Going Beyond BLFS The packages that are installed in this book are only the tip of the iceberg. We hope that the experience you gained with the LFS book and the BLFS book will give you the background needed to compile, install and configure packages that are not included in this book. If you are in search of a package that is not in the book, the following are different ways you can search for the concerned package. If you know the name of the package, then search FreshMeat for at . Also search Google at . Sometimes a search for the rpm at or the deb at can also lead to the website for the package. If you know the name of the executable, but not the package that the executable belongs to, first try a google search with the name of the executable. If the results are overwhelming, try searching for the given executable in the debian repository at . Some general hints on handling new packages: Many of the newer packages follow the ./configure && make && make install dance routine. Help on the options accepted by configure can be obtained via the command ./configure --help. Most of the packages contain documentation on compiling and installing the package. Some of the documents are excellent, some not so excellent. Check out the homepage of the package for any additional and updated hints for compiling and configuring the package. If you are having a problem compiling the package, try searching the lfs archives at for the error or if that fails try searching google. If everything else fails, try the blfs support mailing-list/news-server. If you have found a package that is only available in .deb or .rpm format, there are two small scripts rpm2targz and deb2targz that are available at to convert the archives into a simple tar.gz format.