6.1. Introduction

This chapter shows how to compile and install a minimal Linux system. This system will contain just enough tools to start constructing the final CLFS system in Installing Basic System Software and allow a working environment with more user convenience than a minimum environment would.

The tools in this chapter are cross-compiled using the toolchain in /cross-tools and will be installed under the ${CLFS}/tools directory to keep them separate from the files installed in Installing Basic System Software and the host production directories. Since the packages compiled here are temporary, we do not want them to pollute the soon-to-be CLFS system.

Check one last time that the CLFS environment variable is set up properly:

echo ${CLFS}

Make sure the output shows the path to the CLFS partition's mount point, which is /mnt/clfs, using our example.

During this section of the build you will see several WARNING messages like the ones below. It is safe to ignore these messages.

configure: WARNING: result yes guessed because of cross compilation
configure: WARNING: cannot check WCONTINUED if cross compiling -- defaulting to no