source: prologue/hostreqs.xml@ a09a914

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<sect1 id="pre-hostreqs" xreflabel="Host System Requirements">
  <?dbhtml filename="hostreqs.html"?>

  <title>Host System Requirements</title>

    <para>Your host system should have the following software with the
    minimum versions indicated. This should not be an issue for most
    modern Linux distributions. Also note that many distributions will
    place software headers into separate packages, often in the form of
    <quote>&lt;package-name&gt;-devel</quote> or
    <quote>&lt;package-name&gt;-dev</quote>. Be sure to install those if
    your distribution provides them.</para>

   <para>Earlier versions of the listed software packages may work, but has not
   been tested.</para>

  <itemizedlist spacing="compact">

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Bash-3.2</emphasis> (/bin/sh
      should be a symbolic or hard link to bash)</para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Binutils-2.17</emphasis> (Versions
      greater than &binutils-version; are not recommended as they have
      not been tested)</para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Bison-2.3</emphasis> (/usr/bin/yacc
      should be a link to bison or small script that executes bison)</para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Bzip2-1.0.4</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Coreutils-6.9</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Diffutils-2.8.1</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Findutils-4.2.31</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Gawk-4.0.1</emphasis> (/usr/bin/awk
      should be a link to gawk)</para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">GCC-4.1.2</emphasis> including the C++
      compiler, <command>g++</command> (Versions greater than &gcc-version; are
      not recommended as they have not been tested)</para>

      <note><para>On some distributions, there have been reports that some
      libraries used by gcc have can be in an inconsistent state and that this
      interferes with building some LFS packages.  To check this, look in
      /usr/lib for libgmp.la, libmpfr.la, and libmpc.la.  Either all three
      should be present or absent, but not only one or two.  If the problem
      exists on your system, either rename or delete the .la files or install
      the appropriate missing package.</para></note>

    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Glibc-2.5.1</emphasis> (Versions
      greater than &glibc-version; are not recommended as they have
      not been tested)</para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Grep-2.5.1a</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Gzip-1.3.12</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Linux Kernel-&min-kernel;</emphasis></para>

      <para>The reason for the kernel version requirement is that we specify
      that version when building <application>glibc</application> in Chapter 6
      at the recommendation of the developers.  It is also required by
      udev.</para>

      <para>If the host kernel is earlier than &min-kernel; you will need to replace
      the kernel with a more up to date version. There are two ways
      you can go about this. First, see if your Linux vendor provides a &min-kernel;
      or later kernel package. If so, you may wish to install it. If your
      vendor doesn't offer an acceptable kernel package, or you would prefer not to
      install it, you can compile a kernel yourself. Instructions for
      compiling the kernel and configuring the boot loader (assuming the host
      uses GRUB) are located in <xref linkend="chapter-bootable"/>.</para>

    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">M4-1.4.10</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Make-3.81</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Patch-2.5.4</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Perl-5.8.8</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Sed-4.1.5</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Tar-1.18</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Xz-5.0.0</emphasis></para>
    </listitem>

  </itemizedlist>

  <para>Note that the symlinks mentioned above are required to build an LFS
  system using the instructions contained within this book. Symlinks that
  point to other software (such as dash, mawk, etc.) may work, but are not
  tested or supported by the LFS development team, and may require either
  deviation from the instructions or additional patches to some
  packages.</para>

  <!-- Use an empty sect2 element to prevent a pdf warning.  -->
  <sect2 id="version-check">
  <title> </title>

  <para >To see whether your host system has all the appropriate versions, and
  the ability to compile programs, run the following:</para>

<!-- ANY additional lines in the script cause a pdf rendering problem-->
<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat &gt; version-check.sh &lt;&lt; "EOF"
<literal>#!/bin/bash
# Simple script to list version numbers of critical development tools

export LC_ALL=C
bash --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f2-4
echo "/bin/sh -&gt; `readlink -f /bin/sh`"
echo -n "Binutils: "; ld --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f3-
bison --version | head -n1
if [ -e /usr/bin/yacc ];
  then echo "/usr/bin/yacc -&gt; `readlink -f /usr/bin/yacc`";
  else echo "yacc not found"; fi

bzip2 --version 2&gt;&amp;1 &lt; /dev/null | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f1,6-
echo -n "Coreutils: "; chown --version | head -n1 | cut -d")" -f2
diff --version | head -n1
find --version | head -n1
gawk --version | head -n1
if [ -e /usr/bin/awk ];
  then echo "/usr/bin/awk -&gt; `readlink -f /usr/bin/awk`";
  else echo "awk not found"; fi

gcc --version | head -n1
g++ --version | head -n1
ldd --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f2-  # glibc version
grep --version | head -n1
gzip --version | head -n1
cat /proc/version
m4 --version | head -n1
make --version | head -n1
patch --version | head -n1
echo Perl `perl -V:version`
sed --version | head -n1
tar --version | head -n1
xz --version | head -n1

echo 'main(){}' &gt; dummy.c &amp;&amp; g++ -o dummy dummy.c
if [ -x dummy ]
  then echo "g++ compilation OK";
  else echo "g++ compilation failed"; fi
rm -f dummy.c dummy

for lib in lib{gmp,mpfr,mpc}.la; do
  echo $lib: $(if find /usr/lib* -name $lib|
               grep -q $lib;then :;else echo not;fi) found
done
unset lib</literal>
EOF

bash version-check.sh</userinput></screen>

</sect2>
</sect1>