BLFS - Chapter 4
 

Hi guys,

Thanks for the help and support so far.

I am currently looking at chapter 4 in BLFS, having worked through chapters 1 - 3 after building my LFS system.

At this stage I am slightly stuck as it is no longer a case of following the book as prescribed, but rather of picking and choosing which components are required.

I am trying to build a desktop system out of my LFS system. I have read as many forum posts as I can find on the subject and have gained much insight. So far, following from the advice I have read and as I understand it, I would need to install whatever is needed from chapter 4, then move onto installing X in chapters 24 and 25, Fluxbox or some similar window manager in chapert 26 and then I would probably go with Xfce in chapter 33 and then work from there onwards to install whatever other applications I want.

I have read advice that describes drawing up lists of dependencies for programs I wish to install and then working through installing all of the dependencies (in order of dependence) in the list before installing the desired program, which seems like a very sensible organisational method and which I will employ.

However, I seem to be stuck at the first hurdle when trying to decide what to include from chapter 4 for my desktop system. Reading through each of the package descriptions in the book, they all seem fairly important in facilitating some sort of security protocols for other packages or services. The only one I could see may not be needed for a stand-alone(ish) desktop system was the MIT Kerberos package that deals with network authentication, etc. However, this is nothing more than a guess and so I would appreciate any advice that can be given.

I realise that discussions on security requirements may be a little bit out of scope of this forum but I know a bunch of the guys on here have built their own desktop systems and so I wondered what approach they had taken when working through chapter 4. Is there anything that is not required to be installed or anything that is required as a necessity?

Or do I need to just research each package and figure it out for myself? I have started trying to do this but it is quite difficult (having never constructed a desktop O/S before) and very slow going. Any advice that can be offered would be greatly appreciated!

Hi

What was the end product you were wanting. Gnome Kde Xfce??
As you have mentioned it is up to you what you want to use,
Sure you can install all security but it is not all required.

Just a further bit, I install ssh because I use it shadow was installed in lfs, then basically I just get the dependecies as i need them. It would be an idea to make a note of what you have installed as you go along,
Yes it would be nice to know what you will need but that will come with building or checking previous notes.

So I should just install whatever packages from chapter 4 are dependencies when building the desktop system (i.e. when installing X, Fluxbox, Xfce, etc)?

Yes thats how I do it, when/if you create a list of what you install, on a next build you can then refer back to it, Dont expect perfection 1st time.

Yeah, I'm doing this all for the learning experience, so i'm sure i'll get it wrong first time! I find I learn more from my mistakes than when it all goes smoothly anyway!

I assume you install ssh so you can work on the LFS system from another computer, one with a desktop and a graphical web browser, rather than using Lynx, GPM, etc?

I store all the lfs/blfs packages on a server so use it to retreive them, I dont mind using links browser to build with,
I have built over ssh as well just as trial,
So if you dont need ssh then no need to install, Do make sure you install the 3 basic packages GPM LINKS WGET

Ok, thanks Spiky. I have those packages installed and with your advice I'm ready to continue on. Guess I have to start figuring out what gets installed where and when now!

I'm sure i'll be back with more questions. Thanks very much for your help this time around!!