%general-entities; ]> The primary target architectures of LFS are the AMD/Intel x86 (32-bit) and x86_64 (64-bit) CPUs. On the other hand, the instructions in this book are also known to work, with some modifications, with the Power PC and ARM CPUs. To build a system that utilizes one of these CPUs, the main prerequisite, in addition to those on the next few pages, is an existing Linux system such as an earlier LFS installation, Ubuntu, Red Hat/Fedora, SuSE, or other distribution that targets the architecture that you have. Also note that a 32-bit distribution can be installed and used as a host system on a 64-bit AMD/Intel computer. Some other facts about 64-bit systems need to be added here. When compared to a 32-bit system, the sizes of executable programs are slightly larger and the execution speeds of arbitrary programs are only slightly faster. For example, in a test build of LFS-6.5 on a Core2Duo CPU based system, the following statistics were measured: Architecture Build Time Build Size 32-bit 198.5 minutes 648 MB 64-bit 190.6 minutes 709 MB As you can see, the 64-bit build is only 4% faster and is 9% larger than the 32-bit build. The gain from going to a 64-bit system is relatively minimal. Of course, if you have more than 4GB of RAM or want to manipulate data that exceeds 4GB, the advantages of a 64-bit system are substantial. The above discussion is only appropriate when comparing builds on the same hardware. Modern 64-bit systems are considerably faster than older 64-bit systems and the LFS authors recommend building on a 64-bit system when given a choice. The default 64-bit build that results from LFS is considered a "pure" 64-bit system. That is, it supports 64-bit executables only. Building a "multi-lib" system requires compiling many applications twice, once for a 32-bit system and once for a 64-bit system. This is not directly supported in LFS because it would interfere with the educational objective of providing the instructions needed for a straightforward base Linux system. You can refer to the Cross Linux From Scratch project for this advanced topic. You are reading the LFS-&version;-multilib book. Building a multilib system requires compiling many applications three times: once for the primary 64-bit architecture; once for the minor 32-bit architecture; and once again for the 32-bit architecture with 64-bit memory extensions. Multilib goes a bit beyond the basic educational approach of LFS which is to teach you how to build a Linux system. If you haven't previously built by the standard LFS book, you are encouraged to do so before attempting this edition. Continue only if you meet the following requirements: you have a x86_64 compatible machine you already have experience with LFS you have a need for 32-bit support