%general-entities; ]> Preface Foreword Having helped out with Linux From Scratch for a short time, I noticed that we were getting many queries as to how to do things beyond the base LFS system. At the time, the only assistance specifically offered relating to LFS were the LFS hints (&hints-root;). Most of the LFS hints are extremely good and well written but I (and others) could still see a need for more comprehensive help to go Beyond LFS - hence BLFS. BLFS aims to be more than the LFS-hints converted to XML although much of our work is based around the hints and indeed some authors write both hints and the relevant BLFS sections. We hope that we can provide you with enough information to not only manage to build your system up to what you want, whether it be a web server or a multimedia desktop system, but also that you will learn a lot about system configuration as you go. Thanks as ever go to everyone in the LFS/BLFS community; especially those who have contributed instructions, written text, answered questions and generally shouted when things were wrong! Finally, we encourage you to become involved in the community; ask questions on the mailing list or news gateway and join in the fun on #lfs at irc.linuxfromscratch.org. You can find more details about all of these in the section of the book. Enjoy using BLFS.
Mark Hymers markh <at> linuxfromscratch.org BLFS Editor (July 2001 - March 2003)
I still remember how I found the BLFS project and started using the instructions that were completed at the time. I could not believe how wonderful it was to get an application up and running very quickly, with explanations as to why things were done a certain way. Unfortunately, for me, it wasn't long before I was opening applications that had nothing more than "To be done" on the page. I did what most would do, I waited for someone else to do it. It wasn't too long before I am looking through Bugzilla for something easy to do. As with any learning experience, the definition of what was easy kept changing. We still encourage you to become involved as BLFS is never really finished. Contributing or just using, we hope you enjoy your BLFS experience.
Larry Lawrence larry <at> linuxfromscratch.org BLFS Editor (March 2003 - June 2004)
 Who would want to read this book This book is mainly aimed at those who have built a system based on the LFS book. It will also be useful for those who are using other distributions, but for one reason or another want to manually build software and are in need of some assistance. BLFS can be used to create a range of diverse systems and so the target audience is probably nearly as wide as that of the LFS book. If you found LFS useful, you should also like this! Since Release 5.0, the BLFS book version matches the LFS book version. This book may be incompatible with a previous or latter release of the LFS book. Organization This book is divided into the following parts. Part I - Introduction This part contains information which is essential to the rest of the book. Part II - Post <acronym>LFS</acronym> Configuration and Extra Software Here we introduce basic configuration and security issues. We also discuss a range of editors, file systems and shells which aren't covered in the main LFS book. Part III - General Libraries and Utilities In this section we cover libraries which are often needed by the rest of the book as well as system utilities. Information on Programming (including recompiling GCC to support its full range of languages) concludes this part. Part IV - Connecting to a Network Here we cover how to connect to a network when you aren't using the simple static IP setup given in the main LFS book. Part V - Basic Networking Networking libraries and command-line networking tools make up the bulk of this part. Part VI - Server Networking Here we deal with setting up mail and other servers (such as SSH, CVS , etc.). Part VII - Content Serving In this part we deal with databases and web server software. Part VIII - X + Window Managers This part explains how to set up a basic X Window System installation along with some generic X libraries and Window managers. Part IX - KDE For those who want to use the K Desktop Environment or some parts of it, this part covers it. Part X - GNOME GNOME is the main alternative to KDE in the Desktop Environment arena and we cover both GNOME-1.4 and GNOME-&gnome-version; here. Part XI - X Software Office programs and graphical web browsers are important to most people. They, along with some generic X software can be found in this part of the book. Part XII - Multimedia Here we cover setting multimedia libraries and drivers along with some audio, video and CD-writing programs. Part XIII - Printing, Scanning and Typesetting The PST part of the book covers things from Ghostscript, CUPS and DocBook to installing TeX. Appendices The Appendices cover information which doesn't belong in the main book; they are mainly there as a reference.