The LFS system will be built by using an already installed Linux distribution (such as Debian, OpenMandriva, Fedora, or openSUSE). This existing Linux system (the host) will be used as a starting point to provide necessary programs, including a compiler, linker, and shell, to build the new system. Select the “development” option during the distribution installation to include these tools.

As an alternative to installing a separate distribution on your machine, you may wish to use a LiveCD from a commercial distribution.

Chapter 2 of this book describes how to create a new Linux native partition and file system, where the new LFS system will be compiled and installed. Chapter 3 explains which packages and patches must be downloaded to build an LFS system, and how to store them on the new file system. Chapter 4 discusses the setup of an appropriate working environment. Please read Chapter 4 carefully as it explains several important issues you should be aware of before you begin to work your way through Chapter 5 and beyond.

Chapter 5 explains the installation of the initial tool chain, (binutils, gcc, and glibc) using cross-compilation techniques to isolate the new tools from the host system.

Chapter 6 shows you how to cross-compile basic utilities using the just built cross-toolchain.

Chapter 7 then enters a "chroot" environment, where we use the new tools to build all the rest of the tools needed to create the LFS system.

This effort to isolate the new system from the host distribution may seem excessive. A full technical explanation as to why this is done is provided in Toolchain Technical Notes.

In Chapter 8 the full-blown LFS system is built. Another advantage provided by the chroot environment is that it allows you to continue using the host system while LFS is being built. While waiting for package compilations to complete, you can continue using your computer as usual.

To finish the installation, the basic system configuration is set up in Chapter 9, and the kernel and boot loader are created in Chapter 10. Chapter 11 contains information on continuing the LFS experience beyond this book. After the steps in this chapter have been implemented, the computer is ready to boot into the new LFS system.

This is the process in a nutshell. Detailed information on each step is presented in the following chapters. Items that seem complicated now will be clarified, and everything will fall into place as you commence your LFS adventure.

Here is a list of the packages updated since the previous release of LFS.

This is version r12.2-32 of the Linux From Scratch book, dated November 19th, 2024. If this book is more than six months old, a newer and better version is probably already available. To find out, please check one of the mirrors via https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/mirrors.html.

Below is a list of changes made since the previous release of the book.

If an issue or a question is encountered while working through this book, please check the FAQ page at https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/#generalfaq. Questions are often already answered there. If your question is not answered on that page, try to find the source of the problem. The following hint will give you some guidance for troubleshooting: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/errors.txt.

If you cannot find your problem listed in the FAQ, search the mailing lists at https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/search.html.

We also have a wonderful LFS community that is willing to offer assistance through the mailing lists and IRC (see the Section 1.4, “Resources” section of this book). However, we get several support questions every day, and many of them could have been easily answered by going to the FAQ or by searching the mailing lists first. So, for us to offer the best assistance possible, you should first do some research on your own. That allows us to focus on the more unusual support needs. If your searches do not produce a solution, please include all the relevant information (mentioned below) in your request for help.

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

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

In this chapter, the host tools needed for building LFS are checked and, if necessary, installed. Then a partition which will host the LFS system is prepared. We will create the partition itself, create a file system on it, and mount it.

LFS is designed to be built in one session. That is, the instructions assume that the system will not be shut down during the process. This does not mean that the system has to be built in one sitting. The issue is that certain procedures must be repeated after a reboot when resuming LFS at different points.

Like most other operating systems, LFS is usually installed on a dedicated partition. The recommended approach to building an LFS system is to use an available empty partition or, if you have enough unpartitioned space, to create one.

A minimal system requires a partition of around 10 gigabytes (GB). This is enough to store all the source tarballs and compile the packages. However, if the LFS system is intended to be the primary Linux system, additional software will probably be installed which will require additional space. A 30 GB partition is a reasonable size to provide for growth. The LFS system itself will not take up this much room. A large portion of this requirement is to provide sufficient free temporary storage as well as for adding additional capabilities after LFS is complete. Additionally, compiling packages can require a lot of disk space which will be reclaimed after the package is installed.

Because there is not always enough Random Access Memory (RAM) available for compilation processes, it is a good idea to use a small disk partition as swap space. This is used by the kernel to store seldom-used data and leave more memory available for active processes. The swap partition for an LFS system can be the same as the one used by the host system, in which case it is not necessary to create another one.

Start a disk partitioning program such as cfdisk or fdisk with a command line option naming the hard disk on which the new partition will be created—for example /dev/sda for the primary disk drive. Create a Linux native partition and a swap partition, if needed. Please refer to cfdisk(8) or fdisk(8) if you do not yet know how to use the programs.

Remember the designation of the new partition (e.g., sda5). This book will refer to this as the LFS partition. Also remember the designation of the swap partition. These names will be needed later for the /etc/fstab file.

A partition is just a range of sectors on a disk drive, delimited by boundaries set in a partition table. Before the operating system can use a partition to store any files, the partition must be formatted to contain a file system, typically consisting of a label, directory blocks, data blocks, and an indexing scheme to locate a particular file on demand. The file system also helps the OS keep track of free space on the partition, reserve the needed sectors when a new file is created or an existing file is extended, and recycle the free data segments created when files are deleted. It may also provide support for data redundancy, and for error recovery.

LFS can use any file system recognized by the Linux kernel, but the most common types are ext3 and ext4. The choice of the right file system can be complex; it depends on the characteristics of the files and the size of the partition. For example:

Other file systems, including FAT32, NTFS, JFS, and XFS are useful for specialized purposes. More information about these file systems, and many others, can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems.

LFS assumes that the root file system (/) is of type ext4. To create an ext4 file system on the LFS partition, issue the following command:

mkfs -v -t ext4 /dev/<xxx>

Replace <xxx> with the name of the LFS partition.

If you are using an existing swap partition, there is no need to format it. If a new swap partition was created, it will need to be initialized with this command:

mkswap /dev/<yyy>

Replace <yyy> with the name of the swap partition.

Throughout this book, the environment variable LFS will be used several times. You should ensure that this variable is always defined throughout the LFS build process. It should be set to the name of the directory where you will be building your LFS system - we will use /mnt/lfs as an example, but you may choose any directory name you want. If you are building LFS on a separate partition, this directory will be the mount point for the partition. Choose a directory location and set the variable with the following command:

export LFS=/mnt/lfs

Having this variable set is beneficial in that commands such as mkdir -v $LFS/tools can be typed literally. The shell will automatically replace “$LFS” with “/mnt/lfs” (or whatever value the variable was set to) when it processes the command line.

echo $LFS

Now that a file system has been created, the partition must be mounted so the host system can access it. This book assumes that the file system is mounted at the directory specified by the LFS environment variable described in the previous section.

Strictly speaking, one cannot “mount a partition.” One mounts the file system embedded in that partition. But since a single partition can't contain more than one file system, people often speak of the partition and the associated file system as if they were one and the same.

Create the mount point and mount the LFS file system with these commands:

mkdir -pv $LFS
mount -v -t ext4 /dev/<xxx> $LFS

Replace <xxx> with the name of the LFS partition.

If you are using multiple partitions for LFS (e.g., one for / and another for /home), mount them like this:

mkdir -pv $LFS
mount -v -t ext4 /dev/<xxx> $LFS
mkdir -v $LFS/home
mount -v -t ext4 /dev/<yyy> $LFS/home

Replace <xxx> and <yyy> with the appropriate partition names.

Ensure that this new partition is not mounted with permissions that are too restrictive (such as the nosuid or nodev options). Run the mount command without any parameters to see what options are set for the mounted LFS partition. If nosuid and/or nodev are set, the partition must be remounted.

/dev/<xxx>  /mnt/lfs ext4   defaults      1     1

If you are using a swap partition, ensure that it is enabled using the swapon command:

/sbin/swapon -v /dev/<zzz>

Replace <zzz> with the name of the swap partition.

Now that the new LFS partition is open for business, it's time to download the packages.

This chapter includes a list of packages that need to be downloaded in order to build a basic Linux system. The listed version numbers correspond to versions of the software that are known to work, and this book is based on their use. We highly recommend against using different versions, because the build commands for one version may not work with a different version, unless the different version is specified by an LFS erratum or security advisory. The newest package versions may also have problems that require work-arounds. These work-arounds will be developed and stabilized in the development version of the book.

For some packages, the release tarball and the (Git or SVN) repository snapshot tarball for that release may be published with similar file names. A release tarball contains generated files (for example, a configure script generated by autoconf), in addition to the contents of the corresponding repository snapshot. The book uses release tarballs whenever possible. Using a repository snapshot instead of a release tarball specified by the book will cause problems.

Download locations may not always be accessible. If a download location has changed since this book was published, Google (https://www.google.com/) provides a useful search engine for most packages. If this search is unsuccessful, try one of the alternative means of downloading at https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/mirrors.html#files.

Downloaded packages and patches will need to be stored somewhere that is conveniently available throughout the entire build. A working directory is also required to unpack the sources and build them. $LFS/sources can be used both as the place to store the tarballs and patches and as a working directory. By using this directory, the required elements will be located on the LFS partition and will be available during all stages of the building process.

To create this directory, execute the following command, as user root, before starting the download session:

mkdir -v $LFS/sources

Make this directory writable and sticky. “Sticky” means that even if multiple users have write permission on a directory, only the owner of a file can delete the file within a sticky directory. The following command will enable the write and sticky modes:

chmod -v a+wt $LFS/sources

There are several ways to obtain all the necessary packages and patches to build LFS:

To download all of the packages and patches by using wget-list-sysv as an input to the wget command, use:

wget --input-file=wget-list-sysv --continue --directory-prefix=$LFS/sources

Additionally, starting with LFS-7.0, there is a separate file, md5sums, which can be used to verify that all the correct packages are available before proceeding. Place that file in $LFS/sources and run:

pushd $LFS/sources
  md5sum -c md5sums
popd

This check can be used after retrieving the needed files with any of the methods listed above.

If the packages and patches are downloaded as a non-root user, these files will be owned by the user. The file system records the owner by its UID, and the UID of a normal user in the host distro is not assigned in LFS. So the files will be left owned by an unnamed UID in the final LFS system. If you won't assign the same UID for your user in the LFS system, change the owners of these files to root now to avoid this issue:

chown root:root $LFS/sources/*

Download or otherwise obtain the following packages:

Total size of these packages: about 525 MB

In addition to the packages, several patches are also required. These patches correct any mistakes in the packages that should be fixed by the maintainer. The patches also make small modifications to make the packages easier to work with. The following patches will be needed to build an LFS system:

Total size of these patches: about 208.7 KB

In addition to the above required patches, there exist a number of optional patches created by the LFS community. These optional patches solve minor problems or enable functionality that is not enabled by default. Feel free to peruse the patches database located at https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/downloads/ and acquire any additional patches to suit your system needs.

In this chapter, we will perform a few additional tasks to prepare for building the temporary system. We will create a set of directories in $LFS (in which we will install the temporary tools), add an unprivileged user, and create an appropriate build environment for that user. We will also explain the units of time (“SBUs”) we use to measure how long it takes to build LFS packages, and provide some information about package test suites.

In this section, we begin populating the LFS filesystem with the pieces that will constitute the final Linux system. The first step is to create a limited directory hierarchy, so that the programs compiled in Chapter 6 (as well as glibc and libstdc++ in Chapter 5) can be installed in their final location. We do this so those temporary programs will be overwritten when the final versions are built in Chapter 8.

Create the required directory layout by issuing the following commands as root:

mkdir -pv $LFS/{etc,var} $LFS/usr/{bin,lib,sbin}

for i in bin lib sbin; do
  ln -sv usr/$i $LFS/$i
done

case $(uname -m) in
  x86_64) mkdir -pv $LFS/lib64 ;;
esac

Programs in Chapter 6 will be compiled with a cross-compiler (more details can be found in section Toolchain Technical Notes). This cross-compiler will be installed in a special directory, to separate it from the other programs. Still acting as root, create that directory with this command:

mkdir -pv $LFS/tools

When logged in as user root, making a single mistake can damage or destroy a system. Therefore, the packages in the next two chapters are built as an unprivileged user. You could use your own user name, but to make it easier to set up a clean working environment, we will create a new user called lfs as a member of a new group (also named lfs) and run commands as lfs during the installation process. As root, issue the following commands to add the new user:

groupadd lfs
useradd -s /bin/bash -g lfs -m -k /dev/null lfs

If you want to log in as lfs or switch to lfs from a non-root user (as opposed to switching to user lfs when logged in as root, which does not require the lfs user to have a password), you need to set a password for lfs. Issue the following command as the root user to set the password:

passwd lfs

Grant lfs full access to all the directories under $LFS by making lfs the owner:

chown -v lfs $LFS/{usr{,/*},lib,var,etc,bin,sbin,tools}
case $(uname -m) in
  x86_64) chown -v lfs $LFS/lib64 ;;
esac

Next, start a shell running as user lfs. This can be done by logging in as lfs on a virtual console, or with the following substitute/switch user command:

su - lfs

The “-” instructs su to start a login shell as opposed to a non-login shell. The difference between these two types of shells is described in detail in bash(1) and info bash.

Set up a good working environment by creating two new startup files for the bash shell. While logged in as user lfs, issue the following command to create a new .bash_profile:

cat > ~/.bash_profile << "EOF"
exec env -i HOME=$HOME TERM=$TERM PS1='\u:\w\$ ' /bin/bash
EOF

When logged on as user lfs, or when switched to the lfs user using an su command with the “-” option, the initial shell is a login shell which reads the /etc/profile of the host (probably containing some settings and environment variables) and then .bash_profile. The exec env -i.../bin/bash command in the .bash_profile file replaces the running shell with a new one with a completely empty environment, except for the HOME, TERM, and PS1 variables. This ensures that no unwanted and potentially hazardous environment variables from the host system leak into the build environment.

The new instance of the shell is a non-login shell, which does not read, and execute, the contents of the /etc/profile or .bash_profile files, but rather reads, and executes, the .bashrc file instead. Create the .bashrc file now:

cat > ~/.bashrc << "EOF"
set +h
umask 022
LFS=/mnt/lfs
LC_ALL=POSIX
LFS_TGT=$(uname -m)-lfs-linux-gnu
PATH=/usr/bin
if [ ! -L /bin ]; then PATH=/bin:$PATH; fi
PATH=$LFS/tools/bin:$PATH
CONFIG_SITE=$LFS/usr/share/config.site
export LFS LC_ALL LFS_TGT PATH CONFIG_SITE
EOF

[ ! -e /etc/bash.bashrc ] || mv -v /etc/bash.bashrc /etc/bash.bashrc.NOUSE

For many modern systems with multiple processors (or cores) the compilation time for a package can be reduced by performing a "parallel make" by telling the make program how many processors are available via a command line option or an environment variable. For instance, an Intel Core i9-13900K processor has 8 P (performance) cores and 16 E (efficiency) cores, and a P core can simultaneously run two threads so each P core are modeled as two logical cores by the Linux kernel. As the result there are 32 logical cores in total. One obvious way to use all these logical cores is allowing make to spawn up to 32 build jobs. This can be done by passing the -j32 option to make:

make -j32

Or set the MAKEFLAGS environment variable and its content will be automatically used by make as command line options:

export MAKEFLAGS=-j32

To use all logical cores available for building packages in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6, set MAKEFLAGS now in .bashrc:

cat >> ~/.bashrc << "EOF"
export MAKEFLAGS=-j$(nproc)
EOF

Replace $(nproc) with the number of logical cores you want to use if you don't want to use all the logical cores.

Finally, to ensure the environment is fully prepared for building the temporary tools, force the bash shell to read the new user profile:

source ~/.bash_profile

Many people would like to know beforehand approximately how long it takes to compile and install each package. Because Linux From Scratch can be built on many different systems, it is impossible to provide absolute time estimates. The biggest package (gcc) will take approximately 5 minutes on the fastest systems, but could take days on slower systems! Instead of providing actual times, the Standard Build Unit (SBU) measure will be used instead.

The SBU measure works as follows. The first package to be compiled is binutils in Chapter 5. The time it takes to compile using one core is what we will refer to as the Standard Build Unit or SBU. All other compile times will be expressed in terms of this unit of time.

For example, consider a package whose compilation time is 4.5 SBUs. This means that if your system took 4 minutes to compile and install the first pass of binutils, it will take approximately 18 minutes to build the example package. Fortunately, most build times are shorter than one SBU.

SBUs are not entirely accurate because they depend on many factors, including the host system's version of GCC. They are provided here to give an estimate of how long it might take to install a package, but the numbers can vary by as much as dozens of minutes in some cases.

On some newer systems, the motherboard is capable of controlling the system clock speed. This can be controlled with a command such as powerprofilesctl. This is not available in LFS, but may be available on the host distro. After LFS is complete, it can be added to a system with the procedures at the BLFS power-profiles-daemon page. Before measuring the build time of any package it is advisable to use a system power profile set for maximum performance (and maximum power consumption). Otherwise the measured SBU value may be inaccurate because the system may react differently when building binutils-pass1 or other packages. Be aware that a significant inaccuracy can still show up even if the same profile is used for both packages because the system may respond slower if the system is idle when starting the build procedure. Setting the power profile to “performance” will minimize this problem. And obviously doing so will also make the system build LFS faster.

If powerprofilesctl is available, issue the powerprofilesctl set performance command to select the performance profile. Some distros provides the tuned-adm command for managing the profiles instead of powerprofilesctl, on these distros issue the tuned-adm profile throughput-performance command to select the throughput-performance profile.

Most packages provide a test suite. Running the test suite for a newly built package is a good idea because it can provide a “sanity check” indicating that everything compiled correctly. A test suite that passes its set of checks usually proves that the package is functioning as the developer intended. It does not, however, guarantee that the package is totally bug free.

Some test suites are more important than others. For example, the test suites for the core toolchain packages—GCC, binutils, and glibc—are of the utmost importance due to their central role in a properly functioning system. The test suites for GCC and glibc can take a very long time to complete, especially on slower hardware, but are strongly recommended.

A common issue with running the test suites for binutils and GCC is running out of pseudo terminals (PTYs). This can result in a large number of failing tests. This may happen for several reasons, but the most likely cause is that the host system does not have the devpts file system set up correctly. This issue is discussed in greater detail at https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html#no-ptys.

Sometimes package test suites will fail for reasons which the developers are aware of and have deemed non-critical. Consult the logs located at https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/build-logs/development/ to verify whether or not these failures are expected. This site is valid for all test suites throughout this book.

This chapter shows how to build a cross-compiler and its associated tools. Although here cross-compilation is faked, the principles are the same as for a real cross-toolchain.

The programs compiled in this chapter will be installed under the $LFS/tools directory to keep them separate from the files installed in the following chapters. The libraries, on the other hand, are installed into their final place, since they pertain to the system we want to build.

This chapter shows how to cross-compile basic utilities using the just built cross-toolchain. Those utilities are installed into their final location, but cannot be used yet. Basic tasks still rely on the host's tools. Nevertheless, the installed libraries are used when linking.

Using the utilities will be possible in the next chapter after entering the “chroot” environment. But all the packages built in the present chapter need to be built before we do that. Therefore we cannot be independent of the host system yet.

Once again, let us recall that improper setting of LFS together with building as root, may render your computer unusable. This whole chapter must be done as user lfs, with the environment as described in Section 4.4, “Setting Up the Environment.”

This chapter shows how to build the last missing bits of the temporary system: the tools needed to build the various packages. Now that all circular dependencies have been resolved, a “chroot” environment, completely isolated from the host operating system (except for the running kernel), can be used for the build.

For proper operation of the isolated environment, some communication with the running kernel must be established. This is done via the so-called Virtual Kernel File Systems, which will be mounted before entering the chroot environment. You may want to verify that they are mounted by issuing the findmnt command.

Until Section 7.4, “Entering the Chroot Environment”, the commands must be run as root, with the LFS variable set. After entering chroot, all commands are run as root, fortunately without access to the OS of the computer you built LFS on. Be careful anyway, as it is easy to destroy the whole LFS system with bad commands.

Currently, the whole directory hierarchy in $LFS is owned by the user lfs, a user that exists only on the host system. If the directories and files under $LFS are kept as they are, they will be owned by a user ID without a corresponding account. This is dangerous because a user account created later could get this same user ID and would own all the files under $LFS, thus exposing these files to possible malicious manipulation.

To address this issue, change the ownership of the $LFS/* directories to user root by running the following command:

chown --from lfs -R root:root $LFS/{usr,lib,var,etc,bin,sbin,tools}
case $(uname -m) in
  x86_64) chown --from lfs -R root:root $LFS/lib64 ;;
esac

Applications running in userspace utilize various file systems created by the kernel to communicate with the kernel itself. These file systems are virtual: no disk space is used for them. The content of these file systems resides in memory. These file systems must be mounted in the $LFS directory tree so the applications can find them in the chroot environment.

Begin by creating the directories on which these virtual file systems will be mounted:

mkdir -pv $LFS/{dev,proc,sys,run}

mount -v --bind /dev $LFS/dev

mount -vt devpts devpts -o gid=5,mode=0620 $LFS/dev/pts
mount -vt proc proc $LFS/proc
mount -vt sysfs sysfs $LFS/sys
mount -vt tmpfs tmpfs $LFS/run

if [ -h $LFS/dev/shm ]; then
  install -v -d -m 1777 $LFS$(realpath /dev/shm)
else
  mount -vt tmpfs -o nosuid,nodev tmpfs $LFS/dev/shm
fi

Now that all the packages which are required to build the rest of the needed tools are on the system, it is time to enter the chroot environment and finish installing the temporary tools. This environment will also be used to install the final system. As user root, run the following command to enter the environment that is, at the moment, populated with nothing but temporary tools:

chroot "$LFS" /usr/bin/env -i   \
    HOME=/root                  \
    TERM="$TERM"                \
    PS1='(lfs chroot) \u:\w\$ ' \
    PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin     \
    MAKEFLAGS="-j$(nproc)"      \
    TESTSUITEFLAGS="-j$(nproc)" \
    /bin/bash --login

If you don't want to use all available logical cores, replace $(nproc) with the number of logical cores you want to use for building packages in this chapter and the following chapters. The test suites of some packages (notably Autoconf, Libtool, and Tar) in Chapter 8 are not affected by MAKEFLAGS, they use a TESTSUITEFLAGS environment variable instead. We set that here as well for running these test suites with multiple cores.

The -i option given to the env command will clear all the variables in the chroot environment. After that, only the HOME, TERM, PS1, and PATH variables are set again. The TERM=$TERM construct sets the TERM variable inside chroot to the same value as outside chroot. This variable is needed so programs like vim and less can operate properly. If other variables are desired, such as CFLAGS or CXXFLAGS, this is a good place to set them.

From this point on, there is no need to use the LFS variable any more because all work will be restricted to the LFS file system; the chroot command runs the Bash shell with the root (/) directory set to $LFS.

Notice that /tools/bin is not in the PATH. This means that the cross toolchain will no longer be used.

Also note that the bash prompt will say I have no name! This is normal because the /etc/passwd file has not been created yet.

It is time to create the full directory structure in the LFS file system.

Create some root-level directories that are not in the limited set required in the previous chapters by issuing the following command:

mkdir -pv /{boot,home,mnt,opt,srv}

Create the required set of subdirectories below the root-level by issuing the following commands:

mkdir -pv /etc/{opt,sysconfig}
mkdir -pv /lib/firmware
mkdir -pv /media/{floppy,cdrom}
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}{include,src}
mkdir -pv /usr/lib/locale
mkdir -pv /usr/local/{bin,lib,sbin}
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/{color,dict,doc,info,locale,man}
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/{misc,terminfo,zoneinfo}
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/man/man{1..8}
mkdir -pv /var/{cache,local,log,mail,opt,spool}
mkdir -pv /var/lib/{color,misc,locate}

ln -sfv /run /var/run
ln -sfv /run/lock /var/lock

install -dv -m 0750 /root
install -dv -m 1777 /tmp /var/tmp

Directories are, by default, created with permission mode 755, but this is not desirable everywhere. In the commands above, two changes are made—one to the home directory of user root, and another to the directories for temporary files.

The first mode change ensures that not just anybody can enter the /root directory—just like a normal user would do with his or her own home directory. The second mode change makes sure that any user can write to the /tmp and /var/tmp directories, but cannot remove another user's files from them. The latter is prohibited by the so-called “sticky bit,” the highest bit (1) in the 1777 bit mask.

Historically, Linux maintained a list of the mounted file systems in the file /etc/mtab. Modern kernels maintain this list internally and expose it to the user via the /proc filesystem. To satisfy utilities that expect to find /etc/mtab, create the following symbolic link:

ln -sv /proc/self/mounts /etc/mtab

Create a basic /etc/hosts file to be referenced in some test suites, and in one of Perl's configuration files as well:

cat > /etc/hosts << EOF
127.0.0.1  localhost $(hostname)
::1        localhost
EOF

In order for user root to be able to login and for the name “root” to be recognized, there must be relevant entries in the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files.

Create the /etc/passwd file by running the following command:

cat > /etc/passwd << "EOF"
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
bin:x:1:1:bin:/dev/null:/usr/bin/false
daemon:x:6:6:Daemon User:/dev/null:/usr/bin/false
messagebus:x:18:18:D-Bus Message Daemon User:/run/dbus:/usr/bin/false
uuidd:x:80:80:UUID Generation Daemon User:/dev/null:/usr/bin/false
nobody:x:65534:65534:Unprivileged User:/dev/null:/usr/bin/false
EOF

The actual password for root will be set later.

Create the /etc/group file by running the following command:

cat > /etc/group << "EOF"
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:daemon
sys:x:2:
kmem:x:3:
tape:x:4:
tty:x:5:
daemon:x:6:
floppy:x:7:
disk:x:8:
lp:x:9:
dialout:x:10:
audio:x:11:
video:x:12:
utmp:x:13:
cdrom:x:15:
adm:x:16:
messagebus:x:18:
input:x:24:
mail:x:34:
kvm:x:61:
uuidd:x:80:
wheel:x:97:
users:x:999:
nogroup:x:65534:
EOF

The created groups are not part of any standard—they are groups decided on in part by the requirements of the Udev configuration in Chapter 9, and in part by common conventions employed by a number of existing Linux distributions. In addition, some test suites rely on specific users or groups. The Linux Standard Base (LSB, available at https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/lsb.shtml) only recommends that, besides the group root with a Group ID (GID) of 0, a group bin with a GID of 1 be present. The GID of 5 is widely used for the tty group, and the number 5 is also used in /etc/fstab for the devpts filesystem. All other group names and GIDs can be chosen freely by the system administrator since well-written programs do not depend on GID numbers, but rather use the group's name.

The ID 65534 is used by the kernel for NFS and separate user namespaces for unmapped users and groups (those exist on the NFS server or the parent user namespace, but “do not exist” on the local machine or in the separate namespace). We assign nobody and nogroup to avoid an unnamed ID. But other distros may treat this ID differently, so any portable program should not depend on this assignment.

Some packages need a locale.

localedef -i C -f UTF-8 C.UTF-8

Some tests in Chapter 8 need a regular user. We add this user here and delete this account at the end of that chapter.

echo "tester:x:101:101::/home/tester:/bin/bash" >> /etc/passwd
echo "tester:x:101:" >> /etc/group
install -o tester -d /home/tester

To remove the “I have no name!” prompt, start a new shell. Since the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files have been created, user name and group name resolution will now work:

exec /usr/bin/bash --login

The login, agetty, and init programs (and others) use a number of log files to record information such as who was logged into the system and when. However, these programs will not write to the log files if they do not already exist. Initialize the log files and give them proper permissions:

touch /var/log/{btmp,lastlog,faillog,wtmp}
chgrp -v utmp /var/log/lastlog
chmod -v 664  /var/log/lastlog
chmod -v 600  /var/log/btmp

The /var/log/wtmp file records all logins and logouts. The /var/log/lastlog file records when each user last logged in. The /var/log/faillog file records failed login attempts. The /var/log/btmp file records the bad login attempts.

In this chapter, we start constructing the LFS system in earnest.

The installation of this software is straightforward. Although in many cases the installation instructions could be made shorter and more generic, we have opted to provide the full instructions for every package to minimize the possibilities for mistakes. The key to learning what makes a Linux system work is to know what each package is used for and why you (or the system) may need it.

We do not recommend using customized optimizations. They can make a program run slightly faster, but they may also cause compilation difficulties, and problems when running the program. If a package refuses to compile with a customized optimization, try to compile it without optimization and see if that fixes the problem. Even if the package does compile when using a customized optimization, there is the risk it may have been compiled incorrectly because of the complex interactions between the code and the build tools. Also note that the -march and -mtune options using values not specified in the book have not been tested. This may cause problems with the toolchain packages (Binutils, GCC and Glibc). The small potential gains achieved by customizing compiler optimizations are often outweighed by the risks. First-time builders of LFS are encouraged to build without custom optimizations.

On the other hand, we keep the optimizations enabled by the default configuration of the packages. In addition, we sometimes explicitly enable an optimized configuration provided by a package but not enabled by default. The package maintainers have already tested these configurations and consider them safe, so it's not likely they would break the build. Generally the default configuration already enables -O2 or -O3, so the resulting system will still run very fast without any customized optimization, and be stable at the same time.

Before the installation instructions, each installation page provides information about the package, including a concise description of what it contains, approximately how long it will take to build, and how much disk space is required during this building process. Following the installation instructions, there is a list of programs and libraries (along with brief descriptions) that the package installs.

Package Management is an often requested addition to the LFS Book. A Package Manager tracks the installation of files, making it easier to remove and upgrade packages. A good package manager will also handle the configuration files specially to keep the user configuration when the package is reinstalled or upgraded. Before you begin to wonder, NO—this section will not talk about nor recommend any particular package manager. What it does provide is a roundup of the more popular techniques and how they work. The perfect package manager for you may be among these techniques, or it may be a combination of two or more of these techniques. This section briefly mentions issues that may arise when upgrading packages.

Some reasons why no package manager is mentioned in LFS or BLFS include:

There are some hints written on the topic of package management. Visit the Hints Project and see if one of them fits your needs.

./configure --prefix=/usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1
make
make install

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=/usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1 install