Important Information

Which Instructions to Follow

This book is different from the main LFS and BLFS books as it also has lib32 installation instructions whilst also supporting 32-bit CPUs. This is bound to cause confusion.

When you see “Installation of ...”, no matter your CPU, those instructions should be followed if you need that package. As you progress, you may come across a different format, and the book will instruct you on what to follow at that point. However, for those who have a x86_64 CPU, you should read Multilib firstly, and second, you will probably have to do more than the normal installation.

This is where the sections labeled “lib32 Installation of ...” come in. These sections are meant only for those using or targetting a x86_64 CPU as they provide 32-bit libraries for 32-bit software compatibility, ie. multilib support. If you don't need the 32-bit libraries from a given package on x86_64, you may skip the lib32 installation instructions of that package. If you are on a 32-bit CPU, don't bother with those instructions and just follow the normal installation instructions.

Stability

This book viewable online is in a constant flux of updates, and updates about as often as the BLFS Git/SVN version. While there isn't a viewable online version of the stable release, you can either render it yourself by following https://github.com/glfs-book/glfs, or you can download a release.

Init System

This version of this book is meant for SysV LFS systems. The Systemd version of the book is not viewable online by The GLFS Development Team due to Github Pages restraints. Thus you will need to download or render the book yourself. Follow the GLFS rendering instructions in order to render the book yourself. You will need git-2.48.1 to clone the repository. You can download the book here.

Building software

Building software on GLFS is identical to how it's done in the BLFS books, along with having lib32 compilation instructions. It goes without saying firstmost that you should have MAKEFLAGS set to save yourself a lot of time. This is useful for the make utility to use the amount of threads that you both want and have.

export MAKEFLAGS='-jx'

Replace x with the amount of threads you have. You can check the amount of threads you have with:

grep processor /proc/cpuinfo

Next is compiling for lib32. There are many packages which will have a lib32 counterpart. If you just got done with a normal compilation of a package and wish to do a lib32 compilation of that same package, make sure to clean the directory first:

make distclean

Or, if you made a build directory, do this in the build directory:

rm -rf *

Then proceed with the lib32 compilation instructions.

Generally, the format of targetting lib32 goes like this:

For ./configure:

CC="gcc -m32" CXX="g++ -m32"                  \
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib32/pkgconfig          \
./configure --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib32 \
            --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu &&

make &&

make DESTDIR=$PWD/DESTDIR install     &&
cp -vr DESTDIR/usr/lib32/* /usr/lib32 &&
rm -rf DESTDIR                        &&
ldconfig

For meson:

mkdir -v build &&
cd       build &&

CC="gcc -m32" CXX="g++ -m32"                     \
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib32/pkgconfig             \
meson setup .. --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib32 &&

ninja &&

DESTDIR=$PWD/DESTDIR ninja install    &&
cp -vr DESTDIR/usr/lib32/* /usr/lib32 &&
rm -rf DESTDIR                        &&
ldconfig

For cmake:

mkdir -v build &&
cd       build &&

CC="gcc -m32" CXX="g++ -m32"           \
PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/lib32/pkgconfig" \
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr   \
         -DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR=lib32 &&

make &&

make DESTDIR=$PWD/DESTDIR install     &&
cp -vr DESTDIR/usr/lib32/* /usr/lib32 &&
rm -rf DESTDIR                        &&
ldconfig