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6 <sect1 id="materials-introduction">
7 <title>Introduction</title>
8 <?dbhtml filename="introduction.html"?>
10 <para>Below is a list of packages you need to download for building a basic
11 Linux system. The listed version numbers correspond to versions of the
12 software that are <emphasis>known</emphasis> to work, and this book is
13 based upon them. Unless you are an experienced LFS builder, we highly
14 recommend not to try out newer versions, as the build commands for one
15 version may not work with a newer version. Also, there is often a good
16 reason for not using the latest version due to known problems that haven't
17 been worked around yet.</para>
19 <para>All the URLs, when possible, refer to the project's page at
20 <ulink url="http://www.freshmeat.net/"/>. The Freshmeat
21 pages will give you easy access to the official download sites as well as
22 project websites, mailing lists, FAQs, changelogs and more.</para>
24 <para>We can't guarantee that these download locations are always available.
25 In case a download location has changed since this book was published, please
26 try to google for the package. Should you remain unsuccessful with this, you
27 can consult the book's errata page at <ulink url="&lfs-root;lfs/print/"/>
28 or, better yet, try one of the alternative means of downloading listed on
29 <ulink url="&lfs-root;lfs/packages.html"/>.</para>
31 <para>You'll need to store all the downloaded packages and patches somewhere
32 that is conveniently available throughout the entire build. You'll also need a
33 working directory in which to unpack the sources and build them. A scheme that
34 works well is to use <filename>$LFS/sources</filename> as the place to store
35 the tarballs and patches, <emphasis>and</emphasis> as a working directory.
36 This way everything you need will be located on the LFS partition and available
37 during all stages of the building process.</para>
39 <para>So you may want to execute, as <emphasis>root</emphasis>, the following
40 command before starting your download session:</para>
42 <screen><userinput>mkdir $LFS/sources</userinput></screen>
44 <para>And make this directory writable (and sticky) for your normal user -- as
45 you won't do the downloading as <emphasis>root</emphasis>, we guess:</para>
47 <screen><userinput>chmod a+wt $LFS/sources</userinput></screen>
50 <para>For your convenience the top of the list contains a link to a file
51 you can use with the <ulink url="http://wget.sunsite.dk">wget</ulink>
52 program. Using this file and the <command>wget</command> program will
53 make it easy to download all the files at once, rather than downloading each
54 and every individual file manually.</para>