$Id$ 1. INTRODUCTION:: To automate package builds from the BLFS book instructions is a huge task. Some of the issues are: the BLFS book isn't linear; some package pages use a custom layout; there are circular dependencies; several packages can be installed on a non-default prefix; build commands can change based on what dependencies will be used, etc. That being said, the goal of the blfs-tool is to help you solve package dependencies, create build scripts and a Makefile. Few of the auto-generated build scripts and Makefile will work "as is", thus, as a general rule, you will need to review and edit the scripts while reading the book. 2. PREREQUISITES:: To use this tool you MUST: - have experience building BLFS packages - know how to edit and write shell scripts - know how a Makefile works - be able to trace build failures and to find what is causing it (user error, package bug, BLFS command bug, or jhalfs code bug) If you do not have the above skills, please don't use this tool. 3. USAGE:: Due the complexity of the BLFS book, the scripts and Makefile generation is done in several steps: 3.1 INSTALLED PACKAGES TRACKING SYSTEM This tool includes a very simple tracking system to log which packages have been installed using the tool. It is used to skip installed packages from target selection menu and to test if an installed package has been updated in the BLFS book. Do not rely on this feature as a package management tool. The directory where tracking files will be stored needs to be created before installing blfs-tool. You can place this directory anywhere, taking care that the user must have read and write privileges on that directory and on all files it contains. To use the default path set in the installation menu, run as root: install -d -m1777 /var/lib/jhalfs/BLFS 3.2 BLFS_TOOL INSTALLATION:: Run "make" to launch the jhalfs menuconfig interface. Select the BLFS book and version. Then set the installation directory (default $HOME/blfs_root), the BLFS sources directory (default blfs-xml), and the installed packages tracking directory (default /var/lib/jhalfs/BLFS). All required files will be placed in the installation directory and BLFS XML sources will be installed in the named sub-directory. Installed files: blfs-xml/* SVN tree of the selected BLFS book version lib/* functions libraries, xsl stylesheets, and auto-generated meta-packages dependencies tree files menu/* lxdialog and menuconfig source code README.BLFS this file TODO developers notes update_book.sh update the XML book sources and regenerates packages database and meta-packages dependencies tree gen_config.sh regenerates Config.in gen_pkg_book.sh resolves dependencies and generates linear BLFS books and build scripts gen-makefile.sh generates the target Makefile progress_bar.sh the target Makefile progress bar Makefile run gen_config.sh to update Config.in, then launch the menuconfig interface, and lastly run gen_pkg_book.sh based on configuration settings Config.in menuconfig interface input file packages auto-generated packages database envars.conf envars needed when running the target build scripts From now on, all the work must be done from inside the installation root directory. When finished the installation, the configuration and target selection menu is launch. 3.3 UPDATING BOOK SOURCES:: If you are using the development book version and you want to update installed packages to the latest version found in that book, you need to update the XML sources and packages database. To do that run "./update_book.sh" On the next configuration run, packages already installed but listed with a new version in the book will be available for target selection and used to solve dependencies. 3.4 CONFIGURING AND PARSING THE BOOK:: The next step is to create a book and build scripts in dependency build order for a target package. A target can be a package or a meta-package. WARNING: Only one target (meta-package or individual package) must be selected on each configuration run. There is no way to solve dependencies properly when more than one target are selected. Run to launch the configuration interface. The main menu contains three blocks: meta-package selection, individual package selection, and build options. When a meta-package is selected, it is possible to unselect unwanted components. The unselected components will be skipped if no other components depends on them. In the build options section, the dependencies level and default packages used to solve alternatives are set. You can also select whether the build will be made as a normal user or as root. That settings are saved to be reused in future configuration runs. If, for example, your target selection is Xsoft-->Graphweb-->galeon, a directory named "galeon" will be created. Inside that directory you will find a directory named "HTML" that contains a galeon-based HTML book with its dependencies in build order, and a "scripts" directory with build scripts for that packages. There are also two other directories ("dependencies" and "xincludes") that contain files generated while resolving dependencies trees. 3.5 EDITING BUILD SCRIPTS Now it is time to review the generated book and scripts, making any changes to the scripts necessary to fix generation bugs or to suit your needs. Scripts for additional packages (i.e., for non-BLFS packages) can be easily inserted. For example, if you want to install the external dependency "bar" before "foo" package and the "foo" script is named "064-z-foo", you need to create a "064-y-bar" build script. Remember, the package tracking system isn't a package management tool and knows nothing about packages not in the BLFS book. Also, review and edit envars.conf. This file is used to set global envars needed by the build scripts. 3.6 CREATING THE MAKEFILE When the build scripts are ready to be run, the Makefile can be created. Be sure that you cd into the "package" directory and run ../gen-makefile.sh Review the Makefile, and, if all looks sane, start the build. 4. GENERATED BUILD SCRIPTS ISSUES:: In this section, known issues with the generated build scripts are discussed. They are due to build procedures and/or BLFS layout particularities that we can't handle. In several cases, editing the build scripts is mandatory. You may also need to insert some build scripts created by you to resolve unhandled dependencies and/or to remove some script installing the affected package by hand. 4.1 BLFS BOOTSCRIPTS For now, bootscripts installation will fail. You will need to edit the scripts for packages that install bootscripts and fix their installation command. That could be fixed in the future. 4.2 PACKAGE CONFIGURATION For those packages that have a "Configuration" section, you should edit the build script to fit the needs of your system. 4.4 PDL, Perl modules, and Glib-Bindings. The generated scripts for these packages are broken and can not be fixed. You must replace them with your own scripts or install the packages by hand. 4.4 GCC, JDK, Sane, and KDE-multimedia On the pages for these packages, the BLFS book actually has instructions to install two packages. You must edit the scripts to fix this. We will try to fix some of them, but this may not be possible. 4.5 XORG7 The generated scripts for Xorg7 pseudo-packages don't have support for $SRC_ARCHIVE. If you have previously downloaded the packages, you must edit the scripts to use your local packages. 4.6 PATCHES By default, all required patches will be downloaded from the NET. If you have previously downloaded the patches, you must edit the scripts to use your local patches. Also, be sure that all scripts have the commands to download/apply the required patches. Due to book layout issues, some patches may be missing. 4.7 ROOT COMMANDS If building as a normal user (the default setting), be sure that all commands that require root privileges are run using sudo. Also make sure necessary root privilege commands are visible in your PATH. Due to book layout issues, some sudo commands may be missing. 4.8 OTHERS There may be other issues that we are not aware of. If you find any, please report it to .