[Clfs-dev] Cross-Compiled Linux From Scratch - Version GIT-20140611-x86_64-Pure64

[William Harrington]

On Jun 14, 2014, at 1:59 PM, Martin Ward wrote:

> Hi Everyone
>
> Just finished building the above  and all in all , its in good  
> shape, the changes to the boot method have worked great with one or  
> two exceptions
>
> 1. I though we were in a package freeze, found two updates to  
> packages ?

Security issues, which the package freeze mail I hope to have made  
clear that upgrades or patches would be considered for security issues.

> 2 . There does seem a penchant for alphabetising the order of the  
> packages for no particular reason other than abc, which undoubtedly  
> works fine if you are scripting but if you are trying to read the  
> book, doesn't work for me. I much prefer a functional approach, but  
> do appreciate its a moot point.

Alphabetical is okay. Some are trivial, but others need to be in a  
certain order for testsuite coverage.

> However I do have what I think would be some improvements, mostly  
> text explanations
>
> Section 5 Cross Compile Tools
> Some of the wording in why we are doing what we are doing, i think  
> needs to be expanded a little
> ie we install these particular versions of the programs as we need  
> these versions, rather than making do with ones that are already on  
> the host system which could be unsuitable for a variety of reasons.
> example
> 5.4.1
> "Here we will install an *m4* binary that can run on the host  
> system, as this program is required by GMP"
>
> Perhaps we should be more explict, in saying we install this  
> particular version of m4 as it provides the required features needed  
> by GMP in this chapter and in the basic tools chapter,as the host  
> may not have m4 or one that is compatible with the particular  
> version of  GMP . ditto file 5.3.1
>

We'll look into those a bit closer. Thanks for the input.

> Chapter 6  constructing a temp system loooks good
>
> Chapter 7
> if your going to boot
>
> 7.1 No idea why Bc was moved here , to me it fits better in chapeter  
> 5 as its a "host" program but moot point

BC isn't a host system requirement to build CLFS with unless the boot  
method is being used. In this case, BC needs to be available for  
building the kernel with the cross compiler. It isn't required when  
chrooting and building the kernel.

> 7.3 Bootscripts , really should go either before or after compiling  
> the kernel, flows much better and then is in line with chapter 10

Well, it is before compiling the kernel at the beginning of chapter 7.

> These seem to work great apart from the setclock script, either i  
> did something wrong, or after the reboot, my clock was always set to  
> UTC , whatever value I set the environment variable to.
> I suspect a hard coded path in util-linux some where.
>

We'll need to look into this.

> 7.14
>
> both  nogroup and nobody have the same GID
> suggest change nobody to 65534
I'm missing something in what you are stating.

nogroup gid in /etc/group is 65533
nobody uid is 65534 and gid is 65533

     groups nobody:
     nobody : nogroup

We don't have a nobody group with any gid in /etc/group.

We have a nobody user and a nogroup group. One uid, one gid.

> 10.4.1 Temporary Perl , this seems a better fit in section 9 test  
> suite tools, but moot point again
>

Have you attempted cross compiling perl? It's in ch10 cause of the  
issue.
I suppose if you want to give this patch a whirl and try to cross  
compiler perl for a minimal perl to use in ch10 then there is this:

http://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/lfs/clfs/conglomeration/perl/perl-5.10.0-cross_compile-1.patch

May be a bit rough with Perl 5.20.0.  I haven't attempted cross  
compiling perl, and I suspect it is still problematic.

> 10.26.1 Adjusting the hwclock location, doesn't seem necessary, as  
> systemd uses /etc/adjtime to hold the data
>

CLFS and LFS devs had a long discussion about the whole issue. We left  
it alone.

Two specific issues which arise:

anything in /etc should be static and if it is changing is a security  
issue.
Although /var may not be mounted when needed for hwclock if /var is a  
separate filesystem.

Then there is the FHS.

> 10.67 Man-db should come after 10.54 Libpipeline, flows better
>

It would be best moved after Llibpipeline.

> Otherwise good job
> No particular errors that looked serious in the gcc, glibc testsuites
>
> cheers
>
> Martin

Thank you for your input.

Sincerely,

William Harrington