Linux From Scratch - Version 11.

• Binutils (2.40) - 24,650 KB:

Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/
Download: https://sourceware.org/pub/binutils/releases/binutils-2.40.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 007b59bd908a737c06e5a8d3d2c737eb
• Bison (3.8.2) - 2,752 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/bison-3.8.2.tar.xz
MD5 sum: c28f119f405a2304ff0a7ccdcc629713
• Bzip2 (1.0.8) - 792 KB:
Download: https://www.sourceware.org/pub/bzip2/bzip2-1.0.8.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 67e051268d0c475ea773822f7500d0e5
• Check (0.15.2) - 760 KB:
Home page: https://libcheck.github.io/check
Download: https://github.com/libcheck/check/releases/download/0.15.2/check-0.15.2.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 50fcafcecde5a380415b12e9c574e0b2
• Coreutils (9.1) - 5,570 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-9.1.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 8b1ca4e018a7dce9bb937faec6618671
• DejaGNU (1.6.3) - 608 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/dejagnu/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/dejagnu/dejagnu-1.6.3.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 68c5208c58236eba447d7d6d1326b821
• Diffutils (3.9) - 1,551 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/diffutils/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/diffutils/diffutils-3.9.tar.xz
MD5 sum: cf0a65266058bf22fe3feb69e57ffc5b
• E2fsprogs (1.47.0) - 9,412 KB:
Home page: http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/
Download: https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs/v1.47.0/e2fsprogs-1.47.0.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 6b4f18a33873623041857b4963641ee9
• Elfutils (0.188) - 8,900 KB:
Home page: https://sourceware.org/elfutils/
Download: https://sourceware.org/ftp/elfutils/0.188/elfutils-0.188.tar.bz2
MD5 sum: efb25a91873b2eec4df9f31e6a4f4e5c
• Eudev (3.2.11) - 2,075 KB:
Download: https://github.com/eudev-project/eudev/releases/download/v3.2.11/eudev-3.2.11.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 417ba948335736d4d81874fba47a30f7
• Expat (2.5.0) - 450 KB:
Home page: https://libexpat.github.io/
Download: https://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/expat/expat-2.5.0.tar.xz
MD5 sum: ac6677b6d1b95d209ab697ce8b688704

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 Linux From Scratch - Version 11.3

• GMP (6.2.1) - 1,980 KB:

Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/gmp/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gmp/gmp-6.2.1.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 0b82665c4a92fd2ade7440c13fcaa42b
• Gperf (3.1) - 1,188 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/gperf/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gperf/gperf-3.1.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 9e251c0a618ad0824b51117d5d9db87e
• Grep (3.8) - 1,670 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/grep/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/grep/grep-3.8.tar.xz
MD5 sum: dc6e4d18d4659e6e7552fc4a183c8ac9
• Groff (1.22.4) - 4,044 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/groff/groff-1.22.4.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 08fb04335e2f5e73f23ea4c3adbf0c5f
• GRUB (2.06) - 6,428 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/grub/grub-2.06.tar.xz
MD5 sum: cf0fd928b1e5479c8108ee52cb114363
• Gzip (1.12) - 807 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/gzip-1.12.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 9608e4ac5f061b2a6479dc44e917a5db
• Iana-Etc (20230202) - 586 KB:
Home page: https://www.iana.org/protocols
Download: https://github.com/Mic92/iana-etc/releases/download/20230202/iana-etc-20230202.tar.gz
MD5 sum: e64685d046cd0dfe94b5c66e294cf9ef
• Inetutils (2.4) - 1,522 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/inetutils/inetutils-2.4.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 319d65bb5a6f1847c4810651f3b4ba74
SHA256 sum:
• Intltool (0.51.0) - 159 KB:
Home page: https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/intltool
Download: https://launchpad.net/intltool/trunk/0.51.0/+download/intltool-0.51.0.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 12e517cac2b57a0121cda351570f1e63
• IPRoute2 (6.1.0) - 885 KB:
Home page: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/
Download: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/iproute2-6.1.0.tar.xz
MD5 sum: f3ff4461e25dbc5ef1fb7a9167a9523d

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• M4 (1.4.19) - 1,617 KB:

Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/m4/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/m4/m4-1.4.19.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 0d90823e1426f1da2fd872df0311298d
• Make (4.4) - 2,254 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/make-4.4.tar.gz
MD5 sum: d7575a26a94ee8427130e9db23cdaa78
• Man-DB (2.11.2) - 1,908 KB:
Home page: https://www.nongnu.org/man-db/
Download: https://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/man-db/man-db-2.11.2.tar.xz
MD5 sum: a7d59fb2df6158c44f8f7009dcc6d875
• Man-pages (6.03) - 2,134 KB:
Home page: https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Download: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/man-pages-6.03.tar.xz
MD5 sum: c62b7c944bb0887a35edab7cab301357
• Meson (1.0.0) - 2,051 KB:
Home page: https://mesonbuild.com
Download: https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/releases/download/1.0.0/meson-1.0.0.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 009b78125467cd9ee4d467175a5c12e1
• MPC (1.3.1) - 756 KB:
Home page: https://www.multiprecision.org/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mpc/mpc-1.3.1.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 5c9bc658c9fd0f940e8e3e0f09530c62
• MPFR (4.2.0) - 1,443 KB:
Home page: https://www.mpfr.org/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mpfr/mpfr-4.2.0.tar.xz
MD5 sum: a25091f337f25830c16d2054d74b5af7
• Ncurses (6.4) - 3,528 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/
Download: https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/ncurses-6.4.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 5a62487b5d4ac6b132fe2bf9f8fad29b
• Ninja (1.11.1) - 225 KB:
Home page: https://ninja-build.org/
Download: https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja/archive/v1.11.1/ninja-1.11.1.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 32151c08211d7ca3c1d832064f6939b0
• OpenSSL (3.0.8) - 14,800 KB:
Home page: https://www.openssl.org/
Download: https://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-3.0.8.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 61e017cf4fea1b599048f621f1490fbd

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 Linux From Scratch - Version 11.3

• Patch (2.7.6) - 766 KB:

Home page: https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/patch/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/patch/patch-2.7.6.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 78ad9937e4caadcba1526ef1853730d5
• Perl (5.36.0) - 12,746 KB:
Home page: https://www.perl.org/
Download: https://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.36.0.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 826e42da130011699172fd655e49cfa2
• Pkg-config (0.29.2) - 1,970 KB:
Home page: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/pkg-config
Download: https://pkg-config.freedesktop.org/releases/pkg-config-0.29.2.tar.gz
MD5 sum: f6e931e319531b736fadc017f470e68a
• Procps (4.0.2) - 1250 KB:
Home page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/procps-ng
Download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/procps-ng/files/Production/procps-ng-4.0.2.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 691748c4767f19b9d94ed9d088e40c4d
• Psmisc (23.6) - 415 KB:
Home page: https://gitlab.com/psmisc/psmisc
Download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/psmisc/files/psmisc/psmisc-23.6.tar.xz
MD5 sum: ed3206da1184ce9e82d607dc56c52633
• Python (3.11.2) - 19,428 KB:
Home page: https://www.python.org/
Download: https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.11.2/Python-3.11.2.tar.xz
MD5 sum: a957cffb58a89303b62124896881950b
• Python Documentation (3.11.2) - 7,598 KB:
Download: https://www.python.org/ftp/python/doc/3.11.2/python-3.11.2-docs-html.tar.bz2
MD5 sum: eb4132c780b60b5782a4f66b29b08d5c
• Readline (8.2) - 2,973 KB:
Home page: https://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/readline/readline-8.2.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 4aa1b31be779e6b84f9a96cb66bc50f6
• Sed (4.9) - 1,365 KB:
Home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/sed/
Download: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/sed/sed-4.9.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 6aac9b2dbafcd5b7a67a8a9bcb8036c3
• Shadow (4.13) - 1,722 KB:
Home page: https://shadow-maint.github.io/shadow/
Download: https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow/releases/download/4.13/shadow-4.13.tar.xz
MD5 sum: b1ab01b5462ddcf43588374d57bec123
• Sysklogd (1.5.1) - 88 KB:
Home page: https://www.infodrom.org/projects/sysklogd/
Download: https://www.infodrom.org/projects/sysklogd/download/sysklogd-1.5.1.tar.gz
MD5 sum: c70599ab0d037fde724f7210c2c8d7f8

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 Linux From Scratch - Version 11.3

• XML::Parser (2.46) - 249 KB:

Home page: https://github.com/chorny/XML-Parser
Download: https://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/T/TO/TODDR/XML-Parser-2.46.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 80bb18a8e6240fcf7ec2f7b57601c170
• Xz Utils (5.4.1) - 1,451 KB:
Home page: https://tukaani.org/xz
Download: https://tukaani.org/xz/xz-5.4.1.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 47d831c659e94071d5dd384d0d1ed4c6
• Zlib (1.2.13) - 1267 KB:
Home page: https://www.zlib.net/
Download: https://zlib.net/zlib-1.2.13.tar.xz
MD5 sum: 7d9fc1d78ae2fa3e84fe98b77d006c63
• Zstd (1.5.4) - 2,111 KB:
Home page: https://facebook.github.io/zstd/
Download: https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases/download/v1.5.4/zstd-1.5.4.tar.gz
MD5 sum: 2352b1f9ccc7446641046bb3d440c3ed
Total size of these packages: about 462 MB

3.3. Needed Patches

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:
• Bzip2 Documentation Patch - 1.6 KB:
Download: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/11.3/bzip2-1.0.8-install_docs-1.patch
MD5 sum: 6a5ac7e89b791aae556de0f745916f7f
• Coreutils Internationalization Fixes Patch - 166 KB:
Download: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/11.3/coreutils-9.1-i18n-1.patch
MD5 sum: c1ac7edf095027460716577633da9fc5
• Glibc FHS Patch - 2.8 KB:
Download: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/11.3/glibc-2.37-fhs-1.patch
MD5 sum: 9a5997c3452909b1769918c759eff8a2
• GRUB Upstream Fixes Patch - 8 KB:
Download: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/11.3/grub-2.06-upstream_fixes-1.patch
MD5 sum: da388905710bb4cbfbc7bd7346ff9174
• Kbd Backspace/Delete Fix Patch - 12 KB:
Download: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/11.3/kbd-2.5.1-backspace-1.patch
MD5 sum: f75cca16a38da6caa7d52151f7136895
• Readline Upstream Fix Patch - 1.3 KB:
Download: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/11.3/readline-8.2-upstream_fix-1.patch
MD5 sum: dd1764b84cfca6b677f44978218a75da

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 Linux From Scratch - Version 11.3

• Sysvinit Consolidated Patch - 2.5 KB:

Download: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/11.3/sysvinit-3.06-consolidated-1.patch
MD5 sum: 17ffccbb8e18c39e8cedc32046f3a475
Total size of these patches: about 194.2 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.

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 Linux From Scratch - Version 11.3

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

The meaning of the settings in .bashrc

set +h
The set +h command turns off bash's hash function. Hashing is ordinarily a useful feature—bash uses a hash
table to remember the full path to executable files to avoid searching the PATH time and again to find the same
executable. However, the new tools should be used as soon as they are installed. Switching off the hash function
forces the shell to search the PATH whenever a program is to be run. As such, the shell will find the newly compiled
tools in $LFS/tools/bin as soon as they are available without remembering a previous version of the same program
provided by the host distro, in /usr/bin or /bin.
umask 022
Setting the user file-creation mask (umask) to 022 ensures that newly created files and directories are only writable
by their owner, but are readable and executable by anyone (assuming default modes are used by the open(2) system
call, new files will end up with permission mode 644 and directories with mode 755).
LFS=/mnt/lfs
The LFS variable should be set to the chosen mount point.
LC_ALL=POSIX
The LC_ALL variable controls the localization of certain programs, making their messages follow the conventions
of a specified country. Setting LC_ALL to “POSIX” or “C” (the two are equivalent) ensures that everything will
work as expected in the cross-compilation environment.
LFS_TGT=(uname -m)-lfs-linux-gnu
The LFS_TGT variable sets a non-default, but compatible machine description for use when building our cross-
compiler and linker and when cross-compiling our temporary toolchain. More information is provided by
Toolchain Technical Notes.
PATH=/usr/bin
Many modern Linux distributions have merged /bin and /usr/bin. When this is the case, the standard PATH variable
should be set to /usr/bin/ for the Chapter 6 environment. When this is not the case, the following line adds /
bin to the path.

if [ ! -L /bin ]; then PATH=/bin:$PATH; fi

If /bin is not a symbolic link, it must be added to the PATH variable.
PATH=$LFS/tools/bin:$PATH
By putting $LFS/tools/bin ahead of the standard PATH, the cross-compiler installed at the beginning of Chapter 5
is picked up by the shell immediately after its installation. This, combined with turning off hashing, limits the risk
that the compiler from the host is used instead of the cross-compiler.

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 Linux From Scratch - Version 11.3

CONFIG_SITE=$LFS/usr/share/config.site
In Chapter 5 and Chapter 6, if this variable is not set, configure scripts may attempt to load configuration items
specific to some distributions from /usr/share/config.site on the host system. Override it to prevent potential
contamination from the host.
export ...
While the preceding commands have set some variables, in order to make them visible within any sub-shells, we
export them.

Important
Several commercial distributions add an undocumented instantiation of /etc/bash.bashrc to the initialization
of bash. This file has the potential to modify the lfs user's environment in ways that can affect the building
of critical LFS packages. To make sure the lfs user's environment is clean, check for the presence of /etc/
bash.bashrc and, if present, move it out of the way. As the root user, run:

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

When the lfs user is no longer needed (at the beginning of Chapter 7), you may safely restore /etc/bash.
bashrc (if desired).

Note that the LFS Bash package we will build in Section 8.34, “Bash-5.2.15” is not configured to load or
execute /etc/bash.bashrc, so this file is useless on a completed LFS system.

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

4.5. About SBUs

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 10 minutes
to compile and install the first pass of binutils, it will take approximately 45 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.

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Part III. Building the LFS Cross

Toolchain and Temporary Tools
 Linux From Scratch - Version 11.3

The build
is the machine where we build programs. Note that this machine is also referred to as the “host”.
The host
is the machine/system where the built programs will run. Note that this use of “host” is not the same as in other
sections.
The target
is only used for compilers. It is the machine the compiler produces code for. It may be different from both the
build and the host.
As an example, let us imagine the following scenario (sometimes referred to as “Canadian Cross”). We have a compiler
on a slow machine only, let's call it machine A, and the compiler ccA. We also have a fast machine (B), but no compiler
for (B), and we want to produce code for a third, slow machine (C). We will build a compiler for machine C in three
stages.

Stage Build Host Target Action

1 A A B Build
cross-
compiler
cc1 using
ccA on
machine
A.
2 A B C Build
cross-
compiler
cc2 using
cc1 on
machine
A.
3 B C C Build
compiler
ccC using
cc2 on
machine
B.

Then, all the programs needed by machine C can be compiled using cc2 on the fast machine B. Note that unless B can
run programs produced for C, there is no way to test the newly built programs until machine C itself is running. For
example, to run a test suite on ccC, we may want to add a fourth stage:

Stage Build Host Target Action

4 C C C Rebuild
and test
ccC using
ccC on
machine
C.

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Stage Build Host Target Action

2 pc lfs lfs Build
compiler
cc-lfs
using cc1
on pc.
3 lfs lfs lfs Rebuild
and test
cc-lfs
using cc-
lfs on lfs.

In the preceding table, “on pc” means the commands are run on a machine using the already installed distribution. “On
lfs” means the commands are run in a chrooted environment.
This is not yet the end of the story. The C language is not merely a compiler; it also defines a standard library. In this
book, the GNU C library, named glibc, is used (there is an alternative, "musl"). This library must be compiled for the
LFS machine; that is, using the cross-compiler cc1. But the compiler itself uses an internal library providing complex
subroutines for functions not available in the assembler instruction set. This internal library is named libgcc, and it must
be linked to the glibc library to be fully functional. Furthermore, the standard library for C++ (libstdc++) must also be
linked with glibc. The solution to this chicken and egg problem is first to build a degraded cc1-based libgcc, lacking
some functionalities such as threads and exception handling, and then to build glibc using this degraded compiler (glibc
itself is not degraded), and also to build libstdc++. This last library will lack some of the functionality of libgcc.
The upshot of the preceding paragraph is that cc1 is unable to build a fully functional libstdc++ with the degraded
libgcc, but cc1 is the only compiler available for building the C/C++ libraries during stage 2. There are two reasons we
don't immediately use the compiler built in stage 2, cc-lfs, to build those libraries.
• Generally speaking, cc-lfs cannot run on pc (the host system). Even though the triplets for pc and lfs are
compatible with each other, an executable for lfs must depend on glibc-2.37; the host distro may utilize either a
different implementation of libc (for example, musl), or a previous release of glibc (for example, glibc-2.13).
• Even if cc-lfs can run on pc, using it on pc would create a risk of linking to the pc libraries, since cc-lfs is a native
compiler.
So when we build gcc stage 2, we instruct the building system to rebuild libgcc and libstdc++ with cc1, but we link
libstdc++ to the newly rebuilt libgcc instead of the old, degraded build. This makes the rebuilt libstdc++ fully functional.
In Chapter 8 (or “stage 3”), all the packages needed for the LFS system are built. Even if a package has already been
installed into the LFS system in a previous chapter, we still rebuild the package. The main reason for rebuilding these
packages is to make them stable: if we reinstall an LFS package on a completed LFS system, the reinstalled content of
the package should be the same as the content of the same package when first installed in Chapter 8. The temporary
packages installed in Chapter 6 or Chapter 7 cannot satisfy this requirement, because some of them are built without
optional dependencies, and autoconf cannot perform some feature checks in Chapter 6 because of cross-compilation,
causing the temporary packages to lack optional features, or use suboptimal code routines. Additionally, a minor reason
for rebuilding the packages is to run the test suites.

Other Procedural Details

The cross-compiler will be installed in a separate $LFS/tools directory, since it will not be part of the final system.

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Binutils is installed first because the configure runs of both gcc and glibc perform various feature tests on the assembler
and linker to determine which software features to enable or disable. This is more important than one might realize at
first. An incorrectly configured gcc or glibc can result in a subtly broken toolchain, where the impact of such breakage
might not show up until near the end of the build of an entire distribution. A test suite failure will usually highlight this
error before too much additional work is performed.
Binutils installs its assembler and linker in two locations, $LFS/tools/bin and $LFS/tools/$LFS_TGT/bin. The tools in
one location are hard linked to the other. An important facet of the linker is its library search order. Detailed information
can be obtained from ld by passing it the --verbose flag. For example, $LFS_TGT-ld --verbose | grep SEARCH will
illustrate the current search paths and their order. (Note that this example can be run as shown only while logged in as
user lfs. If you come back to this page later, replace $LFS_TGT-ld with ld).
The next package installed is gcc. An example of what can be seen during its run of configure is:
checking what assembler to use... /mnt/lfs/tools/i686-lfs-linux-gnu/bin/as
checking what linker to use... /mnt/lfs/tools/i686-lfs-linux-gnu/bin/ld

This is important for the reasons mentioned above. It also demonstrates that gcc's configure script does not search the
PATH directories to find which tools to use. However, during the actual operation of gcc itself, the same search paths
are not necessarily used. To find out which standard linker gcc will use, run: $LFS_TGT-gcc -print-prog-name=ld.
(Again, remove the $LFS_TGT- prefix if coming back to this later.)
Detailed information can be obtained from gcc by passing it the -v command line option while compiling a program. For
example, $LFS_TGT-gcc -v example.c (or without $LFS_TGT- if coming back later) will show detailed information
about the preprocessor, compilation, and assembly stages, including gcc's search paths for included headers and their
order.
Next up: sanitized Linux API headers. These allow the standard C library (glibc) to interface with features that the
Linux kernel will provide.
Next comes glibc. The most important considerations for building glibc are the compiler, binary tools, and kernel
headers. The compiler is generally not an issue since glibc will always use the compiler relating to the --host parameter
passed to its configure script; e.g., in our case, the compiler will be $LFS_TGT-gcc. The binary tools and kernel headers
can be a bit more complicated. Therefore, we take no risks and use the available configure switches to enforce the
correct selections. After the run of configure, check the contents of the config.make file in the build directory for all
important details. Note the use of CC="$LFS_TGT-gcc" (with $LFS_TGT expanded) to control which binary tools are used
and the use of the -nostdinc and -isystem flags to control the compiler's include search path. These items highlight
an important aspect of the glibc package—it is very self-sufficient in terms of its build machinery, and generally does
not rely on toolchain defaults.
As mentioned above, the standard C++ library is compiled next, followed in Chapter 6 by other programs that must
be cross-compiled to break circular dependencies at build time. The install step of all those packages uses the DESTDIR
variable to force installation in the LFS filesystem.
At the end of Chapter 6 the native LFS compiler is installed. First binutils-pass2 is built, in the same DESTDIR directory as
the other programs, then the second pass of gcc is constructed, omitting some non-critical libraries. Due to some weird
logic in gcc's configure script, CC_FOR_TARGET ends up as cc when the host is the same as the target, but different from
the build system. This is why CC_FOR_TARGET=$LFS_TGT-gcc is declared explicitly as one of the configuration options.
Upon entering the chroot environment in Chapter 7, the temporary installations of programs needed for the proper
operation of the toolchain are performed. From this point onwards, the core toolchain is self-contained and self-hosted.
In Chapter 8, final versions of all the packages needed for a fully functional system are built, tested, and installed.

xli