I, am at the point where i am trying to compile and install the bash shell and I get this error
cannot find -lcurses collect 2: Id returned 1 exit status
make:*** [bash] Error 1

my host system is mandrake 8.2 and I have the two file libncurses.a $ libcurses.a I followed the directions for static linking them and it reads thea the files are present. I'sent this lcurses file suppose to be in one of the bash packages that I unzipped? I allso tried to copy the last few lines of the command line terminal readout so i could paste in this message I could copy it but when i opened a text editor it wouldent paste is there a way to do this? for future problems

Have you tried Gentoo Linux? Its a 16MB (or 150MB) ISO download that builds a GNU/Linux system from scratch and (IHMO) is easier that Linux from Scratch. Don't try it unless you have a fast internet connection because it downloads source from the net.

My machine at work is d/l XFree 4.2 and KDE3 - thats an all night compile!!!

There is a seperate LFS forum here where recently a guy posted with the exact same problem. I posted back with... well, a dumb idea, but then lfslinux, which is Gerald Beekmans, the head developer of LFS, lead him through getting it running. Evidently the Mandrake team did something screwy with the last release.

Here's that other thread.

Although double-posting is kinda verboten here, if that thread doesn't help, you might be better off posting there as Mr. Beekmans usually sticks to perusing his own forum.

Luck,

Finegan

Also, I agree Gentoo is much easier than LFS... but the point to LFS is to learn something. I tried Gentoo one night, fiddled with it, and then re-installed Slackware back over it. Metaphorically, Gentoo, RedHat, Slackware are just other toys; LFS is a sack full of Legos.

I'd say that ready-made distributions, metaphorically, are more like pre-built lego castles.

LFS is cool, but alot of work. For me, RPM's are just too tempting. I don't want to compile anything unless I have to.

I have built my own busybox boot disks "from scratch." http://www.busybox.net/

I made an el torito "bootable cd" once where the root filesystem was built with rpms, but the el-torito boot image was a busybox floppy. I used a ramdisk for the root filesystem, and created symlinks pointing to directories on the cd.

I had fun doing it, and learned alot in the process.

Moved...

--jeremy

Good point, and in the case of RedHat and Mandrake, Lego Castles with those annoying pieces that you can't use with anything else and are specific to building just that one type of castle.

Cheers,

Finegan

Are there many things you can't work around (possibly using techniques similar to Linux From Scratch)? What is to stop you from modifying a ready-made distribution? With RPM, you can easily add and remove software packages to suit your needs.

Yeah no argument at all... although I much prefer Slackware and package-tool, but really they both pale in the face of apt-get. The downshot to Redhat is that RedHat assumes you will always use RPMs, so if you compile something from scratch the RPM database is inacurate and then everything just gets annoying. Anyway, no holy wars, that wasn't the point. The only point I was trying to make was that you will learn more in the three days you spend throwing toghether LFS than in a month or two of fiddling with a ready made distro. Just like you did with the busybox thing. The Lego analogy has turned inelegant. The point of it really was that I was trying to post something marginally snide about the Gentoo comment. There's a lot of posts where someone asks something about Distro A and gets a response about Distro B, actually this was my third in a row... I should have just answered the question and not P.S.'ed anything.

Cheers,

Finegan

That's what I like to hear! Let there be peace at www.linuxquestions.org!

I want to try apt-get.

cheers,

Zac