Hi.
Completed lfs few hours ago.
Will start blfs now.
Was thinking of downloading all the packages beforehand since i wont be able download them while logged on to my lfs system?
How to do that?

Hi

Glad you made it. Dont download all the packages you wont need them all, There are a few things you could get 1st tho. Gpm for mouse (copy and paste) links for web and wget Think thats all

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i was thinking of avoiding the cpy paste link->wget->dwnld->install way.
I would rather download all packages for a window manager(preferably gnome) to be installed and then continue

Nope it all text console, you will get to that later

Some additional comments about that... One is that Gnome is a desktop environment, not a window manager. So it's huge with everything that goes with it. I've never wanted to build Gnome, but I'm sure it would be formidable compared to a window manager such as Fluxbox. The other thing is you forgot about X Windows. Gnome is going nowhere without X. And X is no shrimp either. Gnome and X would be a lot to do purely by hand typing in a tty console. There is no shame in copying & pasting, IMO.

This is what my friends here taught me to do... First thing you do is install GPM (as already mentioned) and Lynx (to be able to read the book) and Wget (as already mentioned, but Lynx can download, too). Then you can use your mouse to copy commands from the book into another tty console and run them. I usually open a third tty console to read my notes. All at the same time.

Another reason not to download a whole bunch of stuff now is because, unlike the LFS book, the BLFS book is sort of a rolling nightly release. So it often has problems and errors. I usually download the current book and try to stay with it even though new versions come out almost daily. But I occasionally have to go to a newer version of the book because of a problem with some package in the older version of the book. Anyway, unlike LFS, I recommend that you download things in general groups at a time. But do keep your downloads (if you can) in case you want to start over or build the system again. Then you will have everything you need. That's a different matter.

Of course, do what you think is best.

P.S. I realize now that spiky0011 already mentioned Links which is another text-based browser that I forgot about. Now I'm sorry for butting in.

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thanks spiky0011 and stoat for the suggestions.
seems i'll have to do it the gpm,lynx n wget way.
was thinking of downloading all the libraries an some programming packages which seem to be bare necessities.

Not a good idea if you look through the book there would be so much stuff you dont need, as stoat said gnome is so big and away off till you get that far. Also dont forget to check and install dependencies as required.

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Having just completed LFS install and moving slowly on BLFS, I found this little hint rather useful. I think this should be documented somewhere else. Maybe in the early stages of the BLFS book. wget is a must.
Thanks spiky0011.

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Instead of gnome ( which is huge ) if you want a 'classic' desktop try xfce4.10 its small compiles without a hitch and has very few dependencies unlike gnome, I am running it on LFS now.

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can i install gnome/kde after installing xfce?

If you mean xfce yes you can install xfce then kde then gnome or whatever order you wish, there may be *SOME* dependencies that get installed for one DM that another DM might also need, obviously you only need to install dependencies once, but again I would suggest starting with Xfce as there are very few external dependencies after your basic system and xorg have been built.

I'm using nano, lynx, and dhcpcd as a minimal starting point to have a good text editor, allow network access, and a basic text-mode web browser.

I did download and build them in as a starter kit for LFS transitioning. This way I can work from within the LFS environment instead of using chroot. All three require no dependencies unless optional.

Can I use any package management like apt-get or something which will install all dependencies automatically?
Manually installing is so tiring!!

The point of (B)LFS is to do things manually.....

There are a few (old) LFS hints available that deal with package managers: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/read.html

I do remember threads right here that deal with LFS and package managers (use LQ search function)

Can I chroot into lfs from my host and go on with blfs?
That would be a lot easier.Will there be any problems?