this is teh case, you can download a fixed version of this package from the following URL:

Installing Shell Utils

Unpack the Shell Utils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the following binaries from the src directory to $LFS/bin: date echo false pwd sleep stty su true uname Copy the following binary from the src directory to $LFS/sbin: chroot Copy the following binaries from the src directory to $LFS/usr/bin: basename dirname env expr factor groups id logname nice nohup pathchk printenv printf seq tee test tty uptime users who whoami yes

Installing File Utils

Unpack the File Utils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the following binaries from the src directory to $LFS/bin: chgrp chmod chown cp dd df dir dircolors du ln ls mkdir mkfifo mknod mv rm rmdir sync touch vdir Copy the following binary from the src directory to $LFS/usr/bin: ginstall Create the $LFS/usr/bin/install symlink by running: cd $LFS/usr/bin; ln -s ginstall install

Installing Util Linux

Unpack the Util Linux archive Configure the package by running configure Go to the lib directory and compile the files there by running make Go to the mount directory and compile the programs there by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the following binaries to $LFS/sbin: losetup mount swapon umount Create the symlink that links $LFS/sbin/swapoff to $LFS/sbin/swapon

Installing Text Utils

Unpack the Text Utils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the following binary from the src directory to $LFS/bin: cat Copy the following binaries from the src directory to $LFS/usr/bin: cksum comm csplit cut expand fmt fold head join md5sum nl od paste pr sort split sum tac tail tr unexpand uniq wc

Installing Tar

Unpack the Tar archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static

After compiling the programs in the src directory you will have two programs: tar and rmt. Tar is obvious. Rmt stands for ReMote Tapeserver. If you don't need this program (ie; you don't have a tapestreamer in your network or on your machine) then you don't need to copy this program.

Copy the src/tar binary to $LFS/bin Copy the src/rmt binary to $LFS/bin (if you need it)

Installing Gzip

Unpack the Gzip archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Remove from the following files the .in extension: gzexe.in zdiff.in zforce.in zgrep.in zmore.in znew.in Copy the following files to $LFS/bin: gunzip gzexe gzip zcat zdiff zforce zgrep zmore znew

There is a possibility you will experience compilation problems. If this is the case, you can download a fixed version of this package from the following URL:

Installing Binutils

Unpack the Binutils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-all-static Copy the following binaries from the gas directory to $LFS/usr/bin: as-new gasp-new Rename those files to $LFS/usr/bin/as and $LFS/usr/bin/gasp Copy the following binaries from the ld directory to $LFS/usr/bin: ld-new Rename that file to $LFS/usr/bin/ld Copy the following binaries from the binutils directory to $LFS/usr/bin: addr2line ar c++filt nm-new objcopy objdump ranlib size strings strip-new Rename $LFS/usr/bin/nm-new to $LFS/usr/bin/nm Rename $LFS/usr/bin/strip-new to $LFS/usr/bin/strip

Installing Grep

Unpack the Grep archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the following binaries from the src directory to $LFS/usr/bin: egrep fgrep grep

There is a possibility you will experience compilation problems. If this is the case, you can download a fixed version of this package from the following URL:

Installing Bison

Unpack the Bison archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the following binary to $LFS/usr/bin: bison Copy the following files to $LFS/usr/share: bison.hairy bison.simple

Installing Mawk

Unpack the Mawk archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make CFLAGS="-O -static" Copy the following binary to $LFS/usr/bin: mawk Create the symlinks that links $LFS/usr/bin/awk to $LFS/usr/bin/mawk

Installing Find Utils

Unpack the Find Utils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the following binary from the find directory to $LFS/usr/bin: find

There is a possibility you will experience compilation problems. If this is the case, you can download a fixed version of this package from the following URL:

Installing Diff Utils

Unpack the Diff Utils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the following binaries to $LFS/usr/bin: cmp diff diff3 sdiff

There is a possibility you will experience compilation problems. If this is the case, you can download a fixed version of this package from the following URL:

Installing Ld.so

Unpack the Ld.so archive Go to the util directory Compile ldd by running make ldd Compile ldconfig by running make ldconfig Copy the following binary to $LFS/bin:ldd Copy the following binary to $LFS/sbin: ldconfig

Installing Perl

Unpack the Perl archive Configure the package by running Configure

You can stick to all the default questions, except to the following.

When asked What is the file extension used for shared libraries? [so]

Answer with: none

When asked Any additional ld flags (NOT including libraries)? [-L/usr/local/lib]

Answer with: -L/usr/local/lib -static

When asked Do you wish to use dynamic loading? [y]

Answer with: n

Compile the package by running make Copy the following binary to $LFS/usr/bin: perl

Installing M4

Unpack the M4 archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the following binary from the src directory to $LFS/usr/bin: m4

There is a possibility you will experience compilation problems. If this is the case, you can download a fixed version of this package from the following URL:

Installing Texinfo

Unpack the Texinfo archive Configure the package by running configure --disable-nls Compile the package by running make LDFLAGS=-static Copy the following binary from the makeinfo directory to $LFS/usr/bin: makeinfo

Installing Automake

Unpack the automake archive Configure the package by running configure Copy the following scripts to $LFS/usr/bin: automake aclocal Create the following directory: $LFS/usr/share/automake Copy the following files to $LFS/usr/share/automake: config.guess config.sub install-sh mdate-sh missing mkinstalldirs elisp-comp ylwrap acinstall Copy the following files to $LFS/usr/share/automake: All *.am files Create the following directory: $LFS/usr/share/aclocal Copy the following files from the m4 directory to $LFS/usr/share/aclocal: all *.m4 files

Installing Autoconf

Unpack the Autoconf archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Copy the following files to $LFS/usr/bin: autoconf autoheader autoreconf autoscan autoupdate ifnames Create the following directory: $LFS/usr/share/autoconf Copy the following files to $LFS/usr/share/autoconf: All *.m4* files (in effect this means all *m4 and all *.m4f files) Also copy these following files to $LFS/usr/share/autoconf: acconfig.h acfunctions acheaders acidentifiers acprograms acmakevars

Installing the GNU C Library

We're not going to installed the latest Glibc version, 2.1.2, but version 2.0.7pre6. The reason is that glibc 2.1.2 requires at least gcc 2.8 (or egcs 1.1). My system has gcc 2.7.2.3 thus I can't compile the glibc2.1.2 library. And I also don't want to upgrade my working Linux system to gcc 2.95.2 (which is the latest version at the time of writing this document). Upgrading a compiler isn't as easy as it sounds and I don't want to break things on this working system.

So therefore I have to install glibc 2.0.7pre6. However, we are going to install the gcc 2.95.2 compiler. We also need to install the gcc 2.7.2.3 compiler because certain software can't be compiled with gcc 2.95.2 (due to bugs in the programs that aren't really bugs but the gcc 2.95.2 compiler defines them as bugs. This is not a bug in the compiler, but changes in the C standard (if I understood it correctly)).

A note on the glibc-crypt package. The following is quoted from the glibc-crypt-README file on ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glibc:

-*-*-*-*-*- The add-on is not included in the main distribution of the GNU C library because some governments, mostly notable those of France, Russia and the US, have very restrictive rules governing the distribution and use of encryption software. Please read the node "Legal Problems" in the manual for more details. In particular, the US does not allow export of this software without a license, including via the Internet. So please do not download it from the main FSF FTP site at ftp.gnu.org if you are outside of the US. This software was completely developed outside the US. -*-*-*-*-*-

"This software" refers to the glibc-crypt package at ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/glibc/2.0.7pre6/. This law only affects people who don't live in the US. It's not prohibited to import DES software, so if you live in the US you can import it from that German site.

Unpack the Glibc archive Move the glibc-crypt and glibc-linuxthreads archives into the unpacked glibc directory Unpack the glibc-crypt and glibc-linuxthreads there Configure the package by running (from the glibc top level directory) configure --with-gnu-binutils --enable-shared --enable-add-ons=linuxthreads,crypt Create a new file configparms containing the following:

# Begin configparms prefix=/usr slibdir=/lib sysconfdir=/etc # End configparms

Compile the package by running make Reboot the computer into the LFS system Remount the LFS partition in read-write mode Mount the partition where the Glibc source files reside If this partition is different from the partition where your /usr directory is usually mounted on, also mount that partition Create a symlink that links /usr/lib/gcc-lib to the usr/lib/gcc-lib directory on the normal Linux system. Go to the Glibc source directory Install the package by running make install Remove the /usr/lib/gcc-lib symlink

You can check if the GNU C Library seems to be working by running a dynamically linked program that uses this library (like almost every program). A simple test is running the ls program that resides in the bin directory on your normal Linux partition. If you can run this program without any errors, then the GNU C Library seems to be installed correctly.

Please not that if your normal Linux system uses a differnet library version that the one you just installed on your LFS system, that program will most likely crash and reported a 'Segmentation Fault' or something similar. If so, just continue with the installation of the C++ Library and the compilers. After the compilers are done you will compile a small test program and execute it for the sake of testing the compiler. If those two little programs execute without crashing, it means that 1) the compiler works 2) the C Library works too. So don't worry too much right now if programs from your normal Linux system don't work due to C Library incompatibilities.

Installing the GNU C++ Library

If you have used a previous version of this HOWTO to install a LFS system and you wish to update your LFS system conforming the changes made in this version of the HOWTO, you first need to remove the existing files regarding the previously installed C++ library before continuing with this section.

If you have used LFS-HOWTO versions 1.0, 1.1 or 1.2 please read section 19.1 now before continuing.

This HOWTO used to install the C++ library from sources, but that has been changed and is an exception. The C++ library is installed from pre-compiled binaries. The reason is that I have not been able to find the sources for the C++ library version that I prefer to use. So until then we'll use pre-compiled binaries.

Installing the libstdc++2.9_2.91.66-0slink2.deb package

Extract the archive files by running ar x libstdc++2.9_2.91.66-0slink2.deb Extract the package itself by running tar xvfz data.tar.gz Copy the package by running cp -av usr / Remove the following files and directory: usr data.tar.gz control.tar.gz debian-binary

Installing the libstdc++2.9-dev_2.91.66-0slink2.deb package

Extract the archive files by running ar x libstdc++2.9-dev_2.91.66-0slink2.deb Extract the package itself by running tar xvfz data.tar.gz Copy the package by running cp -av usr / Remove the following files and directory: usr data.tar.gz control.tar.gz debian-binary

Installing the GNU C and C++ compilers

You need to restart your system back into the normal Linux system to compile the gcc compiler. Before you reboot, unmount the partitions you mounted (that contained the glibc sources) and mount the LFS root partition read only by running mount -o remount,ro / /

If you have used a previous version of this HOWTO to install a LFS system and you wish to update your LFS system conforming the changes made in this version, you first need to remove the existing files regarding the previously installed compilers before continuing with this section.

If you have used LFS-HOWTO versions 1.0, 1.1 or 1.2 please read section 19.2 now before continuing

This HOWTO used to install the C++ compiler from source, but that has been changed and is an exception. The C++ compiler is installed using pre-compiled binaries. The reason is that I have not been able to find the sources for the C++ compiler version that I prefer to use. So until then we'll use pre-compiled binaries.

We also will link the C compiler statically. Although Glibc is installed on our LFS system, we still are compiling the compiler on our normal Linux system. The normal Linux system may contain a different version of Glibc and the compiler will be linked against that version. Therefore we will link the compiler statically and later on when all statically linked software is being re-installed we also will re-install the compiler. This procedure is not necessary if both your normal Linux system and the LFS system use the same Library version, but since I don't know that we will do it this way. This ensures this document is usable on every Linux system, no matter what version of libraries they use.

Making two small test programs

We'll create a little C and a little C++ program which we will use after the installations to determine if the compilers can find the necessary files in order to successfully compile a program.

Create a new file $LFS/root/test1.c containing the following:

// Begin test.c #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("Hello World!\n"); return 0; } // End test.c

Create a new file $LFS/root/test2.cpp containing the following:

// Begin test2.cpp #include <iostream.h> int main() { cout << "Hello World!" << endl; return 0; } // End test2.cpp

Installing GCC 2.7.2.3

Unpack the gcc-2.7.2.3 archive Configure the package by running configure Build the compiler by executing these commands in sequence:

make LANGUAGES=c make stage1 make CC="stage1/xgcc -Bstage1/" CFLAGS="-g -O2 -static" LANGUAGES=c make stage2 make CC="stage2/xgcc -Bstage2/" CFLAGS="-g -O2 --static" LANGUAGES=c make compare

If make compare doesn't report any differences, the compiler is build successfully. Reboot your computer in the LFS system. Mount the partition that contains the gcc-2.7.2.3 source files. Install the package by running make CC="stage2/xgcc -Bstage2/" CFLAGS="-g -O2" LANGUAGES=c install

Installing the g++_2.91.66-0slink2.deb package

Extract the archive files by running ar x g++_2.91.66-0slink2.deb Extract the package itself by running tar xvfz data.tar.gz Copy the files by running cp -av usr / Remove the following files and directory: usr data.tar.gz control.tar.gz debian-binary

Note that this g++ compiler is already pre-compiled and linked against glibc 2.0.7. Therefore there is no need to re-install this package in a later stage.

Creating necessary symlinks

Create the /lib/cpp symlink by running ln -s /usr/lib/gcc-lib/<host>/2.7.2.3/cpp /lib/cpp Create the /usr/bin/cpp symlink by running ln -s /usr/lib/gcc-lib/<host>/2.7.2.3/cpp /usr/bin/cpp Create the /usr/bin/cc symlink by running ln -s /usr/bin/gcc /usr/bin/cc

Replace <host> with the directory where the gcc-2.7.2.3 files were installed (i686-unknown-linux in my case).

Testing the compilers

We will compile two small programs which we will use to test if the compilers compile. Note that this is by no means an exhaustive test. It's just a little test to see if the compiler can find the necessary files in order to compile a basic program.

Go to the /root directory Compile test1.c by running gcc test1.c -o test1 Compile test2.cpp by running g++ test2.cpp -o test2 Execute the test1 and test2 programs to make sure the programs run ok without dumping the core or perform other out-of-the-ordinary actions.

Installing login utilities Installing agetty + login

You need the Util Linux package again for this section. If you haven't deleted the Util Linux source directory, you can skip the first two steps.

Unpack the Util Linux archive (if you have deleted it since last time we've used it) Configure the package by running configure Go to the login-utils directory Compile agetty and login by running make agetty login Copy the following binary to /sbin: agetty Copy the following binary to /bin: login

Modifying $LFS/etc/inittab

You have to reboot back into your normal Linux system for this step because we need a text editor which isn't installed yet.

The next step is modifying the $LFS/etc/inittab file so that agetty is started on a virtual console every time we start the system. This is how it works on most if not every Linux system.

Edit the $LFS/etc/inittab file Find this line and remove it: 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/sulogin Where the previous line was, put the following lines:

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty /dev/tty1 9600 2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty /dev/tty2 9600 3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty /dev/tty3 9600 4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty /dev/tty4 9600 5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty /dev/tty5 9600 6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty /dev/tty6 9600

Creating the UTMP record file

Every time you log onto a Linux system, the /var/run/utmp file is modified. When this file isn't present, a lot of programs will start complaining, including agetty and login. So we just create an empty $LFS/var/run/utmp file and those programs won't complain anymore.

Create the $LFS/var/run directory Create an empty file by running touch $LFS/var/run/utmp

Testing the system

If you want you can test the system now. Restart the system and boot into the LFS system. After the kernel and sysvinit are done loading, agetty should start and prompt you with a username. Since the only user we currently have is 'root', you login as root.

Installing Vim

Restart your system in the LFS system. From now on you don't need to start your normal Linux system anymore. The reason we had to do this is because the LFS system was lacking a text editor.

Preparing the system for the Vim installation Installing Ncurses

In order to install Vim we need to have the ncurses libraries installed.

Unpack the Ncurses archive Configure the package by running configure --with-shared Compile the package by running make Install the terminfo files by running make install.data Go to the test directory and run a few of the programs to verify that the libraries are working Install the libraries by running make install

Installing Vim

Vim comes in two separate parts: A 'src' package and a 'rt' (run-time) package. You need both in order to install Vim. If you put both archives in the same directory, the unpacked files of both archives will appear in the same directory that will be created when you unpack the first (it doesn't matter which one you unpack first).

Unpack the Vim-src and the Vim-rt archives Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Creating initial boot scripts Preparing the directories and master files

You need the Sysvinit package again for this section.

Create the necessary directories by issuing these commands:

cd /etc mkdir rc0.d rc1.d rc2.d rc3.d rc4.d rc5.d rc6.d init.d rcS.d

Go to the unpacked Sysvinit source directory Copy the debian/etc/init.d/rc file to: /etc/init.d Go to the /etc/init.d directory Create a new file rcS containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/rcS runlevel=S prevlevel=N umask 022 export runlevel prevlevel trap ":" INT QUIT TSTP for i in /etc/rcS.d/S??* do if [ ! -f "$i" ] && continue $i start done # End /etc/init.d/rcS

Creating the reboot script

Create a new file reboot containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/reboot echo -n "System reboot in progress..." /sbin/reboot -d -f -i # End /etc/init.d/reboot

Creating the halt script

Create a new file halt containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/halt /sbin/halt -d -f -i -p # End /etc/init.d/halt

Creating the mountfs script

Create a new file mountfs containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/mountfs check_status() { if [ $? = 0 ] then echo "OK" else echo "FAILED" fi } echo -n "Remounting root file system in read-write mode..." /sbin/mount -n -o remount,rw / check_status > /etc/mtab /sbin/mount -f -o remount,rw / echo -n "Mounting proc file system..." /sbin/mount proc check_status # End /etc/init.d/mountfs

Creating the umountfs script

Create a new file umountfs containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/umountfs check_status() { if [ $? = 0 ] then echo "OK" else echo "FAILED" fi } echo -n "Unmounting file systems..." /sbin/umount -a -r check_status echo -n "Remounting root file system in read-only mode..." /sbin/mount -o remount,ro / check_status # End /etc/init.d/umountfs

Creating the sendsignals script

Create a new file sendsignals containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/sendsignals check_status() { if [ $? = 0 ] then echo "OK" else echo "FAILED" fi } echo -n "Sending all processes the TERM signal..." /sbin/killall5 -15 check_status echo -n "Sending all processes the KILL signal..." /sbin/killall5 -9 check_status

Set file permissions and create symlinks

Set the proper file permissions by running chmod 755 reboot halt mountfs umountfs sendsignals Create the necessary symlinks by running:

cd ../rc6.d; ln -s ../init.d/umountfs S90umountfs ln -s ../init.d/reboot S99reboot ln -s ../init.d/sendsignals S80sendsignals cd ../rc0.d; ln -s ../init.d/umountfs S90umountfs ln -s ../init.d/halt S99halt ln -s ../init.d/sendsignals S80sendsignals cd ../rcS.d; ln -s ../init.d/mountfs S10mountfs

Creating the /etc/fstab file

Create a file /etc/fstab containing the following:

/dev/<LFS-partition device> / ext2 defaults 0 1 /dev/<swap-partition device> none swap sw 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0

Testing the system

You can test the system by restarting your computer and boot into LFS again. Any errors should be gone now and your root partition should be mounted in read-write mode automatically.

You can now finally restart your computer with a command like shutdown -r now

Reinstalling statically linked software

In this section we're going to reinstall all software that has been linked statically before dynamically. It's pretty straightforward like it was when we prepared our system for the Glibc installation.

It's important that you take a close look at this section. If you decide you can't be bothered reinstalling all the previously installed software, at least look at the new libraries and programs in this section. A few programs that are already installed depend on certain libraries when dynamically linked. But these libraries aren't only used by the already installed programs; other software might require it as well, so you want to install those. Also, a few programs recommend other programs to be installed. We didn't require those programs for the Glibc and GCC installation, but we might as well install them now to avoid problems later.

Make sure you remove the old source tree first for best result (to make sure all programs are linked dynamically).

Reinstaling GCC-2.7.2.3

Unpack the GCC archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running

make LANGUAGES=c make stage1 make "CC=stage1/xgcc -Bstage1/" "CFLAGS="-g -O2" LANGUAGES=c make stage2 make "CC=stage2/xgcc -Bstage2/" "CFLAGS="-g -O2" LANGUAGES=c make compare

Install the package by running make CC="stage2/xgcc -Bstage2/" "CFLAGS="-g -O2" LANGUAGES=c install

Installing the Termcap library

Unpack the Termcap archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing the Readline library

Unpack the Readline archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make shared Install the package by running make install Install the shared libraries by running make install-shared

Reinstalling Bash

Unpack the Bash archive Configure the package by running configure --with-installed-readline Compile the package by running make Edit the Makefile file and find the variable: bindir Replace the current value with: /bin Install the package by running make install

The just installed Bash version is compiled with the -g compiler flag, which means it's compiled with debugging information. This means that when you ever need to run bash through a debugger, the output is human readable, whereas a binary compiled without debugger information is very hard to debug. The downside is that the Bash executable is now about 1MB in size. If you remove the debug information, you'll have an executable of around 340KB in size. This is quite a difference and worth it if you don't debug programs at all.

You can edit the Makefile files whenever you compile a program so you can remove the -g compiler flags (often found in a CFLAGS variable), or you can run the strip program with one or more executables as the parameter(s). All debugging information will be deleted (this won't affect the program itself in any way whatsoever). The choice is yours.

Reinstalling Sysvinit

Unpack the Sysvinit package Go to the src directory Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Reinstalling Make

Unpack the Make archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Reinstalling Sed

Unpack the Sed archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Reinstalling Shell Utils

Unpack the Shell Utils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Copy the following binaries from the src directory to /bin: date echo false pwd sleep stty su true uname Copy the following binary from the src directory to /sbin: chroot Copy the following binaries from the src directory to /usr/bin: basename dirname env expr factor groups id logname nice nohup pathchk printenv printf seq tee test tty uptime users who whoami yes

Reinstalling File Utils

Unpack the File Utils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Edit the Makefile file Find the following variables: bindir sbindir sysconfdir localstatedir Remove the $(exec_prefix) and $(prefix) parts so you'll be left with the values: /bin /sbin /etc and /var Install the package by running make install Move the /bin/install file to the /usr/bin directory

Reinstalling + Installing Util Linux

Unpack the Util Linux archive Configure the package by running configure Go to the lib directory Compile the files there by running make Go to the disk-util directory Compile mkswap by running make mkswap Copy the following binary to /sbin: mkswap Go to the fdisk directory Compile fdisk by running make fdisk Compile cfdisk by running make cfdisk Copy the following binaries to /sbin: cfdisk fdisk Copy the following files to /usr/man/man8: cfdisk.8 fdisk.8 Go to the login-utils directory Compile agetty by running make agetty Compile login by running make login Copy the following file to /usr/man/man1: login.1 Copy the following file to /usr/man/man8: agetty.8 Go to the mount directory Compile the utilities by running make Copy the following binaries to /sbin: mount umount swapon losetup Copy the following files to /usr/man/man8: All *.8 files Remove the /sbin/swapoff symlink and recreate the symlink that links /sbin/swapoff to /sbin/swapon Go to the sys-utils directory Compile dmesg by running make dmesg Compile rdev by running make rdev Copy the following binary to /bin: dmesg Copy the following binary to /sbin: rdev Copy the following files to /usr/man/man8: dmesg.8 rdev.8 swapdev.8 ramsize.8 vidmode.8 rootflags.8 Create the symlinks that link /sbin/rdev, /sbin/swapdev, /sbin/ramsize, /sbin/vidmode and /sbin/rootflags to /sbin/rdev Go to the text-utils directory Compile more by running make more MOREHELPDIR=/usr/share/more Copy the following binary to /usr/bin: more Copy the following file to /usr/man/man1: more.1 Create the /usr/share/more directory Copy the following file to /usr/share/more: more.help

Reinstalling Text Utils

Unpack the Text Utils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Edit the src/Makefile file and find the variable: bindir Replace the current value with: /usr/bin Install the package by running make install Move the /usr/bin/cat file to /bin/cat

Reinstalling Tar

Unpack the Tar archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Edit the src/Makefile file and find the variables: bindir and libexecdir Give bindir the value: /bin Give libexecdir the value: /usr/bin Install the package by running make install If you don't need the ReMote Tapeserver program, you can delete the /usr/bin/rmt program

Reinstalling Gzip

Unpack the Gzip archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Edit the Makefile file and find the variable: bindir Replace the current value with: /bin Install the package by running make install

There is a possibility you will experience compilation problems. If this is the case, you can download a fixed version of this package from the following URL:

Reinstalling Bison

Unpack the Bison archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Flex

Unpack the Flex archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Reinstalling Binutils

Unpack the Binutils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Reinstalling Grep

Unpack the Grep archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Reinstalling Mawk

Unpack the Mawk archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Reinstalling Find Utils

Unpack the Find Utils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

There is a possibility you will experience compilation problems. If this is the case, you can download a fixed version of this package from the following URL:

Reinstalling Diff Utils

Unpack the Diff Utils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Less

Unpack the Less archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Reinstalling Perl

Unpack the Perl archive Configure the package by running Configure

If you agree on all default values, you might want to configure the package by running Configure -d . This way you don't have to press enter all the time to accept the default values.

Compile the package by running make Test the package by running make test Install the package by running make install

Reinstalling M4

Unpack the M4 archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Reinstalling Texinfo

Unpack the Texinfo archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing the rest of the basic system software

The rest of the software that's part of our basic system will be installed in this section. You don't need all the software, but it's recommended to have it.

Installing E2fsprogs Installing E2fsprogs

Unpack the E2fsprogs archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make

When compiling I'm getting this error: mke2fs.c:142:SCSI_DISK_MAJOR not defined. I solved it the following way:

Edit the misc/mke2fs.c file and find the first occurrence of SCSI_DISK_MAJOR Change this to: SCSI_DISK0_MAJOR

Please note that I have no idea what this does when you're using a SCSI system, but I can guess not a heck of a lot of good. Since I'm using an IDE system this doesn't harm me. If you're using SCSI you're on your own I'm afraid since I have no idea on how to fix this. Perhaps you don't even get it when using (a) SCSI disk(s).

Install the package by running make install

Creating the checkroot bootscript

We'll create a checkroot bootscript so that whenever we boot our LFS system, the root file system will be checked by fsck.

Create a file /etc/init.d/checkroot containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/checkroot echo "Activating swap..." /sbin/swapon -av if [ -f /fastboot ] then echo "Fast boot, no file system check" else mount -n -o remount,ro / if [ $? = 0 ] then if [ -f /forcecheck ] then force="-f" else force="" fi echo "Checking root file system..." fsck $force -a / if [ $? -gt 1 ] then echo echo "fsck failed. Please repair your file system manually by" echo "running fsck without the -a option" echo "Please note that the file system is currently mounted in" echo "read-only mode." echo " echo "I will start sulogin now. CTRL+D will reboot your system." /sbin/sulogin /reboot -f fi else echo "Cannot check root file system because it is not mounted in" echo "read-only mode." fi fi # End /etc/init.d/checkroot

Updating /etc/init.d/umountfs

Edit the /etc/init.d/umounts file and put these lines as the first commands (under the "# Begin /etc/init.d/umountfs" line)

echo "Deactivating swap..." /sbin/swapoff -av

Creating proper permissions and creating symlink

Set the proper permissions on the checkroot file by running chmod 755 /etc/init.d/checkroot Create the proper symlink by running cd /etc/rcS.d; ln -s ../init.d/checkroot S05checkroot

Installing File

Unpack the File archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Libtool

Unpack the Libtool archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Modutils

Unpack the Modutils archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Linux86

Unpack the Linux86 archive Go to the as directory and compile the programs there by running make Copy the following binary to /usr/bin: as86 Go to the ld directory and compile the programs there by running make Copy the following binary to /usr/bin: ld86

Installing Lilo Installing Lilo

Unpack the Lilo archive Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Configuring Lilo

Copy the /etc/lilo.conf file from your normal Linux system to the /etc directory on the LFS system

Copying kernel image files

Copy the kernel images from the /boot directory from your normal Linux system to /boot on the LFS system

Installing DPKG

We don't install the Debian Package manger itself, but a small program that is shipped with this package; the start-stop-daemon program. This program is very useful in boot scripts so we're going to use it.

Unpack the DPKG archive Go to the scripts directory Compile the start-stop-daemon program by running make start-stop-daemon Copy the following binary /sbin: start-stop-daemon Copy the following file to /usr/man/man8: start-stop-daemon.8

Installing Sysklogd Installing Sysklogd

Unpack the Sysklogd archive Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make INSTALL=/bin/install install

Configuring Sysklogd

Create the /var/log directory Create a new file /etc/syslog.conf containing the following:

Please note that the white spaces must be tabs and not just hitting the space bar a few times.

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/syslog.conf auth,authpriv.* /var/log/auth.log *.*;auth,authpriv.none /var/log/syslog daemon.* /var/log/daemon.log kern.* /var/log/kern.log mail.* /var/log/mail.log user.* /var/log/user.log mail.info /var/log/mail.info mail.warn /var/log/mail.warn mail.err /var/log/mail.err *.=info;*.=notice;*.=warn; \ auth,authpriv.none; \ daemon.none /var/log/messages *.emerg * # End /etc/syslog.conf

Creating the Sysklogd bootscript

Create a new file /etc/init.d/sysklogd containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/sysklogd test -f /usr/sbin/klogd || exit 0 test -f /usr/sbin/syslogd || exit 0 check_status() { if [ $? = 0 ] then echo "OK" else echo "FAILED" fi } case "$1" in start) echo -n "Starting system log daemon..." start-stop-daemon -S -q -o -x /usr/sbin/syslogd -- -m 0 check_status echo -n "Starting kernel log daemon..." start-stop-daemon -S -q -o -x /usr/sbin/klogd check_status ;; stop) echo -n "Stopping kernel log daemon..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -o -p /var/run/klogd.pid check_status echo -n "Stopping system log daemon..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -o -p /var/run/syslogd.pid check_status ;; reload) echo -n "Reloading system load daemon configuration file..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -o -s 1 -p /var/run/syslogd.pid check_status ;; restart) echo -n "Stopping kernel log daemon..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -o -p /var/run/klogd.pid check_status echo -n "Stopping system log daemon..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -o -p /var/run/syslogd.pid check_status sleep 1 echo -n "Starting system log daemon..." start-stop-daemon -S -q -o -x /usr/sbin/syslogd -- -m 0 check_status echo -n "Starting kernel log daemon..." start-stop-daemon -S -q -o -x /usr/sbin/klogd check_status ;; *) echo Usage: $0 {start|stop|reload|restart} exit 1 ;; esac # End /etc/init.d/sysklogd

Setting up symlinks and permissions

Set the proper permissions by running chmod 755 /etc/init.d/sysklogd Create the proper symlinks by running the following commands:

cd /etc/rc2.d; ln -s ../init.d/sysklogd S03sysklogd cd ../rc6.d; ln -s ../init.d/sysklogd K90sysklogd cd ../rc0.d; ln -s ../init.d/sysklogd K90sysklogd

Installing Groff

Unpack the Groff archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Man-db

Unpack the Man-db archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Procps

Compile the package by running make Edit the Makefile file and comment out the variable: XSCPT Install the package by running make install

Installing Procinfo

Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Procmisc

Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Shadow Password

This package contains the utilities to modify user's passwords, add new users/groups, delete users/groups and more. I'm not going to explain to you what 'password shadowing' means. You can read all about that in the doc/HOWTO file. There's one thing you should keep in mind, if you decide to use shadow support, that programs that need to verify passwords (examples are xdm, ftp daemons, pop3d, etc) need to be 'shadow-compliant', eg. they need to be able to work with shadowed passwords.

If you decide you don't want to use shadowed passwords (after you're read the doc/HOWTO document), you still use this archive since the utilities in this archive are also used on system which have shadowed passwords disabled. You can read all about this in the HOWTO. Also note that you can switch between shadow and non-shadow at any point you want.

Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install Copy the following files from the etc directory to /etc: limits login.access login.defs.linux shells suauth Rename the /etc/login.defs.linux to /etc/login.defs

Now is a very good moment to read section #5 of the doc/HOWTO file. You can read how you can test if shadowing works and if not, how to disable it. If it doesn't work and you haven't tested it, you'll end up with an unusable system after you logout of all your consoles, since you won't be able to login anymore. You can easily fix this by passing the init=/sbin/sulogin parameter to the kernel, unpack the util-linux archive, go to the login-utils directory, build the login program and replace the /bin/login by the one in the util-linux package. Things are never hopelessly messed up, but you can avoid a hassle by testing properly and reading manuals ;)

Setting up basic networking Installing Netkit-base

Unpack the Netkit-base archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install Copy the following files from the etc.sample directory to the /etc/ directory: services protocols

Installing Net-tools

Unpack the Net-tools archive Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Creating the /etc/init.d/localnet bootscript

Create a new file /etc/init.d/localnet containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/localnet check_status() { if [ $? = 0 ] then echo "OK" else echo "FAILED" fi } echo -n "Setting up loopback device..." /sbin/ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1 check_status echo -n "Setting up hostname..." /bin/hostname --file /etc/hostname check_status # End /etc/init.d/localnet

Setting up permissions and symlink

Set the proper permissions by running chmod 755 /etc/init.d/localnet Create the proper symlinks by running cd /etc/rcS.d; ln -s ../init.d/network S03localnet

Creating the /etc/hostname file

Create a new file /etc/hostname and put the hostname in it. This is not the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name). This is the name you wish to call your computer in a network.

Creating the /etc/hosts file

If you want to configure a network card, you have to decide on the IP-address, FQDN and possible aliases for use in the /etc/hosts file. An example is:

<myip> myhost.mydomain.org somealiases

Make sure the IP-address is in the private network IP-address range. Valid ranges are:

Class Networks A 10.0.0.0 B 172.16.0.0 through 172.31.0.0 C 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.0

A valid IP address could be 192.168.1.1. A valid FQDN for this IP could be me.lfs.org

If you're not going to use a network card, you still need to come up with a FQDN. This is necessary for programs like Sendmail to operate correctly (in fact; Sendmail won't run when it can't determine the FQDN).

Here's the /etc/hosts file if you don't configure a network card:

# Begin /etc/hosts (no network card version) 127.0.0.1 me.lfs.org <contents of /etc/hostname> localhost # End /etc/hosts (no network card version)

Here's the /etc/hosts file if you do configure a network card:

# Begin /etc/hosts (network card version) 127.0.0.1 localhost 192.168.1.1 me.lfs.org <contents of /etc/hostname> # End /etc/hosts (network card version)

Of course, change the 192.168.1.1 and me.lfs.org to your own liking (or requirements if you are assigned an IP-address by a network/system administrator and you plan on connecting this machine to that network).

Creating the /etc/init.d/ethnet file

This sub section only applies if you are going to configure a network card. If not, skip this sub section and read on.

Create a new file /etc/init.d/ethnet containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/ethnet check_status() { if [ $? = 0 ] then echo "OK" else echo "FAILED" fi } /sbin/ifconfig eth0 <ipaddress> check_status # End /etc/init.d/ethnet

Setting up permissions and symlink for /etc/init.d/ethnet

Set the proper permissions by running chmod 755 ethnet Create the proper symlinks by running cd ../rc2.d; ln -s ../init.d/ethnet S10ethnet

Testing the network setup

Start the just created localnet script by running /etc/init.d/localnet Start the just created ethnet script if you have one by running /etc/init.d/ethnet Test if /etc/hosts is properly setup by running:

ping <your FQDN> ping <what you choose for hostname> ping localhost ping 127.0.0.1 ping 192.168.1.1 (only when you configured your network card)

All these five ping command's should work without failures. If so, the basic network is working.

Setting up Email sub system Preparing system for Email sub system Creating extra groups and user

We need to add a few groups and a user which will be used by the email utilities.

Create the bin group by running groupadd -g 1 bin Create the kmem group by running groupadd -g 2 kmem Create the mail group by running groupadd -g 3 mail Create the bin user by running useradd -u 1 -g bin -d /bin -s /bin/sh bin

Creating directories

There are two directories used by the email sub system, thus we need to create them and give them the proper permissions.

Create the /var/spool directory Create the /var/spool/mqueue directory Create the /var/spool/mail directory Set permissions on /tmp by running chmod 777 /tmp Set permissions on /var/spool/mqueue by running chmod 700 /var/spool/mqueue Set permissions on /var/spool/mail by running chmod 775 /var/spool/mail Put /var/spool/mail in the mail group by running chgrp mail /var/spool/mail

Installing Procmail

Unpack the Procmail archive Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install Set the proper permissions on the Procmail utilities by running make install-suid

Installing Sendmail Installing Sendmail

Unpack the Sendmail archive Go to the src directory Compile the package by running Build Install the package by running Build install

Configuring Sendmail

Configuring Sendmail isn't as easily said as done. There are a lot of things you need to consider while configuring Sendmail and I can't take everything into account. That's why at this time we'll create a very basic and standard setup. If you want to tweak Sendmail to your own liking, go right ahead, but this is not the right article. You could always use your existing /etc/sendmail.cf (or /etc/mail/sendmail.cf) file if you need to use certain features.

Go to the cf directory Create a new file cf/lfs.mc containing the following:

OSTYPE(LFS) FEATURE(nouucp) define(`LOCAL_MAILER_PATH', /usr/bin/procmail) MAILER(local) MAILER(smtp)

Create an empty file ostype/lfs.m4 by running touch ostype/lfs.m4 Compile the lfs.mc file by running m4 m4/cf.m4 cf/lfs.cf > cf/lfs.cf Copy the cf/lfs.cf to /etc/sendmail.cf Create an empty /etc/aliases file by running touch /etc/aliases Initialize this (empty) alias database by running sendmail -v -bi

Installing Mailx

Unpack the Mailx archive Compile the package by running make *.c -o mail

Ignore possible 'comparison between pointer and integer' and 'assignments makes integer from pointer without a cast' warnings. You'll probably get quite a few of these. Though, the program seems to work just fine nevertheless.

Copy the following binary to /usr/bin: mail Place the /usr/bin/mail program in the mail group by running chgrp mail /usr/bin/mail Let the /usr/bin/mail program be executed sgid by running chmod 2755 /usr/bin/mail

Creating /etc/init.d/sendmail bootscript

Create a new file /etc/init.d/sendmail containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/sendmail check_status() { if [ $? = 0 ] then echo "OK" else echo "FAILED" fi } case "$i" in start) echo -n "Starting Sendmail..." start-stop-daemon -S -q -p /var/run/sendmail.pid \ -x /usr/sbin/sendmail -- -bd check_status ;; stop) echo -n "Stopping Sendmail..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -p /var/run/sendmail.pid check_status ;; reload) echo -n "Reloading Sendmail configuration file..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -s 1 -p /var/run/sendmail.pid check_status ;; restart) echo -n "Stopping Sendmail..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -p /var/run/sendmail.pid check_status sleep 1 echo -n "Starting Sendmail..." start-stop-daemon -S -q -p /var/run/sendmail.pid \ -x /usr/sbin/sendmail -- -bd check_status ;; *) echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|reload|restart}" exit 1 ;; esac # End /etc/init.d/sendmail

Setting up permissions and symlinks

Set the proper permissions by running chmod 755 /etc/init.d/sendmail Create the proper symlinks by running:

cd /etc/init.d/rc2.d; ln -s ../init.d/sendmail S20sendmail cd ../rc0.d; ln -s ../init.d/sendmail K20sendmail cd ../rc6.d; ln -s ../init.d/sendmail K20sendmail

Installing Mutt

My favorite email client is Mutt, so that's why we're installing this one. Feel free to skip the installation of Mutt and install your own favorite client. After all, this is going to be your system. Not mine.

If your favorite client is an X Window client (such as Netscape Mail) then you'll have to sit tight a little while till we've installed X.

Unpack the Mutt archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Fetchmail

Unpack the Fetchmail archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Testing the Email sub system

It's time to test the email system now.

Start Sendmail by running /usr/sbin/sendmail -bd (you need to start sendmail using the full path. If you don't, you can't let sendmail reload the sendmail.cf by with kill -1 <sendmail pid>). Send yourself an email by running echo "this is an email test" | mail -s test root Start the mail program and you should see your email there. Create a new user by running useradd -m testuser Send an email to testuser by running echo "test mail to testuser" | mail -s test testuser Login as testuser, try to obtain that email (using the mail program) and send an email to root in the same way as you send an email to testuser.

If this all worked just fine, you have a working email system for local email. It's not necessarily ready for Internet yet. You can remove the testuser by running userdel -r testuser

Installing Internet Servers

In this section we're going to install three of the most used Internet servers, together with the necessary clients. These are going to be installed:

telnetd with the standard telnet client

proftpd with the standard ftp client

apache with lynx as client

Installing telnet daemon + client

Unpack the Netkit-telnet archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Proftpd

Unpack the Proftpd archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Netkit-ftp

Unpack the Netkit-ftp archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Apache

Apache isn't that easily configured. Like with Sendmail, a lot depends on your own preference and system setup. Therefore, once I again I stick with a very basic installation. If this doesn't work well enough for you, read the documentation and modify whatever you need to.

Unpack the Apache archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Slang Library

The Slang library is an alternative to the Ncurses library. We're going to use this library to link Lynx against. Though Lynx works fine with the Ncurses library, people recommend using the Slang library. I myself can't find a difference between a Lynx linked against the Slang library or against the Ncurses library. However, I'll just follow that advise and use Slang.

Unpack the Slang archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make elf Install the package by running make install-elf Create extra symlinks for the library by running make install-links

Installing Zlib

Zlib is a compression library, used by programs like PKware's zip and unzip utilities. Lynx can use this library to compress certain files.

Unpack the Zlib archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing Lynx

Unpack the Lynx archive Configure the package by running configure --libdir=/etc --with-zlib --with-screen=slang Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install Install the helpfile by running make install-help Install other documentation by running make install-doc

Configuring the daemons

It's possible to run the daemons in either stand-alone mode or via the Internet Server daemon (inetd). Where possible, I choose to run the daemons in stand-alone mode. This makes it easier to start and stop individual processes without modifying the /etc/inetd.conf file constantly.

However, in the telnetd case it's better to run it via inetd, since telnetd doesn't seem to respawn itself when the last user logs out. This would mean as soon as the last person logs out from the telnet session, the telnet daemon stops as well. This isn't desirable, so we let telnetd run using inetd to spawn a telnet process whenever somebody logs on.

Configuring telnetd Creating the /etc/inetd.conf configuration file

Create a new file /etc/inetd.conf containing the following:

# Begin /etc/inetd.conf telnet stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/in.telnetd # End /etc/inetd.conf

Creating the /etc/init.d/inetd bootscript

Create a new file /etc/init.d/inetd containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/inetd check_status() { if [ $? = 0 ] then echo "OK" else echo "FAILED" fi } case "$1" in start) echo -n "Starting Internet Server daemon..." start-stop-daemon -S -q -p /var/run/inetd.pid \ -x /usr/sbin/inetd check_status ;; stop) echo -n "Stopping Internet Server daemon..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -p /var/run/inetd.pid check_status ;; reload) echo -n "Reloading Internet Server configuration file..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -s 1 -p /var/run/inetd.pid check_status ;; restart) echo -n "Stopping Internet Server daemon..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -p /var/run/inetd.pid check_status sleep 1 echo -n "Starting Internet Server daemon..." start-stop-daemon -S -q -p /var/run/inetd.pid \ -x /usr/sbin/inetd check_status ;; *) echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|reload|restart}" ;; esac # End /etc/init.d/inetd

Setting up permissions and symlinks

Set the proper permissions by running chmod 755 /etc/init.d/inetd Create the necessary symlinks by running

cd /etc/rc2.d; ln -s ../init.d/inetd S30inetd cd ../rc0.d; ln -s ../init.d/inetd K30inetd cd ../rc6.d; ln -s ../init.d/inetd K30 inetd

Configuring proftpd Creating necessary groups and users

Create the necessary groups by running:

groupadd -g 65534 nogroup groupadd -g 4 ftp

Create the necessary users by running:

useradd -u 65534 -g nogroup -d /home nobody useradd -u 4 -g ftp -m ftp

Creating the /etc/init.d/proftpd bootscript

Create a new file /etc/init.d/proftpd containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/proftpd check_status() { if [ $? = 0 ] then echo "OK" else echo "FAILED" fi } case "$1" in start) echo -n "Starting Pro FTP daemon..." start-stop-daemon -S -q -x /usr/sbin/proftpd check_status ;; stop) echo -n "Stopping Pro FTP daemon..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -x /usr/sbin/proftpd check_status ;; restart) echo -n "Stopping Pro FTP daemon..." start-stop-daemon -K -q -x /usr/sbin/proftpd check_status sleep 1 echo -n "Starting Pro FTP daemon..." start-stop-daemon -S -q -x /usr/sbin/proftpd check_status ;; *) echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}" ;; esac # End /etc/init.d/proftpd

Setting up permissions and symlinks

Set the proper permissions by running chmod 755 /etc/init.d/proftpd Create the necessary symlinks by running:

cd /etc/rc2.d; ln -s ../init.d/proftpd S40proftpd cd ../rc0.d; ln -s ../init.d/proftpd K40proftpd cd ../rc6.d; ln -s ../init.d/proftpd K40proftpd

Configuring apache Editing apache configuration file

Edit the files in the /usr/apache/etc directory and modify them according to your own needs.

Edit the httpd.conf file and find the variable: Group Replace the current value (if any) with: nogroup

Creating /etc/init.d/apache bootscript

Create a new file /etc/init.d/apache containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /etc/init.d/apache case "$1" in start) echo -n "Starting Apache HTTP daemon..." /usr/apache/sbin/apachectl start ;; stop) echo -n "Stopping Apache HTTP daemon..." /usr/apache/sbin/apachectl stop ;; restart) echo -n "Restarting Apache HTTP daemon..." /usr/apache/sbin/apachectl restart ;; force-restart) echo -n "Stopping Apache HTTP daemon..." /usr/apache/sbin/apachectl stop sleep 1 echo -n "Starting Apache HTTP daemon..." /usr/apache/sbin/apachectl start ;; *) echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|force-restart}" ;; esac # End /etc/init.d/apache

Setting up permissions and symlinks

Set the proper permissions by running chmod 755 /etc/init.d/apache Create the necessary symlinks by running:

cd /etc/rc2.d; ln -s ../init.d/apache S50apache cd ../rc0.d; ln -s ../init.d/apache K50apache cd ../rc6.d; ln -s ../init.d/apache K50apache

Testing the daemons

The last step in this section is testing the just installed and configured daemons.

Start the Internet Server daemon (and with it telnetd) by running /etc/init.d/inetd start Start a telnet session to localhost by running telnet localhost Login and logout again. Start the Pro ftp daemon by running /etc/init.d/proftpd start Start a ftp session to localhost by running ftp localhost Login as user anonymous and logout again. Start the Apache http daemon by running /etc/init.d/apache start Start a http session to localhost by running lynx http://localhost Exit lynx.

If these tests ran without trouble, the daemons are all working fine.

Installing X Window System Installing X

Unpack the X archive Compile the package by running make World

During the compilation process you will encounter a few errors about the "makedepend" script not being able to find the stddef.h stdarg.h and float.h header files. The script just isn't as smart as the compiler is apparently, since the compilation itself does work fine without compilation errors. Though, creating a few temporary symlinks won't solve the problem; they only will cause more problems for some reason.

So you just ignore the many makedepend errors you most likely will be getting. Also errors similar to "pointer targets in passing arg x of somefunction differ in signedness". You can rewrite those files if you feel like it. I won't.

Install the package by running make install Install the man pages by running make install.man

Creating /etc/ld.so.conf

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

# Begin /etc/ld.so.conf /lib /usr/lib /usr/X11R6/lib # End /etc/ld.so.conf

Update the dynamic loader cache by running ldconfig

Modifying /etc/man_db.config

Edit the /etc/man_db.config file and look for this line: MANDATORY_MANPATH /usr/man Under that line put the following one: MANDATORY_MANPATH /usr/X11R6/man

Creating the /usr/include/X11 symlink

In order for the pre-processor to find the X11/*.h files (which you encounter in #include statements in source code) create the following symlink: ln -s /usr/X11R6/include/X11 /usr/include/X11

Creating the /usr/X11 symlink

Often software copies files to /usr/X11 so it doesn't have to know which release of X you are using. This symlink hasn't been created by the X installation, so we have to create it by ourselves.

Create the /usr/X11 symlink by running ln -s /usr/X11R6 /usr/X11

Adding /usr/X11/bin to the $PATH environment variable

There are a few ways to add the /usr/X11/bin path to the $PATH environment variable. One way of doing so is the following:

Create a new file /root/.bashrc with it's contents as follows: export PATH=$PATH:/usr/X11/bin

You need to login again for this change to become effective. Or you can update the path by running export PATH=$PATH:/usr/X11/bin manually

Configuring X

Configure the X server by running xf86config

If the XF86Config file created by xf86config doesn't suffice, then you better copy the already existing XF86Config from your normal Linux system to /etc. Cases wherein you need to make special changes to the file which aren't supported by the xf86config program force you to do this. You can always modify the created XF86Config file by hand. This can be very time consuming, especially if you don't quite remember what needs to be changed.

Testing X

Now that X is properly configured it's time for our first test run.

Start the X server by running startx

The X server should start and display 3 xterm's on your screen. If this is true in your case, X is running fine.

Installing Window Maker

I choose to install Window Maker as the Window Manager. This is because I've used WindowMaker for quite a while now and I'm very satisfied with it. As usual, you don't have to do what I'm doing; install whatever you want. As you might know, you can install several Window Managers simultaneously and choose which one to start by specifying it in the $HOME/.xinitrc (or $HOME/.xsession in case you decide to use xdm) file.

Preparing the system for the Window Maker installation Installing libPropList

Unpack the libPropList archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing libXpm

Unpack the libXpm archive Prepare the compilation by running xmkmf; make Makefiles; make includes; make depend

Ignore the warning about not being able to find the X11/xpm.h file from make depend.

Compile the package by running make

The compilation process will abort because the X11/xpm.h file cannot be found. So we install this file now and then recompile.

Go to the lib directory Install the libraries and header files by running make install Go to the top level directory and recompile the package by running make Install the rest of the package by running make install

Installing libpng

Unpack the libpng archive Compile the package by running make -f scripts/makefile.lnx Install the package by running make -f scripts/makefile.lnx install

Installing libtiff

Unpack the libtiff archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing libjpeg

Unpack the libjpeg archive Configure the package by running configure --enable-shared --enable-static Compile the library by running make libjpg.la Compile the tools and install the package by running make install

Installing libungif

Unpack the libungif archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Installing WindowMaker

Unpack the WindowMaker archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Updating dynamic loader cache

Update the dynamic loader cache by running ldconfig

Configuring WindowMaker

Every user who wishes to use WindowMaker has to run the wmaker.inst script before he or she can use it. This script will copy the necessary files into the user's home directory and modify the $HOME/.xinitrc file (or create it if it's not there yet).

Setup WindowMaker for yourself by running wmaker.inst

Testing WindowMaker

Start the X server and see if the WindowMaker Window Manager starts properly by running startx

Configuring system for Internet Configuring Kernel

Before you can logon to the Internet, the kernel must be ppp-aware. You can accomplish this by compiling ppp-support directly into the kernel, or compiling the ppp drivers are modules which you load when you need them. Whatever you prefer, do it now by re-configuring the kernel if necessary. If your LFS kernel is already ppp-aware than you don't have to re-configure the kernel.

Creating groups and directories

Create the daemon group by running groupadd -g 5 daemon Create the /var/lock directory by running mkdir /var/lock

Installing PPP

Unpack the PPP archive Configure the package by running configure Compile the package by running make Install the package by running make install

Creating /etc/resolv.conf

Create a new file /etc/resolv.conf containing the following:

# Begin /etc/resolv.conf nameserver <IP address of your ISP's primairy DNS server> nameserver <IP address of your ISP's secundairy DNS server> # End /etc/resolv.conf

Creating the connect and disconnect scripts

Create a new file /usr/bin/pon file containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /usr/bin/pon /usr/sbin/pppd call provider # End /usr/bin/pon

Create a new file /usr/bin/poff file containing the following:

#!/bin/sh # Begin /usr/bin/poff set -- `cat /var/run/ppp*.pid` case $# in 0) kill -15 `ps axw|grep "pppd call [[allnum:]]+"|grep -v grep|awk '{print $1}'` exit 0 ;; 1) kill -15 $1 exit 0 ;; esac # End /usr/bin/poff

Creating /etc/ppp/peers/provider

Create the /etc/ppp/peers directory Create a new file /etc/ppp/peers/provider containing the following:

# Begin /etc/ppp/peers/provider noauth connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/chatscripts/provider" /dev/ttyS1 115200 defaultroute noipdefault # End /etc/ppp/peers/provider

Creating /etc/chatscripts/provider

Create the /etc/chatscripts directory Create a new file /etc/chatscripts/provider containing the following:

# Begin /etc/chatscripts/provider ABORT BUSY ABORT "NO CARRIER" ABORT VOICE ABORT "NO DIALTONE" ABORT "NO ANSWER" "" ATZ OK ATDT <ISP's phonenumber> TIMEOUT 35 CONNECT '' TIMEOUT 10 ogin: \q<username> TIMEOUT 10 assword: \q<mysecretpassword> # End /etc/chatscripts/provider

Note on password authentication

As you see from the sample scripts (these are the actual scripts I'm using myself) above I logon to my ISP using this chatscripts in stead of authenticating via pap or chap. Though my ISP supports pap, I choose to do it this slightly different way which has it's disadvantages and advantages. In my case the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. This way I have more control over my logon procedure and I can see closer what is happening when.

For example most times when I connect I have a window running tail -f /var/log/syslog so I can keep an eye on when things like the username and password are sent.

Other resources

For a far more detailed guide on how to set up Internet, I refer to Egil Kvaleberg's ISP-Hookup-HOWTO which is available from the LDP site at

Migrations from old to new setups

This section is only to be used by people who have installed a LFS system using previous versions of this HOWTO. If a major change in an installation approach has taken place, you first need to take some actions such as removing existing files from a package before you can re-install that package. This section is used to assist people who obtained an old, obsolete version of this HOWTO and after installing the LFS system noticed that there's a new HOWTO (like this one) fixing things that went wrong in the older versions.

Migrating from old C++ Library setup to the new setup

This section only applies to people who have previously installed the C++ Library using LFS-HOWTO version 1.0, 1.1 or 1.2.

Remove the following directory and symlinks: /usr/include/g++*

Migrating from old compiler setup to the new setup

This section only applies to people who have previously installed compilers using LFS-HOWTO 1.0, 1.1 or 1.2.

Remove the following files from the $LFS/usr/bin directory: cc cpp c++ gcc gcj gcjh g77 g++ protoize unprotoize Remove the following directories: $LFS/usr/lib/gcc-lib $LFS/usr/gcc2723

Copyright & Licensing Information

Copyright (C) 1999 by Gerard Beekmans. This document may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the LDP License at .

It is not necessary to display the license notice, as described in the LDP License, when only a small part of this document (the HOWTO) is quoted for informational or similar purposes. However, I do require you to display with the quotation(s) a line similar to the following line: "Quoted from the LFS-HOWTO at