Opened 19 years ago
Closed 19 years ago
#1260 closed defect (invalid)
Old source directories?
| Reported by: | Owned by: | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Priority: | lowest | Milestone: | |
| Component: | Book | Version: | 6.0 |
| Severity: | normal | Keywords: | |
| Cc: |
Description
Throughout most of chapter 6 the user is re-building packages that were originally built as part of the toolchain. But for almost all packages (GCC being the exception) the book doesn't say what to do with the old source directory. In fact it doesn't even suggest doing a make clean for programs that were already compiled.
Usually this isn't much of a problem. But I just ran into perl and I can't be certain if I should re-compile the old (patched) version of the source, or a clean untarred version.
Most users who are doing this for the first time won't have any way of knowing which one to do. In addition, some users may be deleting old source directories to save space on an older machine.
This is not a critical bug, but it certainly is an area that could use improvement and clarification. I understand you don't want to be repetitive and say untar this untar that etc. etc., but I think a simple note at the beginning of chapter 6 saying "Delete all source directories" would suffice (if that is the correct action).
From the book (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/6.0/chapter05/chapter05.html#ch-tools-introduction): "After installing each package, delete its source and build directories, unless specifically instructed otherwise. Deleting the sources saves space and prevents mis-configuration when the same package is reinstalled later. Only three of the packages need to retain the source and build directories in order for their contents to be used by later commands. Pay special attention to these reminders."