%general-entities; ]> Glibc Some packages outside of LFS suggest installing GNU libiconv in order to translate data from one encoding to another. The project's home page () says This library provides an iconv() implementation, for use on systems which don't have one, or whose implementation cannot convert from/to Unicode. Glibc provides an iconv() implementation and can convert from/to Unicode, therefore libiconv is not required on an LFS system. The Glibc build system is self-contained and will install perfectly, even though the compiler specs file and linker are still pointing at /tools. The specs and linker cannot be adjusted before the Glibc install because the Glibc autoconf tests would give false results and defeat the goal of achieving a clean build. The following patch removes the potential of localdef segfaulting: patch -Np1 -i ../&glibc-localedef_segfault-patch; The Glibc documentation recommends building Glibc outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory: mkdir ../glibc-build cd ../glibc-build Prepare Glibc for compilation: ../glibc-&glibc-version;/configure --prefix=/usr \ --disable-profile --enable-add-ons --enable-kernel=2.6.0 \ --libexecdir=/usr/lib/glibc --libexecdir=/usr/lib/glibc This changes the location of the pt_chown program from its default of /usr/libexec to /usr/lib/glibc. Compile the package: make In this section, the test suite for Glibc is considered critical. Do not skip it under any circumstance. Test the results: make -k check >glibc-check-log 2>&1 ; grep Error glibc-check-log The Glibc test suite is highly dependent on certain functions of the host system, in particular the kernel. In general, the Glibc test suite is always expected to pass. However, in certain circumstances, some failures are unavoidable. This is a list of the most common issues: The math tests, at least on i686, fail in the test-double and test-idouble tests with gcc-&gcc-version;, the grep command will also report an expected (ignored) failure in posix/annexc . These two failures in the math tests appear to be harmless. The math tests may also fail on systems where the CPU is not a relatively new genuine Intel or authentic AMD. Certain optimization settings are also known to be a factor here. The gettext test sometimes fails due to host system issues. The exact reasons are not yet clear. If you have mounted the LFS partition with the noatime option, the atime test will fail. As mentioned in , do not use the noatime option while building LFS. When running on older and slower hardware, some tests can fail because of test timeouts being exceeded. Though it is a harmless message, the install stage of Glibc will complain about the absence of /etc/ld.so.conf. Prevent this warning with: touch /etc/ld.so.conf Install the package: make install The locales that can make the system respond in a different language were not installed by the above command. Install this with: make localedata/install-locales To save time, an alternative to running the previous command (which generates and installs every locale listed in the glibc-&glibc-version;/localedata/SUPPORTED file) is to install only those locales that are wanted and needed. This can be achieved by using the localedef command. Information on this command is located in the INSTALL file in the Glibc source. However, there are a number of locales that are essential in order for the tests of future packages to pass, in particular, the libstdc++ tests from GCC. The following instructions, instead of the install-locales target used above, will install the minimum set of locales necessary for the tests to run successfully: mkdir -p /usr/lib/locale localedef -i de_DE -f ISO-8859-1 de_DE localedef -i de_DE@euro -f ISO-8859-15 de_DE@euro localedef -i en_HK -f ISO-8859-1 en_HK localedef -i en_PH -f ISO-8859-1 en_PH localedef -i en_US -f ISO-8859-1 en_US localedef -i es_MX -f ISO-8859-1 es_MX localedef -i fa_IR -f UTF-8 fa_IR localedef -i fr_FR -f ISO-8859-1 fr_FR localedef -i fr_FR@euro -f ISO-8859-15 fr_FR@euro localedef -i it_IT -f ISO-8859-1 it_IT localedef -i ja_JP -f EUC-JP ja_JP Some locales installed by the make localedata/install-locales command above are not properly supported by some applications that are in the LFS and BLFS books. Because of the various problems that arise due to application programmers making assumptions that break in such locales, LFS should not be used in locales that utilize multibyte character sets (including UTF-8) or right-to-left writing order. Numerous unofficial and unstable patches are required to fix these problems, and it has been decided by the LFS developers not to support such complex locales at this time. This applies to the ja_JP and fa_IR locales as well—they have been installed only for GCC and Gettext tests to pass, and the watch program (part of the Procps package) does not work properly in them. Various attempts to circumvent these restrictions are documented in internationalization-related hints. /etc/nsswitch.conf /etc/localtime The /etc/nsswitch.conf file needs to be created because, although Glibc provides defaults when this file is missing or corrupt, the Glibc defaults do not work well in a networked environment. The time zone also needs to be configured. Create a new file /etc/nsswitch.conf by running the following: cat > /etc/nsswitch.conf << "EOF" # Begin /etc/nsswitch.conf passwd: files group: files shadow: files hosts: files dns networks: files protocols: files services: files ethers: files rpc: files # End /etc/nsswitch.conf EOF To determine the local time zone, run the following script: tzselect After answering a few questions about the location, the script will output the name of the time zone (e.g., EST5EDT or Canada/Eastern). Then create the /etc/localtime file by running: cp --remove-destination /usr/share/zoneinfo/[xxx] \ /etc/localtime Replace [xxx] with the name of the time zone that tzselect provided (e.g., Canada/Eastern). --remove-destination This is needed to force removal of the already existing symbolic link. The reason for copying the file instead of using a symlink is to cover the situation where /usr is on a separate partition. This could be important when booted into single user mode. /etc/ld.so.conf By default, the dynamic loader (/lib/ld-linux.so.2) searches through /lib and /usr/lib for dynamic libraries that are needed by programs as they are run. However, if there are libraries in directories other than /lib and /usr/lib, these need to be added to the /etc/ld.so.conf file in order for the dynamic loader to find them. Two directories that are commonly known to contain additional libraries are /usr/local/lib and /opt/lib, so add those directories to the dynamic loader's search path. Create a new file /etc/ld.so.conf by running the following: cat > /etc/ld.so.conf << "EOF" # Begin /etc/ld.so.conf /usr/local/lib /opt/lib # End /etc/ld.so.conf EOF Installed programs Installed libraries catchsegv, gencat, getconf, getent, iconv, iconvconfig, ldconfig, ldd, lddlibc4, locale, localedef, mtrace, nscd, nscd_nischeck, pcprofiledump, pt_chown, rpcgen, rpcinfo, sln, sprof, tzselect, xtrace, zdump, and zic ld.so, libBrokenLocale.[a,so], libSegFault.so, libanl.[a,so], libbsd-compat.a, libc.[a,so], libcrypt.[a,so], libdl.[a,so], libg.a, libieee.a, libm.[a,so], libmcheck.a, libmemusage.so, libnsl.a, libnss_compat.so, libnss_dns.so, libnss_files.so, libnss_hesiod.so, libnss_nis.so, libnss_nisplus.so, libpcprofile.so, libpthread.[a,so], libresolv.[a,so], librpcsvc.a, librt.[a,so], libthread_db.so, and libutil.[a,so] Short Descriptions catchsegv Can be used to create a stack trace when a program terminates with a segmentation fault catchsegv gencat Generates message catalogues gencat getconf Displays the system configuration values for file system specific variables getconf getent Gets entries from an administrative database getent iconv Performs character set conversion iconv iconvconfig Creates fastloading iconv module configuration files iconvconfig ldconfig Configures the dynamic linker runtime bindings ldconfig ldd Reports which shared libraries are required by each given program or shared library ldd lddlibc4 Assists ldd with object files lddlibc4 locale Tells the compiler to enable or disable the use of POSIX locales for built-in operations locale localedef Compiles locale specifications localedef mtrace Reads and interprets a memory trace file and displays a summary in human-readable format mtrace nscd A daemon that provides a cache for the most common name service requests nscd nscd_nischeck Checks whether or not secure mode is necessary for NIS+ lookup nscd_nischeck pcprofiledump Dumps information generated by PC profiling pcprofiledump pt_chown A helper program for grantpt to set the owner, group and access permissions of a slave pseudo terminal pt_chown rpcgen Generates C code to implement the Remote Procecure Call (RPC) protocol rpcgen rpcinfo Makes an RPC call to an RPC server rpcinfo sln A statically linked ln program sln sprof Reads and displays shared object profiling data sprof tzselect Asks the user about the location of the system and reports the corresponding time zone description tzselect xtrace Traces the execution of a program by printing the currently executed function xtrace zdump The time zone dumper zdump zic The time zone compiler zic ld.so The helper program for shared library executables ld.so libBrokenLocale Used by programs, such as Mozilla, to solve broken locales libBrokenLocale libSegFault The segmentation fault signal handler libSegFault libanl An asynchronous name lookup library libanl libbsd-compat Provides the portability needed in order to run certain Berkey Software Distribution (BSD) programs under Linux libbsd-compat libc The main C library libc libcrypt The cryptography library libcrypt libdl The dynamic linking interface library libdl libg A runtime library for g++ libg libieee The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) floating point library libieee libm The mathematical library libm libmcheck Contains code run at boot libmcheck libmemusage Used by memusage to help collect information about the memory usage of a program libmemusage libnsl The network services library libnsl libnss The Name Service Switch libraries, containing functions for resolving host names, user names, group names, aliases, services, protocols, etc. libnss libpcprofile Contains profiling functions used to track the amount of CPU time spent in specific source code lines libpcprofile libpthread The POSIX threads library libpthread libresolv Contains functions for creating, sending, and interpreting packets to the Internet domain name servers libresolv librpcsvc Contains functions providing miscellaneous RPC services librpcsvc librt Contains functions providing most of the interfaces specified by the POSIX.1b Realtime Extension librt libthread_db Contains functions useful for building debuggers for multi-threaded programs libthread_db libutil Contains code for standard functions used in many different Unix utilities libutil