$Id$ 1. INTRODUCTION:: To automatize packages build from the BLFS book instructions is a huge task. The BLFS book isn't linear, some package pages need to use a non default 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. Said that, the goal of blfs-tool is try to help you solving packages dependencies and creating your own build scripts and Makefile. Few of the auto-generated build scripts and Makefile could 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 to: - 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 know what packages has been installed using the tool. It is used to skip installed packages from target selection menu and to know if an installed package has been updated on the BLFS book. Don't rely on this feature as a packages management tool. The directory where tracking files will be stored need be created before installing blfs-tool. You can place that directory anywhere, taking care that the builder 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 it 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 checkout to 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 solve dependencies and generates linear BLFS books and build scripts gen-makefile.sh generates 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 using the development book version, and if you want to update already installed packages to the new 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:: Next step is to create a book and build scripts in dependencies build order for a target package. A target cam be a package or a meta-package. Run to launch the configuration interface. The main menu contains three block: meta-package selection, individual package selection, and build options. Only one meta-package or individual package must be selected on each run. That is due that there is no way to solve dependencies properly when more than one target are selected at the same time. When a meta-package is selected is possible to unselected unwanted components. That 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. Can be set also if the build will be made as a normal user or as root. That settings are saved to be reused on 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 is also two other directories, "dependencies" and "xincludes", that contains files generated while resolving dependencies trees. 3.5 EDITING BUILD SCRIPTS Now is time to review the generated book and scripts, making in the scripts any changes required to fix generation bugs or to fit your needs. Scripts for additional packages (i.e., for non-BLFS packages) can be inserted in an easy way due how the scripts are named. 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 that the packages tracking system isn't a packages management tool and know nothing about packages not in the BLFS book. Also, review and edit envars.conf. That 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 build procedures and/or BLFS layout particularities than we can't handle. In several cases editing the build scripts is mandatory. You may need also to insert some build script 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, but not sure. 4.2 PACKAGES CONFIGURATION For that packages that have a "Configuration" section, you should to edit it build script to fit the configuration to your needs. 4.4 PDL and Perl modules. The generated scripts for that packages are plainly broken and can't be fixed. You must to replace it by your own ones or install that packages by hand. 4.4 GCC, JDK, Sane, and KDE-multimedia On the pages for that packages, the BLFS book actually have instructions to install two packages. You must to edit the scripts to fix it. We will try to fix some of them, but may not be possible. 4.5 XORG7 The generated scripts for Xorg7 pseudo-packages don't have support for $SRC_ARCHIVE nor MD5 checking. If you has downloaded previously the packages, you must to edit the scripts to make it to use your local packages. Also, you will need to edit the scripts to fix the commands that must be applied only to a concrete individual sub-package. For example the "for" loop to install xorg7-util packages may read like: for package in $(cat $WGET_LST) ; do packagedir=$(echo $package | sed 's/.tar.bz2//') tar -xf $package cd $packagedir sed -i "s@/usr/X11R6@$XORG_PREFIX@" X11.tmpl && ./configure $XORG_CONFIG --with-config-dir=$XORG_PREFIX/lib/X11/config sudo sh -c "make install" ./configure $XORG_CONFIG --with-config-dir=$XORG_PREFIX/lib/X11/config && make sudo sh -c "make install" ./configure $XORG_CONFIG && make sudo sh -c "make install" cd .. rm -rf $packagedir done After reading the HTML page to know what commands is for what package, the loop can be changed to read something like: for package in $(cat $WGET_LST) ; do packagedir=$(echo $package | sed 's/.tar.bz2//') tar -xf $package cd $packagedir if [ ${packagedir} = "xorg-cf-files" ] ; then sed -i "s@/usr/X11R6@$XORG_PREFIX@" X11.tmpl && ./configure $XORG_CONFIG --with-config-dir=$XORG_PREFIX/lib/X11/config sudo sh -c "make install" elif [ ${packagedir} = "Imake" ] ; then ./configure $XORG_CONFIG --with-config-dir=$XORG_PREFIX/lib/X11/config && make sudo sh -c "make install" else ./configure $XORG_CONFIG && make sudo sh -c "make install" fi cd .. rm -rf $packagedir done 4.6 PATCHES By default all required patches will be downloaded from the NET. If you has downloaded previously the patches, you must to edit the scripts to make it to use your local patches. Also, be sure that all scripts have the commands to download/apply the required patches. Due 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 need root privileges are run using sudo. Due book layout issues some sudo command may be missing. 4.8 OTHERS May have other issues that we are not aware on them yet. If you find someone, please report it to .