GNU/Linux-libre from source code for Loongson 2F
************************************************

This manual describes how to build a GNU/Linux-libre system from source for Loongson 2F processor.

This is edition 1.0 (last updated 14 October 2012) of GNU/Linux-libre from source code for Loongson 2F.

Copyright © 2012 Christophe Jarry.

This document is based on the Chinese page http://zdbr.net.cn/download/Loongson64-2.0.htm, which is copyright © 2009 Haiyong Sun (孙海勇). His blog is on http://youbest.cublog.cn.

Various formats of this manual as well as its texinfo source are available on http://cjarry.org/gnu-linux/gllfsc/.

     Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.

     Computer instructions in this manual are free software: you can redistribute them and/or modify them under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

     Those instructions are distributed in the hope that they will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

     You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this manual.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Introduction
************

GNU/Linux History
=================

GNU
---

GNU (GNU's Not Unix) is a project launched by Richard Stallman in 1984 with the goal of building an entirely free operating system compatible with Unix (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix). ``Free'' here means ``free as in freedom''. In this context, a free operating system is an operating system you can use and share in freedom. A core part of his motivation is given in the GNU Manifesto (http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html):

     I consider that the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities, but eventually they had gone too far: I could not remain in an institution where such things are done for me against my will.

     So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I have resigned from the AI Lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent me from giving GNU away.

A program is free software if the program's user has the four essential freedoms:

  * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

  * The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does her computing as she wishes (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

  * The freedom to redistribute copies so she can help her neighbor (freedom 2).

  * The freedom to distribute copies of her modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this she can give the whole community a chance to benefit from her changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

One of the most popular free software license is the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)).

The free software movement is supported by the Free Software Foundation (FSF (http://www.fsf.org)).

HURD
----

The HURD is an acronym for HIRD (HURD of interfaces representing depth) of Unix-replacing daemons. It is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux).

The purpose of the GNU HURD is to improve the user's freedom on her operating system by allowing her to either add or remove a feature of the kernel on the fly.

From early on, the HURD was developed to use GNU Mach as the microkernel. This was a technical decision made by Richard Stallman, who thought it would speed up the work by saving a large part of it. He has admitted that he was wrong about that.

Nevertheless, development of the HURD is increasingly attracting developers and GNU/HURD systems exist and are usable.

Linux
-----

Linux is a monolithic kernel created by Linus Torvalds in 1991. Linus Torvalds initially wrote a terminal emulator, which he used to access the large UNIX servers of his university. He wrote the program specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386 processor. This later became the kernel Linux.

Initially, Torvalds first published the kernel Linux under its own licence, which had a restriction on commercial activity.

In the notes for the first release of the kernel Linux, Torvalds lists the GNU software that is required to run Linux:

     Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you nowhere. To get a working system you need a shell, compilers, a library etc. [...] Most of the tools used with linux are GNU software and are under the GNU copyleft.

In 1992, he suggested releasing the kernel under the GNU General Public License. He first announced this decision in the release notes of version 0.12. In the middle of December 1992 he published version 0.99 using the GNU GPL.

The kernel Linux is now a contribution of many professionals and volonteers around the world.

Linux-libre
-----------

Linux, the kernel developed and distributed by Linus Torvalds et al, contains non-Free Software (For more information about the presence of proprietary firmware in the kernel Linux, read http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/anuncio/2010-03-Linux-2.6.33-libre.en and http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html#nonfree-firmware.), i.e., software that does not respect your essential freedoms, and it induces you to install additional non-Free Software that it doesn't contain.

GNU Linux-libre (http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/selibre/linux-libre/index.en.html) is a project to maintain and publish 100% Free distributions of Linux, suitable for use in Free System Distributions (For a full list of free as in freedom GNU/Linux distributions, see http://www.gnu.org/distros.), removing software that is included without source code, with obfuscated or obscured source code, under non-Free Software licenses, that do not permit you to change the software so that it does what you wish, and that induces or requires you to install additional pieces of non-Free Software.

References
----------

For more information on the GNU project and its relation with the kernel Linux, you can read http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html and http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.

For more information on the history of the HURD, I recommend you to read http://www.h-online.com/open/features/GNU-HURD-Altered-visions-and-lost-promise-1030942.html.

For more information on the HURD, read http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd.

Purpose of this Document
========================

I bought a Lemote Yeeloong 8101 in 2010 and used gNewSense (http://www.gnewsense.org) on it. After a while, I wanted to use a faster and simpler operating system, but the number of available GNU/Linux (Note: in this document, we use the term ``GNU/Linux'' to name the entire system and ``Linux'' to name the kernel. For more information, read http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html.) distributions that supported the mipsel architecture (Loongson 2F) were limited: only a handful, from which only gNewSense committed to give its users full freedom. Since then, another distribution called Parabola (https://parabolagnulinux.org) has been developed: it is free as in freedom and supports the mips64el architecture.

I decided to build a GNU/Linux system from source code by myself. Hopefully, I found a document in Chinese describing the process of building a GNU/Linux system for Loongson processor: http://zdbr.net.cn/download/Loongson64-2.0.htm (At the
time of writing (september 2012), the site http://zdbr.net.cn/
does not exist anymore. The author of this document was
Haiyong Sun (孙海勇),) and his (interesting) blog is on http://youbest.cublog.cn.. The document was old (2009) but I updated succesfully most packages from it, replaced Linux with Linux-libre and added some information I felt was useful and it gave the document you are reading.

Prerequisites
*************

Definitions
===========

sysroot
-------

The traditional way of building a GNU/Linux operating system consists on building a (cross-) compilation toolchain to build a temporary operating system which in turn will be used to build the target system (see Further Readings section for more details). This requires almost as much time to complete the temporary system as to build the target one. Using sysroot resolves this problem.

From GCC installation manual, under Cross-Compiler-Specific Options:

--with-sysroot
--with-sysroot=DIR
     Tells GCC to consider DIR as the root of a tree that contains (a subset of) the root filesystem of the target operating system.  Target system headers, libraries and run-time object files will be searched in there.  More specifically, this acts as if --sysroot=DIR was added to the default options of the built compiler.  The specified directory is not copied into the install tree, unlike the options --with-headers and --with-libs that this option obsoletes.  The default value, in case --with-sysroot is not given an argument, is ${gcc_tooldir}/sys-root.  If the specified directory is a subdirectory of ${exec_prefix}, then it will be found relative to the GCC binaries if the installation tree is moved.

     This option affects the system root for the compiler used to build target libraries (which runs on the build system) and the compiler newly installed with make install; it does not affect the compiler which is used to build GCC itself.

Toolchain
---------

According to Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toolchain):

     In software, a toolchain is the set of programming tools that are used to create a product (typically another computer program or system of programs). The tools may be used in a chain, so that the output of each tool becomes the input for the next, but the term is used widely to refer to any set of linked development tools.

     A simple software development toolchain consists of a text editor for editing source code, a compiler and linker to transform the source code into an executable program, libraries to provide interfaces to the operating system, and a debugger.

build, host and target
----------------------

During a cross-compilation, build host and target are among the most used options: understanding the precise meaning of those parameters is very important. We could define them thus:

  * --build=PLATFORM ON WHICH THE PROGRAM IS COMPILED,

  * --host=PLATFORM ON WHICH THE PROGRAM WILL RUN,

  * --target=PLATFORM FOR WHICH THE PROGRAM WILL CREATE OUTPUT.

Let's use GCC as an example to explain the role of those three parameters.

During GCC compilation, we use:

./configure --build=BUILD-PLATFORM --host=HOST-PLATFORM --target=TARGET-PLATFORM [various compilation parameters]

So in those configuration parameters:

  * --build provides the name of the platform currently running. If we were using an Intel Pentium processor to compile the system, our BUILD-PLATFORM would be something like i686-pc-linux-gnu.

     If this parameter is not specified, it will be guessed automatically.

  * --host represents the type of machine we are going to run GCC on after the compilation succeeds. During a cross-compilation this has to be specified, because the current machine can not know which architecture we wish to target. We want to produce executables to run on Loongson, but there is currently no way we can specify Loongson directly; because of this we specify mips64el-unknown-linux-gnu.

     --host can also be left unspecified, in that case, HOST-PLATFORM would automatically define itself as BUILD-PLATFORM, but this is not cross-compilation anymore.

          when --build and --host are different, configuration files will maintain the cross-compilation mode.

  * --target defines the system for which compiler tools will create output.

     TARGET-PLATFORM parameter is useful only for a limited number of programs. Although this parameter is often present when issuing ./configure --help, hardly any packages will need it.

     This parameter is only useful for performing tasks with different platforms; for instance, executable files compiled for different platforms can have a totally different code.

If we summarize, we have:

  * BUILD-PLATFORM: automatically guessed from platform in use; has to be specified if not guessed.

  * HOST-PLATFORM: if unspecified, automatically equals BUILD-PLATFORM. When BUILD-PLATFORM and HOST-PLATFORM values are identical, it is a local compilation; otherwise it is a cross-compilation.

  * TARGET-PLATFORM: defines the system for which compiler tools will create output; it equals HOST-PLATFORM if unspecified. GCC, binutils, and programs related to the platform's instructions have this parameter; most programs do not use this parameter.

FHS
---

The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) has been created to specify the location and use of main directories on a GNU/Linux operating system. Common commands, user data, libraries have to be put inside a specific directory given in the standard. During the build process, some commands are used to comply with FHS.

Commands
========

In this document, because most commands are common for a regular Unix user, only uncommon commands are explained in this document. If you do not understand a command that is not explained, you can use the documentation available on your computer; in a terminal, typing man COMMAND should give you enough information. For GNU software, info PACKAGE can also give additional information.

Preliminary Work
****************

     In order to complete the first steps of this chapter, you will need to have root permissions.

Build Partition Creation
========================

To dedicate the partition /dev/sda4 to the system build, and to define the filesystem to be used for it as ext3:

mke2fs -t ext3 /dev/sda4

Option -t is followed by the type of filesystem to be used. The filesystem ext3 is used as it is one of the most common filesystem used with the kernel Linux.

Build User Creation
===================

To create the builder group, user and password:

groupadd gllfsc
useradd -s /bin/bash -g gllfsc -m -k /dev/null gllfsc
passwd gllfsc

  * Option -s (or --shell) is used to define the created user's default shell, here /bin/bash.

  * Option -g (or --gid) is used to define the group name or number of the created user's initial login group, here gllfsc.

  * Option -m (or --create-home) does create the user's home directory if it does not exist (/home/USERNAME).

  * Option -k (or --skel) is used to define the skeleton directory to be copied in the user's home directory, here /dev/null. /dev/null is a special file which, in this case, will give no skeleton at all to useradd.

Work Directory Creation
=======================

To create the directory /gllfsc in which the system will be built:

export TARGET_DIR="/gllfsc"
mkdir -pv ${TARGET_DIR}

export TARGET_DIR="/gllfsc" sets the value of the variable TARGET_DIR to /gllfsc, the directory in which the system will be built.

Mounting Partition
==================

To mount the hard drive partition, for instance /dev/sda4, used to build the system:

mount /dev/sda4 ${TARGET_DIR}

Creating Compilation and Download Directories
=============================================

mkdir -pv ${TARGET_DIR}/{build,download}
chown -Rv gllfsc ${TARGET_DIR}

Switching to the Build User
===========================

To login as the user that will build the system:

su - gllfsc

With the command su, it is possible to change the user ID. The option - provides an environment similar to what the user would expect had the user logged in directly.

Setting up Required Environment Variables
=========================================

~/.bash_profile is a personal initialization file that is read when Bash is invoked as an interactive login shell (~ is the location of the user's home directory). To write the content of the file ~/.bash_profile:

cat > ~/.bash_profile << "EOF"
exec env -i HOME=${HOME} TERM=${TERM} PS1=${PS1} /bin/bash
EOF

The first line creates the file ~/.bash_profile and opens it for writing until EOF (End Of File) is written in it.

The second line tells Bash to execute /bin/bash with the option -i (or --ignore-environment) which will make Bash start with an empty environment. Variables HOME, TERM and PS1 define respectively the home directory of the current user, the terminal used and the primary prompt string displayed.

~/.bashrc is a personal initialization file that is read when Bash is invoked as an interactive shell but not a login one. To write the content of the file ~/.bashrc:

cat > ~/.bashrc << "EOF"
set +h
umask 022
export PS1='\[\e[32m\]\A-\W\[\e[00m\]\$ '
export TARGET_DIR=/gllfsc
export LC_ALL=POSIX
export BUILD_DIR="${TARGET_DIR}/build"
export DOWNLOAD_DIR="${TARGET_DIR}/download"
export CROSS_HOST="$(echo $MACHTYPE |\
    sed "s/$(echo $MACHTYPE | cut -d- -f2)/cross/")"
export CROSS_TARGET="mips64el-unknown-linux-gnu"
#export MABI="n32"
export MABI="64"
#export MARCH="loongson2e"
export MARCH="loongson2f"
export PATH=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools/bin:/bin:/usr/bin
unset CFLAGS
unset CXXFLAGS
EOF
source ~/.bash_profile

set +h tells Bash to not locate nor remember commands (hash) as they are looked up for execution.

umask 022 sets Bash process' file creation mask to 022. This results in permissions of `755' for those files.

export PS1='\[\e[32m\]\A-\W\[\e[00m\]\$ ' sets the primary prompt strings. The primary prompt strings are the strings you see before the commands you type in the terminal. The part \A-\W means that the time, in 24-hour HH:MM format and the basename of $PWD will be displayed separated by a `-', as in 19:33-bin. The part \$ adds a dollar sign at the end, \[\e[32m\] colors the strings in green and \[\e[00m\] gets the original color back. For other colors, you can browse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code.

LC_ALL is a macro used to define a single locale to overwrite other LC_* and LANG environment variables so that language, numeric values, time and other locale-dependant values have all the same value. It is set to the standard POSIX locale.

export BUILD_DIR="${TARGET_DIR}/build" sets the environment variable BUILD_DIR to the value of ${TARGET_DIR}/build which is /gllfsc/build in this document.

The value of variable CROSS_HOST equals the value of variable MACHTYPE of the current machine (for instance i686-pc-linux-gnu) modulo the second word, which is replaced by cross (i.e. i686-cross-linux-gnu).

The value of variable CROSS_TARGET equals the value of variable MACHTYPE of the machine for which the system is built (i.e. mips64el-unknown-linux-gnu).

The variable MABI defines the ABI (Application Binary Interface) for which the system will be built. -mabi is an option of GCC. n32/64 are for 64-bit CPUs only. 64 has 64-bit pointers and long integers, whereas n32 has 32-bit pointers and long integers.

The variable MARCH defines the architecture for which the system will be built. -march is an option of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection).

The variable PATH contains a colon-separated list of directories in which the shell looks for commands. The shell will first look for commands in ${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools/bin, then, if the command was not found, in /bin and finally in /usr/bin.

unset command removes the variable associated, here CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS. Those variables are used by GCC as extra flags given to the C compiler and the C++ compiler respectively.

Finally source ~/.bash_profile reads and executes the content of the file ~/.bash_profile.

Downloads
=========

Downloading Packages
--------------------

The packages listed below are those used in this document. You can try other versions but you will need a recent version of Binutils and the kernel Linux in order to use the two options -mfix-loongson2f-nop and -mfix-loongson2f-jump. Those work around a problem related to the Loongson2F architecture (For more information about the issue, see http://groups.google.com/group/loongson-dev/browse_thread/thread/d9103283141c00fb/e9a8830b01cc1913?hide_quotes=no#msg_d44adf83639fb0bd and http://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2009-11/msg00387.html.).

Download those files under ${DOWNLOAD_DIR} (which is /gllfsc/download in this document).

  * Autoconf: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/autoconf/autoconf-2.69.tar.gz.

  * Automake: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/automake/automake-1.12.4.tar.gz.

  * Bash: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/bash/bash-4.2.tar.gz.

  * Binutils: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/binutils/binutils-2.22.tar.bz2.

  * Bison: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/bison/bison-2.5.tar.bz2.

  * Bootscripts: http://ftp.cross-lfs.org/pub/clfs/conglomeration/bootscripts-cross-lfs/bootscripts-cross-lfs-1.2-pre11.tar.bz2.

  * Bzip2: http://www.bzip.org/1.0.6/bzip2-1.0.6.tar.gz.

  * Coreutils: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/coreutils/coreutils-8.19.tar.xz.

  * DHCPCD: http://roy.marples.name/downloads/dhcpcd/dhcpcd-5.6.2.tar.bz2.

  * Diffutils: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/diffutils/diffutils-3.2.tar.gz.

  * E2fsprogs: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.42.6.tar.gz.

  * File: ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/file-5.11.tar.gz.

  * Findutils: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/findutils/findutils-4.4.2.tar.gz.

  * Flex: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/flex/flex-2.5.37.tar.bz2.

  * Gawk: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gawk/gawk-4.0.1.tar.gz.

  * GCC: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.7.2/gcc-4.7.2.tar.bz2.

  * Gettext: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gettext/gettext-0.18.1.1.tar.gz.

  * Glibc: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/glibc/glibc-2.13.tar.bz2.

  * Glibc-Ports: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/glibc/glibc-ports-2.13.tar.bz2.

  * Gmp: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gmp/gmp-5.0.5.tar.bz2.

  * Grep: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/grep/grep-2.14.tar.xz.

  * Groff: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/groff/groff-1.21.tar.gz.

  * Gzip: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gzip/gzip-1.5.tar.gz.

  * Iana-Etc: http://sethwklein.net/iana-etc-2.30.tar.bz2.

  * Iputils: http://www.skbuff.net/iputils/iputils-s20071127.tar.bz2.

  * Iproute2: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/iproute2-3.5.1.tar.bz2

  * Kbd: http://ftp.altlinux.org/pub/people/legion/kbd/kbd-1.15.3.tar.gz.

  * Kmod: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/kmod/kmod-10.tar.gz.

  * Less: http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/less-451.tar.gz.

  * Libtool: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/libtool/libtool-2.4.tar.gz.

  * Linux-Libre  (The kernel Linux is shipped with proprietary firmware. The version called Linux-Libre exists without them, it is available for download at http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/selibre/linux-libre/.): http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/releases/3.5.4-gnu/linux-libre-3.5.4-gnu.tar.bz2.

  * M4: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/m4/m4-1.4.16.tar.bz2.

  * Make: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/make/make-3.82.tar.bz2.

  * Man-Pages: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/Archive/man-pages-3.32.tar.bz2.

  * Man: http://primates.ximian.com/~flucifredi/man/man-1.6g.tar.gz.

  * Mpc: http://www.multiprecision.org/mpc/download/mpc-1.0.1.tar.gz.

  * Mpfr: http://www.mpfr.org/mpfr-3.1.1/mpfr-3.1.1.tar.bz2.

  * Nano: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/nano/nano-2.3.1.tar.gz

  * Ncurses: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-5.9.tar.gz.

  * Patch: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/patch/patch-2.7.1.tar.bz2.

  * Procps: http://procps.sourceforge.net/procps-3.2.8.tar.gz.

  * Psmisc: http://sourceforge.net/projects/psmisc/files/psmisc/psmisc-22.20.tar.gz/download.

  * Readline: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/readline/readline-6.2.tar.gz.

  * Rsyslog: http://rsyslog.com/files/download/rsyslog/rsyslog-5.8.6.tar.gz.

  * Sed: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/sed/sed-4.2.1.tar.bz2.

  * Shadow: http://pkg-shadow.alioth.debian.org/releases/shadow-4.1.4.3.tar.bz2.

  * Sysvinit: http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/sysvinit/sysvinit-2.88dsf.tar.bz2.

  * Tar: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/tar/tar-1.26.tar.bz2.

  * Texinfo: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/texinfo/texinfo-4.13a.tar.gz.

  * Udev: ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev-175.tar.gz.

  * Util-Linux: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/v2.19/util-linux-2.19.1.tar.bz2.

  * XZ-Utils: http://tukaani.org/xz/xz-5.0.4.tar.bz2.

  * Zlib: http://sourceforge.net/projects/libpng/files/zlib/1.2.7/zlib-1.2.7.tar.bz2/download.

Downloading Patches
-------------------

Patches and configuration files location:

  * http://cjarry.org/gnu-linux/gllfsc/gllfsc-loongson2f-1.0-patches.tar.gz. After having downloaded this file under ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}, execute the following commands to extract its content:

     pushd ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}
     tar xvf gllfsc-loongson2f-1.0-patches.tar.gz
     popd

  * The page http://microcai.gsalex.net/old/archives/2011/01/fbcon_UNICODE_font_support.html is useful for users who want support for CJK (Chinese Japanese Korean) characters under the (non-graphical) terminal. It gives access to a git (http://git-scm.com/) repository with kernel patches (The patches to use with version 3.5 of the kernel are the first four on http://repo.or.cz/w/linux-2.6/cjktty.git/shortlog/refs/heads/3.5-utf8.) that permit direct rendering of UTF-8 characters under the framebuffer environment. Be aware though that applying those CJK patches to the kernel may make characters that are both non-CJK and non-ASCII unreadable (accented letters, cyrillic, etc.).

  * http://www.fsfla.org/svn/fsfla/software/linux-libre/lemote/gnewsense/tags/3.5.4-gnu_0loongsonlibre/100gnu+freedo.patch this patch adds a picture of a GNU beside Freedo, Freedo being the mascot of Linux-Libre. The image can be seen on http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/selibre/linux-libre/100gnu+freedo.

Final Preparations
==================

Target Filesystem Hierarchy Creation
------------------------------------

pushd ${TARGET_DIR}
mkdir -pv bin boot dev {etc/,}opt home lib mnt
mkdir -pv proc media/{floppy,cdrom} sbin srv sys
mkdir -pv var/{lock,log,mail,run,spool}
mkdir -pv var/{opt,cache,lib/{misc,locate},local}
install -dv -m 0750 root
install -dv -m 1777 {var/,}tmp
mkdir -pv usr/{,local/}{bin,include,lib,sbin,src}
mkdir -pv usr/{,local/}share/{doc,info,locale,man}
mkdir -pv usr/{,local/}share/{misc,terminfo,zoneinfo}
mkdir -pv usr/{,local/}share/man/man{1..8}
for dir in usr{,/local}; do
    ln -sv share/{man,doc,info} $dir
done
ln -svf lib lib64
ln -svf lib lib32
ln -svf lib usr/lib64
ln -svf lib usr/lib32
cd boot
ln -svf . boot
popd

The command install -dv -m 1777 {var/,}tmp creates the directories var/tmp and tmp with the permissions to read, write and execute for everyone. The '1' in 1777 is the sticky bit which allows deletion of the file or directory having this attribute only for the owner of the file or directory.

The command ln -svf lib lib64 creates a symbolic link (option -s) with the name lib64 which will point to lib.

Creating needed user, groups and log files
------------------------------------------

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/passwd << "EOF"
root::0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
EOF

The file /etc/passwd contains one line for each user account, with seven fields delimited by colons. These fields are:

  * login name;

  * optional encrypted password;

  * numerical user ID;

  * numerical group ID;

  * user name or comment field;

  * user home directory;

  * optional user command interpreter.

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/group << "EOF"
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:
sys:x:2:
kmem:x:3:
tty:x:4:
tape:x:5:
daemon:x:6:
floppy:x:7:
disk:x:8:
lp:x:9:
dialout:x:10:
audio:x:11:
video:x:12:
utmp:x:13:
usb:x:14:
cdrom:x:15:
EOF

The file /etc/group is a text file which defines the groups on the system. There is one entry per line, with the following format: group_name:password:GID:user_list.

touch ${TARGET_DIR}/var/run/utmp \
    ${TARGET_DIR}/var/log/{btmp,lastlog,wtmp}
chmod -v 664 ${TARGET_DIR}/var/run/utmp \
    ${TARGET_DIR}/var/log/lastlog

Building the Cross-Compilation Toolchain
****************************************

In this chapter, the cross-compilation toolchain is built as well as core components of the target system. Those will then be used to build the target system.

Target Linux-Header
===================

To build a GNU/Linux distribution for Loongson 2F without patch, you need at least version 2.6.33 of the kernel Linux (-libre) as it includes: basic CS5536 VSM support, CS5536 MFGPT timer support, CPU frequency scaling support, suspend support framework, basic Loongson 2F support, support for GZIP / BZIP2 / LZMA compressed kernel images (See http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_33 for more information.).  Moreover, version 2.6.35 and above include fixes for Loongson2F processor  (See http://lwn.net/Articles/386986/ for more information.).

I chose version stable 3.5.4-gnu because it is from the stable branch, it has been deblobed with the latest version of the deblob script (http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/releases/3.5.4-gnu/deblob-main) and because it is recent and as such it should include the most complete support for Loongson 2F.

# 6 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/linux-libre-3.5.4-gnu.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/linux-3.5.4
make mrproper
make ARCH=mips headers_check
make ARCH=mips INSTALL_HDR_PATH=dest headers_install
cp -rv dest/include/* ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/include
cd ..
rm -rf linux-3.5.4
popd

6 minutes is the time it takes to build the package on Lemote Yeeloong with a Loongson 2F processor.

The command make mrproper cleans the sources.

We need to specify ARCH=mips as we are cross-compiling.

Cross Binutils
==============

GNU Binutils (GNU binary utilities) is a collection of programs for manipulating binaries.

# 35 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/binutils-2.22.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd $BUILD_DIR/binutils-2.22
mkdir -pv ../binutils-build
cd ../binutils-build
CC="gcc" AR="ar" \
    ../binutils-2.22/configure \
    --prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --target=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --enable-64-bit-bfd \
    --with-sysroot=${TARGET_DIR} \
    --disable-nls \
    --enable-shared
make configure-host
make
make install
cp -v ../binutils-2.22/include/libiberty.h \
    ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/include
cd ..
rm -rf binutils-build
rm -rf binutils-2.22
popd

CC="gcc" and AR="ar" are flags that tell the configure script to use the local commands gcc as the C compiler and ar as the program that handles archives.

--prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools tells the configure script to install architecture-independant files in ${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools.

The option --enable-64-bit-bfd enables 64 bit for BFD (the Binary File Descriptor).

--with-sysroot=${TARGET_DIR} tells Binutils to consider ${TARGET_DIR} as the root of a tree that contains (a subset of) the root filesystem of the target operating system. Target system headers, libraries and run-time object files will be searched in there.

The --enable-nls option enables Native Language Support (NLS), which lets Binutils output diagnostics in languages other than American English. Native Language Support is enabled by default if not doing a canadian cross build. The --disable-nls option disables NLS.

The option --enable-shared is used to build shared versions of libraries, if shared libraries are supported on the target platform. Use --disable-shared to build only static libraries.

Cross GCC (C support only)
==========================

GCC is the GNU compiler collection. It can compile many languages, of which only C and C++ will be enabled in this document.

In this section, we build a minimal GCC in order to build glibc.

     to build GMP (a GCC dependency), you need a version of GCC different from 4.3.2 on you system (http://gmplib.org/#STATUS):

     GCC 4.3.2 miscompiles GMP on 64-bit machines; please use a different gcc version (e.g., gcc 4.3.1 and gcc 4.3.3 both work properly). We have not been able to find any workaround for this gcc bug. Unfortunately, Debian 5.0 has decided to stay with this trouble gcc version, resulting in that many users strike this bug.

I recommend installing gcc-4.4 on gNewSense Parkes to avoid this issue.

# 2 hours
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/gcc-4.7.2.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/gcc-4.7.2
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/gmp-5.0.5.tar.bz2
mv gmp-5.0.5 gmp
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/mpc-1.0.1.tar.gz
mv mpc-1.0.1 mpc
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/mpfr-3.1.1.tar.bz2
mv mpfr-3.1.1 mpfr
mkdir -pv ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build
../gcc-4.7.2/configure \
    --prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --target=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --with-sysroot=${TARGET_DIR} \
    --disable-multilib \
    --with-newlib \
    --disable-nls \
    --disable-shared \
    --disable-threads \
    --enable-languages=c \
    --with-abi=${MABI}
make all-gcc
make all-target-libgcc
make install-gcc
make install-target-libgcc
cd ..
rm -r gcc-build
rm -r gcc-4.7.2
popd

--disable-multilib specifies that multiple target libraries to support different target variants (Such as different ABI, for instance n32 and 64.), calling conventions, etc. should not be built. The default is to build a predefined set of them.

--with-newlib specifies that newlib is being used as the target C library.

--disable-threads specifies that threading support should be disabled.

--enable-languages=c specifies that only the C compiler and its runtime libraries should be built.

GCC provides a low-level runtime library, libgcc.a or libgcc_s.so.1 on some platforms. GCC generates calls to routines in this library automatically, whenever it needs to perform some operation that is too complicated to emit inline code for. This is built with make all-target-libgcc and installed with make install-target-libgcc

Target glibc
============

Glibc is the GNU C library. It provides macros, type definitions, and functions for tasks like string handling, mathematical computations, input/output processing, memory allocation and several other operating system services.

# 4 hours
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/glibc-2.13.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/glibc-2.13
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/glibc-ports-2.13.tar.bz2
mv -v glibc-ports-2.13 ports
#sed -i.orig "s/\ -lgcc_eh\|\ -lgcc_s//g" Makeconfig
patch -Np1 -i ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/glibc-2.13-libgcc_eh.patch
patch -Np1 -i ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/glibc-2.13-ldd-rewrite-script.patch
patch -Np1 -i ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/glibc-2.13-localedef_segfault-1.patch
patch -Np1 -i ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/glibc-2.13-cross_hacks-2.patch
echo "" > ports/sysdeps/mips/mips64/n64/Makefile
echo "" > ports/sysdeps/mips/mips64/n32/Makefile
echo "" > ports/sysdeps/mips/mips32/Makefile
sed -i "/default) machine=/s/n32/${MABI}/g" \
    ports/sysdeps/mips/preconfigure
mkdir -pv ../glibc-build
cd ../glibc-build

cat > config.cache << EOF
libc_cv_c_cleanup=yes
libc_cv_slibdir=/lib
EOF

cat > configparms << EOF
install_root=${TARGET_DIR}
libdir=/usr/lib
EOF

BUILD_CC="gcc" \
    CC="${CROSS_TARGET}-gcc -march=${MARCH} -mabi=${MABI}" \
    AR="${CROSS_TARGET}-ar" \
    RANLIB="${CROSS_TARGET}-ranlib" \
    ../glibc-2.13/configure \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --libexecdir=/usr/lib/glibc \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --disable-profile \
    --enable-add-ons \
    --with-tls \
    --enable-kernel=3.5.4 \
    --with-__thread \
    --with-binutils=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools/bin \
    --with-headers=${TARGET_DIR}/usr/include \
    --cache-file=config.cache
make
make install
make localedata/install-locales
cd ..
rm -rf glibc-build
rm -rf glibc-2.13
popd

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/nsswitch.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/nsswitch.conf

passwd: files
group: files
shadow: files

hosts: files dns
networks: files

protocols: files
services: files
ethers: files
rpc: files

# End /etc/nsswitch.conf
EOF

cp -v --remove-destination \
    ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris \
    ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/localtime

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/ld.so.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/ld.so.conf

/usr/local/lib
/opt/lib

# End /etc/ld.so.conf
EOF

The patch glibc-2.13-libgcc_eh.patch is used in order not to use library gcc_eh to build libgcc_eh and static-gnulib if current compiler does not have libgcc_eh.

The patch glibc-2.13-ldd-rewrite-script.patch is used to fix a bug in glibc when the configure script is called from a relative path.

The patch glibc-2.13-localedef_segfault-1.patch is used to overcome a segfault you may have when generating locales if you use PaX. PaX is a patch for the kernel Linux that implements least privilege protections for memory pages.

The patch glibc-2.13-cross_hacks-2.patch is used specially to build locales by cross-compilation.

Glibc uses n32 ABI by default with MIPS. To use MABI instead, we do the following:

echo "" > ports/sysdeps/mips/mips64/n64/Makefile
echo "" > ports/sysdeps/mips/mips64/n32/Makefile
echo "" > ports/sysdeps/mips/mips32/Makefile
sed -i "/default) machine=/s/n32/${MABI}/g" \
    ports/sysdeps/mips/preconfigure

The file config.cache is used to attribute values to variables of the configure script.

libc_cv_forced_unwind=yes is used to avoid the error message error: forced unwind support is required.

libc_cv_c_cleanup=yes is used to avoid the error message error: the compiler must support C cleanup handling.

libc_cv_slibdir=/lib defines /lib as the directory in which the C library of the target system will be installed, instead of /lib64 or /lib32.

You can install glibc somewhere other than where you configured it to go by setting the install_root variable on the command line for make install. The value of this variable is prepended to all the paths for installation. This is useful when setting up a chroot environment or preparing a binary distribution. The directory should be specified with an absolute file name.

Files listed in install-lib are installed in the directory specified by libdir in configparms or Makeconfig.

BUILD_CC="gcc" \
    CC="${CROSS_TARGET}-gcc -march=${MARCH} -mabi=${MABI}" \
    AR="${CROSS_TARGET}-ar" \
    RANLIB="${CROSS_TARGET}-ranlib"

CC="${CROSS_TARGET}-gcc -march=${MARCH} -mabi=${MABI}" sets CC to the cross-compiler for the target's architecture, processor and ABI we configured the library for. AR and RANLIB are set to cross-compiling versions of ar and ranlib as the native tools are not configured to work with object files for the target we configured for.

--prefix=/usr tells the configure script to install glibc in the /usr directory of the target system.

Unlike previous builds, --host now equals ${CROSS_TARGET} instead of ${CROSS_HOST}. This is because we are building the glibc version that the target system will use. We won't have to build it later.

Profiling can be of help to optimize a program by analysing memory use, the usage of particular instructions, etc. Option --disable-profile is used to disable this.

Option --enable-add-ons is used to enable all the add-on packages in the main source directory, which includes the glibc-ports used to support the MIPS architecture.

The option --with-tls tells the configure script to use TLS (thread-local storage). Thread-local storage is a computer programming method that uses memory local to a thread.

The 3.5.4 parameter given to option --enable-kernel describes the smallest version of the Linux kernel the generated library is expected to support. The higher the version number is, the less compatibility code is added, and the faster the code gets.

Option --with-__thread enables threads in glibc.

The option --with-binutils=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools/bin tells the configure script to use the binutils (assembler and linker) built in the cross-compilation toolchain process.

--with-headers=${TARGET_DIR}/usr/include indicates the location of the kernel Linux' headers.

--cache-file=config.cache specifies the file in which cache variables are listed for configure.

make localedata/install-locales configures all locales that are supported by glibc.

The file ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/nsswitch.conf contains the configuration of NSS (Name Service Switch). NSS is a facility in Unix-like operating systems that provides a variety of sources for common configuration databases and name resolution mechanisms. These sources include local operating system files (such as /etc/passwd, /etc/group, and /etc/hosts), the Domain Name System (DNS), the Network Information Service (NIS), and LDAP.

The timezone is defined for `Paris'.

Cross GCC (C and C++ support)
=============================

In this section, we build a complete cross-compiler with support for C and C++ languages.

# 3 hours and 30 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/gcc-4.7.2.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/gcc-4.7.2
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/gmp-5.0.5.tar.bz2
mv gmp-5.0.5 gmp
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/mpc-1.0.1.tar.gz
mv mpc-1.0.1 mpc
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/mpfr-3.1.1.tar.bz2
mv mpfr-3.1.1 mpfr
mkdir -v ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build
../gcc-4.7.2/configure \
    --prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --target=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --with-sysroot=${TARGET_DIR} \
    --disable-nls \
    --enable-shared \
    --enable-__cxa_atexit \
    --disable-multilib \
    --with-abi=${MABI} \
    --enable-c99 \
    --enable-long-long \
    --enable-threads=posix \
    --enable-languages=c,c++
make
make install
cd ..
rm -rf gcc-build
rm -rf gcc-4.7.2
popd

--enable-__cxa_atexit enables __cxa_atexit, rather than atexit, to register C++ destructors for local statics and global objects.  This is essential for fully standards-compliant handling of destructors, but requires __cxa_atexit in libc.

--enable-c99 enables support for the C99 standard.

--enable-long-long enables support for long long int types.

Building the Cross-Compilation Tools
************************************

File
====

The command file is used to determine the type of a file: text, executable or data.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/file-5.11.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/file-5.11
./configure \
    --prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools
make
make install
cd ..
rm -rf file-5.11
popd

Groff
=====

Groff is the GNU version of the roff document formatting system which is used to produce man pages.

You need G++ on your system to compile this program from source. Under gNewSense Parkes, try sudo apt-get install g++-4.4.

# 15 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/groff-1.21.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/groff-1.21
PAGE=A4 \
    ./configure \
    --prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools \
    --without-x
make
make install
cd ..
rm -rf groff-1.21
popd

PAGE=A4 defines the default format of pages for printed output.

--without-x disables the dependancy on the X window system.

Shadow
======

The package contains programs to handle users, groups and passwords in a secure way: passwords are encrypted.

# 10 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/shadow-4.1.4.3.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/shadow-4.1.4.3
patch -Np1 -i ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/shadow-4.1.4.3-sysroot_hacks-1.patch
sed -i.orig \
    's/bindir)\/\$\$i/bindir)\/mips64el-unknown-linux-gnu-\$\$i/' \
    src/Makefile.am
automake-1.11
echo "shadow_cv_passwd_dir=${TARGET_DIR}/bin" > config.cache
echo "ac_cv_func_lckpwdf=no" >> config.cache
./configure \
    --prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools \
    --sbindir=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools/bin \
    --sysconfdir=${TARGET_DIR}/etc \
    --disable-shared \
    --without-audit \
    --without-libpam \
    --without-selinux \
    --program-prefix=${CROSS_TARGET}- \
    --cache-file=config.cache
sed -i.orig "/PASSWD_PROGRAM/s/passwd/${CROSS_TARGET}-&/" config.h
make
make install
cd ..
rm -rf shadow-4.1.4.3
popd

The patch shadow-4.1.4.3-sysroot_hacks-1.patch is used so that shadow can be built with the sysroot method. Because we use this patch, shadow_cv_passwd_dir=${TARGET_DIR}/bin and ac_cv_func_lckpwdf=no have to be added in config.cache in order for the configure script not to test the functionalities associated.

--without-audit, --without-libpam and --without-selinux disable support for auditing, PAM (Pluggable authentication modules) and SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux). We do not need those extra features.

--program-prefix=${CROSS_TARGET}- prepends the value of CROSS_TARGET (that is mips64el-unknown-linux-gnu in this document) to installed program names for cross-compilation.

Cross M4
========

Bison 2.5 requires M4 to be built.

GNU M4 is a package containing an implementation of the m4 macro language. GNU M4 is used in GNU Autoconf' configure files.

# 10 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/m4-1.4.16.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/m4-1.4.16
./configure \
    --prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools
make
make install
cd ..
rm -rf m4-1.4.16
popd

Ncurses
=======

GNU ncurses contains a library used to write text-based user interfaces in a terminal-independent manner.

# 15 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/ncurses-5.9.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/ncurses-5.9
./configure \
    --prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools \
    --without-shared
make -C include
make -C progs tic
install -m755 progs/tic ${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools/bin
cd ..
rm -rf ncurses-5.9
popd

--without-shared is used to avoid building the whole library as only tic is installed.

Cleaning up Cross-Compilation Toolchain
=======================================

In order to save some space, binaries and libraries of cross-compilation tools can be stripped out.

     incorrect cleaning arguments used against library files can lead to library files breaking. For this reason, be careful of the command arguments. If you are not comfortable with this, you can skip this section as it will have no effect on the process of building the target system.

pushd ${TARGET_DIR}/cross-tools
strip --strip-all bin/*
strip --strip-debug lib/*
popd

--strip-all removes all symbols. This command reduces the size of the bin directory's content from 29 MB to 12 MB.

--strip-debug removes debugging symbols only. This command reduces the size of the lib directory's content from 21 MB to 20 MB.

Building the Target System
**************************

After having set up the cross-compilation toolchain and tools, the operating system for the target machine is built in this chapter.

Setting up the Environment
==========================

Because this chapter is about the build of the target system and not the build of the cross-compilation toolchain and tools anymore, we need to update some environment  variables.

For more convenience, we can set environment variables up in the ~/.bashrc file, so that this setup is preserved when logging in:

cat >> ~/.bashrc << EOF
export CFLAGS="-Wa,-mfix-loongson2f-nop"
export CC="${CROSS_TARGET}-gcc -march=${MARCH} -mabi=${MABI}"
export CXX="${CROSS_TARGET}-g++ -march=${MARCH} -mabi=${MABI}"
export AR="${CROSS_TARGET}-ar"
export AS="${CROSS_TARGET}-as"
export RANLIB="${CROSS_TARGET}-ranlib"
export LD="${CROSS_TARGET}-ld"
export STRIP="${CROSS_TARGET}-strip"
EOF
source ~/.bash_profile

The variable CFLAGS is set to -Wa,-mfix-loongson2f-nop in which -Wa is a GCC option used to pass -mfix-loongson2f-nop to the assembler. This option replaces NOP (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOP for more information) by or at,at,zero to work around the Loongson2F NOP errata.  Without it, under extreme cases, CPU might deadlock (For more information about the issue, see http://groups.google.com/group/loongson-dev/browse_thread/thread/d9103283141c00fb/e9a8830b01cc1913?hide_quotes=no#msg_d44adf83639fb0bd and http://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2009-11/msg00387.html.).

CC is the flag that indicates the C compiler to be used, CXX the C++ compiler, AR the archiver, AS the assembler, RANLIB the archives' index generator, LD the linker and STRIP the program for stripping.

All the programs to be used are prefixed with ${CROSS_TARGET}- in order to use the cross-compilation toolchain instead of the toolchain of the host.

Man Pages
=========

The man-pages package documents the kernel Linux and C library's interfaces that are used by user-space programs.

# 1 minute
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/man-pages-3.32.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/man-pages-3.32
make prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/usr install
cd ..
rm -rf man-pages-3.32
popd

The option prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/usr is used to install the man pages on the target partition's TARGET_DIR instead of the /usr directory of the host.

Zlib
====

Zlib is a compression/decompression library.

# 2 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/zlib-1.2.7.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/zlib-1.2.7
./configure \
    --prefix=/usr
make AR="${AR}"
make prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/usr install
# For FHS compatibility:
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libz.so.* ${TARGET_DIR}/lib
#ln -svf ../../lib/libz.so.1 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libz.so
cd ..
rm -rf zlib-1.2.7
popd

In order to build zlib by cross-compilation, the flag AR has to be equal to ${AR}.

Binutils
========

# 30 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/binutils-2.22.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/binutils-2.22
mkdir -pv ../binutils-build
cd ../binutils-build
../binutils-2.22/configure \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --target=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --enable-64-bit-bfd \
    --enable-shared
make configure-host
make tooldir=/usr
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} tooldir=/usr install
cp -v ../binutils-2.22/include/libiberty.h ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/include
cd ..
rm -rf binutils-build
rm -rf binutils-2.22
popd

The option --host is now set to CROSS_TARGET because the host that will run this build will be the target system.

GMP
===

GMP (GNU multiple precision arithmetic library) is required to build GCC.

# 20 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/gmp-5.0.5.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/gmp-5.0.5
./configure \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --enable-cxx \
    --enable-mpbsd
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
rm -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/lib{gmp,gmpxx,mp}.la
cd ..
rm -rf gmp-5.0.5
popd

The option --enable-cxx enables support for the C++ language.

The Berkeley MP compatibility library (libmp) and header file (mp.h) are built and installed if the option --enable-mpbsd is used.

The files ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/lib{gmp,gmpxx,mp}.la are removed to avoid the following error when building MPFR: /usr/lib/libgmp.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format.

MPFR
====

GNU MPFR (Multiple Precision Floating-Point Reliably) is a portable C library for arbitrary-precision binary floating-point computation with correct rounding.

# 7 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/mpfr-3.1.1.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/mpfr-3.1.1
./configure \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
rm -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libmpfr.la
cd ..
rm -rf mpfr-3.1.1
popd

The file ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libmpfr.la is removed to avoid the following error when building MPC: /usr/lib/libmpfr.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format.

MPC
===

GNU MPC (Multiple Precision Complex Library) is a C library for the arithmetic of complex numbers with arbitrarily high precision and correct rounding of the result.

# 2 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/mpc-1.0.1.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/mpc-1.0.1
./configure \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf mpc-1.0.1
popd

GCC
===

# 3 hours and 30 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/gcc-4.7.2.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/gcc-4.7.2
sed -i.orig 's/install_to_$(INSTALL_DEST) //' libiberty/Makefile.in
sed -i.orig 's@\./fixinc\.sh@-c true@' gcc/Makefile.in
mkdir -v ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build
../gcc-4.7.2/configure \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --libexecdir=/usr/lib \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --target=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --enable-shared \
    --enable-threads=posix \
    --enable-__cxa_atexit \
    --enable-c99 \
    --enable-long-long \
    --disable-multilib \
    --with-abi=${MABI} \
    --enable-clocale=gnu \
    --enable-languages=c,c++ \
    --disable-libstdcxx-pch
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
# For FHS compatibility:
#ln -sv ../usr/bin/cpp ${TARGET_DIR}/lib
ln -sv gcc ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/cc
cd ..
rm -rf gcc-build
rm -rf gcc-4.7.2
popd

sed -i.orig 's/install_to_$(INSTALL_DEST) //' libiberty/Makefile.in is used as we already installed the library libiberty.a with Binutils.

Using --enable-clocale=gnu option ensures that the correct locale will automatically be chosen.

Option --disable-libstdcxx-pch disables support for precompiled headers (PCH).

The line ln -sv gcc ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/cc creates a symbolic link cc that points on gcc.

Sed
===

GNU sed is a stream editor: it is used to perform basic text transformations on an input stream (a file or input from a pipeline).

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/sed-4.2.1.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/sed-4.2.1
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --bindir=/bin
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf sed-4.2.1
popd

E2fsprogs
=========

E2fsprogs is a package that contains tools to handle the ext2, ext3 and ext4 filesystems.

# 10 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/e2fsprogs-1.42.6.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/e2fsprogs-1.42.6
mkdir -v build
cd build
../configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --with-root-prefix="" \
    --enable-elf-shlibs
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install-libs
rm -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/lib{blkid,com_err,e2p,ext2fs,ss,uuid}.so
ln -sv ../../lib/libblkid.so.1 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libblkid.so
ln -sv ../../lib/libcom_err.so.2 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libcom_err.so
ln -sv ../../lib/libe2p.so.2 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libe2p.so
ln -sv ../../lib/libext2fs.so.2 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libext2fs.so
ln -sv ../../lib/libss.so.2 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libss.so
ln -sv ../../lib/libuuid.so.1 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libuuid.so
cd ../..
rm -rf e2fsprogs-1.42.6
popd

--with-root-prefix="" is used to put e2fsprogs binaries inside /sbin instead of PREFIX/sbin which would be /usr/sbin.

Option --enable-elf-shlibs enables e2fsprogs shared libraries.

make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install-libs is used to install libraries, those are not installed with make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install.

The sequence of commands that follows first removes symbolic links ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/lib{blkid,com_err,e2p,ext2fs,ss,uuid}.so which point on abolute paths /lib/lib{blkid,com_err,e2p,ext2fs,ss,uuid}.so. In order to use the libraries of the target operating system, we need to symlink ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/lib{blkid,com_err,e2p,ext2fs,ss,uuid}.so to their relative paths files.

Coreutils
=========

GNU coreutils (core utilities) includes the standard programs for text and file manipulation.

On gNewSense Parkes, you need to install xz-utils to extract the package.

# 30 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/coreutils-8.19.tar.xz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/coreutils-8.19
sed -i.orig '/strftime/s/\ LC_ALL//' man/help2man
cat > config.cache << EOF
fu_cv_sys_stat_statfs2_bsize=yes
gl_cv_func_mbrtowc_incomplete_state=yes
gl_cv_func_mbrtowc_nul_retval=yes
gl_cv_func_mbrtowc_null_arg=yes
gl_cv_func_mbrtowc_retval=yes
gl_cv_func_btowc_eof=yes
gl_cv_func_wcrtomb_retval=yes
gl_cv_func_wctob_works=yes
gl_cv_func_fstatat_zero_flag=yes
# From C[G]LFS:
#fu_cv_sys_stat_statfs2_bsize=yes
#gl_cv_func_working_mkstemp=yes
EOF
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --enable-install-program=hostname \
    --enable-no-install-program=kill,uptime \
    --cache-file=config.cache
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
# For FHS compatibility:
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/{cat,chgrp,chmod,chown,cp,date} \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/{dd,df,echo,false,hostname,ls,mkdir} \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/{mv,pwd,rm,rmdir,stty,true,ln,uname} \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/chroot ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/sbin
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/{[,basename,head,install,nice} \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/{readlink,sleep,sync,test,touch} \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
#ln -svf ../../bin/install ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin
cd ..
rm -rf coreutils-8.19
popd

The variables listed in the file config.cache are used in order to avoid that the configure script evaluate their values: otherwise the build may fail when cross-compiling.

We use --enable-install-program=hostname to install the command hostname which is not built by default.

We use --enable-no-install-program=kill,uptime in order not to install commands kill and uptime. Those commands will be installed by the package procps.

iana-etc
========

The iana-etc package installs services and protocols using data from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

# 1 minute
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/iana-etc-2.30.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/iana-etc-2.30
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf iana-etc-2.30
popd

M4
==

# 10 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/m4-1.4.16.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/m4-1.4.16
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf m4-1.4.16
popd

Bison
=====

GNU bison parser generator.

# 7 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/bison-2.5.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/bison-2.5
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
echo '#define YYENABLE_NLS 1' >> config.h
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf bison-2.5
popd

echo '#define YYENABLE_NLS 1' >> config.h is used to build NLS (native language support) inside bison.

Ncurses
=======

# 15 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/ncurses-5.9.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/ncurses-5.9
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --with-shared \
    --enable-widec \
    --without-debug \
    --without-ada \
    --with-build-cc="gcc -D_GNU_SOURCE" \
    --libdir=/lib
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
# For FHS compatibility:
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/lib/lib{panel,menu,form,ncurses,ncurses++}w.a \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib
#rm -v ${TARGET_DIR}/lib/lib{ncurses,menu,panel,form}w.so
#ln -svf ../../lib/libncursesw.so.5 \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libncursesw.so
#ln -svf ../../lib/libmenuw.so.5 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libmenuw.so
#ln -svf ../../lib/libpanelw.so.5 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libpanelw.so
#ln -svf ../../lib/libformw.so.5 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libformw.so
#for lib in curses ncurses form panel menu ; do
#    echo "INPUT(-l${lib}w)" > ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/lib${lib}.so
#    ln -sfv lib${lib}w.a ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/lib${lib}.a
#    done
ln -sfv libncursesw.so ${TARGET_DIR}/lib/libncurses.so
#ln -sfv libncursesw.so ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libcursesw.so
#ln -sfv libncursesw.a ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libcursesw.a
#ln -sfv libncurses++w.a ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libncurses++.a
#ln -sfv ncursesw5-config ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/ncurses5-config
#ln -sfv ../../usr/share/terminfo ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/terminfo
cd ..
rm -rf ncurses-5.9
popd

Option --enable-widec enables wide characters support in ncurses.

Option --without-ada disables support for the Ada programming language inside ncurses.

The command ln -sfv libncursesw.so ${TARGET_DIR}/lib/libncurses.so creates the symlink libcurses.so so that programs that do not know libncursesw.so can be linked against it.

Procps
======

The procps package contains utilities that give information about processes using the /proc filesystem. The package includes the commands ps, top, vmstat, w, kill, free, slabtop, and skill.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/procps-3.2.8.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/procps-3.2.8
make \
    CPPFLAGS= \
    lib64=lib
make \
    DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} \
    lib64=lib \
    ldconfig= \
    install="install -D" \
    install
cd ..
rm -rf procps-3.2.8
popd

Option CPPFLAGS=  is used so that the target system's ncurses library will be used, default value would have been -I/usr/include/ncurses.

Option lib64=lib makes the directory /lib the one where to put 64 bit libraries, default would be /lib64.

Option ldconfig=  is used in order not to use current host's ldconfig.

Option install="install -D" is used so that all the files installed are owned by the current user. By default, all installed files are owned by root.

Libtool
=======

GNU libtool is a generic library support script. It hides the complexity of using shared libraries behind a consistent, portable interface.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/libtool-2.4.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/libtool-2.4
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf libtool-2.4
popd

Readline
========

The GNU Readline library provides a set of functions for use by applications that allow users to edit command lines as they are typed in.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/readline-6.2.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/readline-6.2
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --libdir=/lib
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install-doc
# For FHS compatibility:
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/lib/lib{readline,history}.a ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib
#rm -v ${TARGET_DIR}/lib/lib{readline,history}.so
#ln -svf ../../lib/libreadline.so.6 \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libreadline.so
#ln -svf ../../lib/libhistory.so.6 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libhistory.so
cd ..
rm -rf readline-6.2
popd

Autoconf
========

GNU autoconf is an extensible package of M4 macros that produce shell scripts to automatically configure software source code packages. These scripts can adapt the packages to many kinds of UNIX-like systems without manual user intervention.

# 2 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/autoconf-2.69.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/autoconf-2.69
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf autoconf-2.69
popd

Automake
========

GNU automake is a tool for automatically generating Makefile.in files compliant with the GNU Coding Standards (http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/).

# 2 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/automake-1.12.4.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/automake-1.12.4
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf automake-1.12.4
popd

Bash
====

GNU Bash (Bourne again shell) is an sh-compatible shell that incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and C shell (csh).

# 15 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/bash-4.2.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/bash-4.2
cat > config.cache << "EOF"
ac_cv_func_mmap_fixed_mapped=yes
ac_cv_func_strcoll_works=yes
ac_cv_func_working_mktime=yes
bash_cv_func_sigsetjmp=present
bash_cv_getcwd_malloc=yes
bash_cv_job_control_missing=present
bash_cv_printf_a_format=yes
bash_cv_sys_named_pipes=present
bash_cv_ulimit_maxfds=yes
bash_cv_under_sys_siglist=yes
bash_cv_unusable_rtsigs=no
gt_cv_int_divbyzero_sigfpe=yes
EOF
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --bindir=/bin \
    --cache-file=config.cache \
    --without-bash-malloc \
    --with-installed-readline
make
make \
    DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} \
    htmldir=/usr/share/doc/bash-4.2 \
    install
ln -sv bash ${TARGET_DIR}/bin/sh
cd ..
rm -rf bash-4.2
popd

The variables listed in the file config.cache are used in order to avoid that the configure script evaluate their values: otherwise the build may fail when cross-compiling.

Option --without-bash-malloc tells the configure script not to use the malloc function shipped with Bash. Glibc's version will be used instead.

Option --with-installed-readline tells the configure script to use the installed readline library instead of the one shipped with Bash.

ln -sv bash ${TARGET_DIR}/bin/sh creates a symlink sh to bash.

Bzip2
=====

Bzip2 is a package that contains utilities to compress and decompress files with a better original size/compressed size ratio than gzip.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/bzip2-1.0.6.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/bzip2-1.0.6
sed -i.orig -e "/^all:/s/ test//" Makefile
sed -i -e 's:ln -s -f $(PREFIX)/bin/:ln -s :' Makefile
make \
    -f Makefile-libbz2_so \
    CC="${CC}" \
    AR="${AR}" \
    RANLIB="${RANLIB}"
make clean
make \
    CC="${CC}" \
    AR="${AR}" \
    RANLIB="${RANLIB}"
make \
    PREFIX=${TARGET_DIR}/usr \
    install
cp -v bzip2-shared ${TARGET_DIR}/bin/bzip2
cp -av libbz2.so* ${TARGET_DIR}/lib
ln -sv ../../lib/libbz2.so.1.0 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libbz2.so
rm -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/{bunzip2,bzcat,bzip2}
ln -sv bzip2 ${TARGET_DIR}/bin/bunzip2
ln -sv bzip2 ${TARGET_DIR}/bin/bzcat
cd ..
rm -rf bzip2-1.0.6
popd

sed -i.orig -e "/^all:/s/ test//" Makefile is used to skip tests when building.

sed -i -e 's:ln -s -f $(PREFIX)/bin/:ln -s :' Makefile is used in order to have relative path symlinks instead of absolute ones.

Option -f Makefile-libbz2_so is used to build shared libraries.

Flags CC, AR and RANLIB are used so that bzip2 is built using cross-compilation tools instead of the host's ones.

make clean is used to clean up temporary files.

The second build commands are used to build static libraries.

DHCPCD
======

DHCPCD is a wrapper for the DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) client daemon.

# 3 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/dhcpcd-5.6.2.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/dhcpcd-5.6.2
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --bindir=/sbin \
    --sysconfdir=/etc \
    --dbdir=/var/lib/dhcpcd \
    --libexecdir=/usr/lib/dhcpcd
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf dhcpcd-5.6.2
popd

Diffutils
=========

GNU Diffutils is a package of several programs related to finding differences between files.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/diffutils-3.2.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/diffutils-3.2
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf diffutils-3.2
popd

File
====

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/file-5.11.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/file-5.11
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf file-5.11
popd

Findutils
=========

The GNU Find Utilities are typically used to provide directory search and file locating capabilities.

# 7 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/findutils-4.4.2.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/findutils-4.4.2
cat > config.cache << EOF
gl_cv_func_wcwidth_works=yes
gl_cv_header_working_fcntl_h=yes
ac_cv_func_fnmatch_gnu=yes
EOF
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --libexecdir=/usr/lib/locate \
    --localstatedir=/var/lib/locate \
    --cache-file=config.cache
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/find ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
#sed -i.orig 's@find:=${BINDIR}@find:=/bin@' \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/updatedb
cd ..
rm -rf findutils-4.4.2
popd

Flex
====

Flex is a tool for generating scanners. A scanner, sometimes called a tokenizer, is a program which recognizes lexical patterns in text.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/flex-2.5.37.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/flex-2.5.37
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --cache-file=config.cache
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
ln -sv libfl.a ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/libl.a
cd ..
rm -r flex-2.5.37
popd

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/lex << "EOF"
#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/bin/flex -l "$@"
EOF
chmod -v 755 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/lex

For compatibility issues, we create the symlink libl.a.

We then create target system's /usr/bin/lex that will execute flex with option -l in order to behave with maximal compatibility like lex.

Gawk
====

GNU awk (Gawk) is a program used to select particular records in a file and perform operations upon them.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/gawk-4.0.1.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/gawk-4.0.1
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --libexecdir=/usr/lib
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -r gawk-4.0.1
popd

Gettext
=======

GNU gettext utilities are a set of tools that provides a framework to help packages produce multi-lingual messages.

# 1 hour
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/gettext-0.18.1.1.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/gettext-0.18.1.1
cat > config.cache << EOF
am_cv_func_iconv_works=yes
gl_cv_func_wcwidth_works=yes
gt_cv_func_printf_posix=yes
gt_cv_int_divbyzero_sigfpe=yes
EOF
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --cache-file=config.cache
make
#cp gettext-tools/gnulib-lib/.libs/libgettextlib.la{,i}
#cp gettext-tools/src/.libs/libgettextsrc.la{,i}
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf gettext-0.18.1.1
popd

Grep
====

GNU grep command searches one or more input files for lines containing a match to a specified pattern.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/grep-2.14.tar.xz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/grep-2.14
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --bindir=/bin \
    --disable-perl-regexp
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf grep-2.14
popd

Option --disable-perl-regexp disables support of Perl-style regular expressions (regexp).

Groff
=====

# 15 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/groff-1.21.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/groff-1.21
patch -Np1 -i ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/groff-1.21-cross-compilation.patch
PAGE=A4 \
    ./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make \
    TROFFBIN=troff \
    GROFFBIN=groff \
    GROFF_BIN_PATH=
make prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/usr install
ln -sv soelim ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/zsoelim
ln -sv eqn ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/geqn
ln -sv tbl ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/gtbl
cd ..
rm -rf groff-1.21
popd

The patch groff-1.21-cross-compilation.patch fixes a bug in groff' Makefile.in that prevents the cross-compilation build.

The variables TROFFBIN=troff and GROFFBIN=groff tell make to use troff and groff commands installed in the Building Cross-Compilation Tools to build documentation.

The variable GROFF_BIN_PATH before PATH is checked for programs groff is calling (preprocessors, troff, and output devices). If not set, it defaults to the directory where the groff binary is located.

The symlinks are used for compatibility.

Gzip
====

GNU Gzip is a data compression program.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/gzip-1.5.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/gzip-1.5
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --bindir=/bin
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
# For FHS compatibility:
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/bin/z{egrep,cmp,diff,fgrep,force,grep,less,more} \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/bin/znew \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin
cd ..
rm -rf gzip-1.5
popd

IPutils
=======

The iputils package is a set of small utilities for networking.

# 2 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/iputils-s20071127.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/iputils-s20071127
patch -Np1 -i ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/iputils-s20071127-fixes-2.patch
make CC="${CC}"
install -v -m755 ping{,6} ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
install -v -m755 arping ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin
install -v -m755 clockdiff ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin
install -v -m755 rdisc ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin
install -v -m755 tracepath ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin
install -v -m755 trace{path,route}6 ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin
cd ..
rm -rf iputils-s20071127
popd

Iproute2
========

Iproute2 is a collection of utilities for controlling TCP and UDP IP networking and traffic.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/iproute2-3.5.1.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/iproute2-3.5.1
sed -i.orig '/^TARGETS/s@arpd@@g' misc/Makefile
make \
    DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} \
    CC="${CC}" \
    DOCDIR=/usr/share/doc/iproute2 \
    MANDIR=/usr/share/man
make \
    DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} \
    DOCDIR=/usr/share/doc/iproute2 \
    MANDIR=/usr/share/man \
    install
cd ..
rm -rf iproute2-3.5.1
popd

sed -i.orig '/^TARGETS/s@arpd@@g' misc/Makefile is used to disable the build of arpd as it requires Berkeley DB to be installed.

DOCDIR and MANDIR indicate the location in which the documentation and the manual pages will be installed, respectively. Those are no absolute paths but use the value of DESTDIR as a prefix.

Kbd
===

Kbd contains keytable files and keyboard utilities.

# 3 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/kbd-1.15.3.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/kbd-1.15.3
patch -Np1 -i ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/kbd-1.15.3-es.po-fix-1.patch
cat > config.cache << EOF
ac_cv_func_setpgrp_void=yes
ac_cv_func_malloc_0_nonnull=yes
ac_cv_func_realloc_0_nonnull=yes
EOF
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --cache-file=config.cache
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
# For FHS compatibility
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/{kbd_mode,dumpkeys,loadkeys,openvt} \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/setfont \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
cd ..
rm -rf kbd-1.15.3
popd

The patch kbd-1.15.3-es.po-fix-1.patch fixes a bug in po/es.po.

Kmod
====

Kmod (previously known as module-init-tools) provide userspace-side assistance in loading kernel modules and their dependencies.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/kmod-10.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/kmod-10
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --bindir=/bin \
    --sbindir=/sbin \
    --with-zlib
make
make \
    DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} \
    INSTALL=install \
    install
cd ..
rm -rf kmod-10
popd

--with-zlib enables support for modules compressed with zlib.

By default, installation uses INSTALL=install-with-care which checks if old utilities have not been destroyed. To avoid this check, we use INSTALL=install.

Less
====

Less is a file pager. A file pager is used to view the content of a text file.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/less-451.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/less-451
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --sysconfdir=/etc
make
make prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/usr install
# For FHS compatibility:
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/less ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
cd ..
rm -rf less-451
popd

Make
====

GNU make utility determines automatically which pieces of a large program need to be recompiled, and issues the commands to recompile them.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/make-3.82.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/make-3.82
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf make-3.82
popd

Man
===

Man is an interface to the on-line reference manuals.

# 2 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/man-1.6g.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/man-1.6g
sed -i.orig -e "/PREPATH=/s@=.*@=\"$(eval echo \
    ${TARGET_DIR}/{,usr/}{sbin,bin})\"@g" -e 's@-is@&Rc@g' configure
sed -i.orig -e 's@MANPATH./usr/man@#&@g' \
    -e 's@MANPATH./usr/local/man@#&@g' src/man.conf.in
./configure \
    -confdir=/etc
sed -i.orig "s@${TARGET_DIR}@@" conf_script
gcc src/makemsg.c -o src/makemsg
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf man-1.6g
popd

In the first use of sed, the first part replaces PREPATH default value /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/ucb:/usr/local/bin:$PATH with ${TARGET_DIR}/{,usr/}{sbin,bin}. The variable TARGET_DIR is used to avoid errors when running the configure script.

The second part is used to replace default options of the man pager -is with -isRc. Option -c will cause less to display man pages faster as this option disables scrolling.

The second call of sed tells man where the cat pages corresponding to given man pages should not be stored: /usr/man and /usr/local/man.

Option -confdir is used to define configuration files location to target system's /etc.

The third call of sed is used in order to remove the presence of TARGET_DIR on the target system's programs.

makemsg will be used during the build, but because using the cross-compiler may make its build fail, we use the host's compiler.

Nano
====

GNU nano is a lightweight text editor.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/nano-2.3.1.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/nano-2.3.1
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf nano-2.3.1
popd

     commands in nano are displayed as in `^X'. The `^' character means CTRL key, so `^X' means CTRL-X.

Patch
=====

GNU patch takes a patch file containing a difference listing produced by the diff program and applies those differences to one or more original files, producing patched versions.

# 2 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/patch-2.7.1.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/patch-2.7.1
cat > config.cache << EOF
ac_cv_path_ed_PROGRAM=ed
ac_cv_func_strnlen_working=yes
EOF
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --cache-file=config.cache
make
make prefix=${TARGET_DIR}/usr install
cd ..
rm -rf patch-2.7.1
popd

Psmisc
======

This package contains utilities that use the proc filesystem.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/psmisc-22.20.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/psmisc-22.20
cat > config.cache << EOF
ac_cv_func_malloc_0_nonnull=yes
ac_cv_func_realloc_0_nonnull=yes
EOF
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --exec-prefix="" \
    --cache-file=config.cache
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
# For FHS compatibility:
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/bin/pstree* ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin
#ln -sv killall ${TARGET_DIR}/bin/pidof
cd ..
rm -rf psmisc-22.20
popd

Rsyslog
=======

Rsyslog is an utility creating log messages.

# 10 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/rsyslog-5.8.6.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/rsyslog-5.8.6
cat > config.cache << EOF
ac_cv_func_malloc_0_nonnull=yes
ac_cv_func_realloc_0_nonnull=yes
EOF
PKG_CONFIG_PATH="${TARGET_DIR}/usr/lib/pkgconfig" \
    ./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --sbindir=/sbin \
    --cache-file=config.cache
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
install -dv ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/rsyslog.d
cd ..
rm -rf rsyslog-5.8.6
popd

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/rsyslog.conf << "EOF"
$ModLoad imuxsock.so
$ModLoad imklog.so

$ActionFileDefaultTemplate RSYSLOG_TraditionalFileFormat

$FileOwner root
$FileGroup root
$FileCreateMode 0640
$DirCreateMode 0755

$ModLoad imudp
$UDPServerRun 514

$RepeatedMsgReduction on

$IncludeConfig /etc/rsyslog.d/*.conf

auth,authpriv.*                        /var/log/auth.log
*.*;auth,authpriv.none                -/var/log/syslog
daemon.*                              -/var/log/daemon.log
kern.*                                -/var/log/kern.log
lpr.*                                 -/var/log/lpr.log
mail.*                                -/var/log/mail.log
user.*                                -/var/log/user.log

# Catch All Logs
*.=debug;\
        auth,authpriv.none;\
        news.none;mail.none           -/var/log/debug
*.=info;*.=notice;*.=warn;\
        auth,authpriv.none;\
        cron,daemon.none;\
        mail,news.none                -/var/log/messages

# Emergency are shown to everyone
*.emerg                                *
EOF

install -dv ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/rsyslog.d is used to create target system's /etc/rsyslog.d directory. Rsyslog looks for user-defined configuration files in this directory. The line $IncludeConfig /etc/rsyslog.d/*.conf in the target system's configuration file /etc/rsyslog.conf has this purpose.

We then create the target system's configuration file /etc/rsyslog.conf.

Shadow
======

# 7 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/shadow-4.1.4.3.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/shadow-4.1.4.3
patch -Np1 -i ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/shadow-4.1.4.3-man-ru.patch
automake-1.11
echo "ac_cv_func_setpgrp_void=yes" > config.cache
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --libdir=/lib \
    --sysconfdir=/etc \
    --enable-shared \
    --without-audit \
    --without-libpam \
    --without-selinux \
    --cache-file=config.cache \
    --enable-man
sed -i.orig 's/groups$(EXEEXT) //' src/Makefile
for mkf in $(find man -name Makefile)
    do
    sed -i.orig -e '/groups.1.xml/d' -e 's/groups.1 //' ${mkf}
    done
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
sed -i.orig -e 's@#MD5_CRYPT_ENAB.no@MD5_CRYPT_ENAB yes@' \
    -e 's@/var/spool/mail@/var/mail@' \
    ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/login.defs
# For FHS compatibility:
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/passwd ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
${CROSS_TARGET}-pwconv
${CROSS_TARGET}-grpconv
${CROSS_TARGET}-passwd root
cd ..
rm -rf shadow-4.1.4.3
popd

The patch shadow-4.1.4.3-man-ru.patch contains a fix to man/ru/Makefile.am preventing make install to complete. automake-1.11 is then run to update the makefile prototype Makefile.in.

The option --enable-man is used to generate man pages.

The first call of sed disables the build of command groups, as coreutils already installed it.

The second call of sed enables support for MD5 encrypted passwords and changes the mail default directory from /var/spool/mail to /var/mail.

The pwconv command creates shadow file from file passwd and an optionally existing shadow file.

The grpconv command creates gshadow file from file group and an optionally existing gshadow file.

The command passwd root will create the password for the root user, you will need it when logging in as root on your new system.

Sysvinit
========

Sysvinit is the system-V style init process. Init is the first process started during booting. It is started by the kernel. Init continues running as a daemon until the system is shut down. It is the direct or indirect ancestor of all other processes and automatically adopts all orphaned processes.

# 2 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/sysvinit-2.88dsf.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/sysvinit-2.88dsf
sed -i.orig -e 's@/dev/initctl@$(ROOT)&@g' \
    -e 's@\(mknod \)-m \([0-9]* \)\(.* \)p@\1\3p; chmod \2\3@g' \
    -e '/^ifeq/s/$(ROOT)//' \
    -e 's@/usr/lib@$(ROOT)&@' \
    src/Makefile
make -C src clobber
make -C src ROOT=${TARGET_DIR} CC="${CC}"
make -C src ROOT=${TARGET_DIR} INSTALL="install" install
cd ..
rm -rf sysvinit-2.88dsf
popd

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/inittab << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/inittab

id:3:initdefault:

si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc sysinit

l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 0
l1:S1:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 6

ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -r now

su:S016:once:/sbin/sulogin

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty1 9600
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty2 9600
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty3 9600
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty4 9600
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty5 9600
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty6 9600

#c0:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 115200 ttyS0 vt100

# End /etc/inittab
EOF

The first call of sed replaces /dev/initctl with $(ROOT)/dev/initctl, and /usr/lib with $(ROOT)/usr/lib among other things in order to install sysvinit on the target system.

make -C src clobber is used to clean up the src directory.

Then, we create the inittab file that describes which processes are started at bootup and during normal operation.

The line #c0:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 115200 ttyS0 vt100 is commented out (with #) in order to avoid the message: INIT: Id "c0" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes on the target system.

Tar
===

GNU tar is an archiving utility: it stores and extracts files from a tape or disk archive.

# 8 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/tar-1.26.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/tar-1.26
cat > config.cache << EOF
gl_cv_func_btowc_eof=yes
ac_cv_func_malloc_0_nonnull=yes
ac_cv_func_realloc_0_nonnull=yes
gl_cv_func_mbrtowc_incomplete_state=yes
gl_cv_func_mbrtowc_nul_retval=yes
gl_cv_func_mbrtowc_null_arg=yes
gl_cv_func_mbrtowc_retval=yes
gl_cv_func_wcrtomb_retval=yes
EOF
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --bindir=/bin \
    --libexecdir=/usr/sbin \
    --cache-file=config.cache
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf tar-1.26
popd

Texinfo
=======

GNU Texinfo is a documentation system that can produce both online information and a printed manual from a single source.

# 15 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/texinfo-4.13a.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/texinfo-4.13
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make -C tools/gnulib/lib
make -C tools
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
cd ..
rm -rf texinfo-4.13
popd

pushd ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/share/info
rm dir
for f in *
    do install-info $f dir 2>/dev/null
done
popd

The first three calls of make make it possible to build Texinfo by cross-compilation.

For Info to work, the info directory must contain a file that serves as a top level directory for the Info system. By convention, this file is called dir. We update this file for the target system.

Udev
====

Udev is the dynamic device management of the kernel Linux.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/udev-175.tar.gz -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/udev-175
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --sysconfdir=/etc \
    --sbindir=/sbin \
    --with-rootlibdir=/lib \
    --libexecdir=/lib/udev \
    --docdir=/usr/share/doc/udev-175 \
    --disable-introspection \
    --with-pci-ids-path=no \
    --with-usb-ids-path=no \
    --disable-gudev
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
install -dv ${TARGET_DIR}/lib/firmware
ln -sv ../lib/udev/udevd ${TARGET_DIR}/sbin/udevd
cd ..
rm -rf udev-175
popd

Util-Linux
==========

util-linux is a random collection of utilities for use with the kernel Linux.

# 10 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/util-linux-2.19.1.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/util-linux-2.19.1
sed -i.orig 's@etc/adjtime@var/lib/hwclock/adjtime@g' \
    hwclock/hwclock.c
mkdir -pv ${TARGET_DIR}/var/lib/hwclock
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --enable-arch \
    --enable-partx \
    --disable-wall \
    --enable-write \
    --disable-makeinstall-chown
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/logger ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
cd ..
rm -r util-linux-2.19.1
popd

The sed command modifies the location of adjtime from the target system's /etc directory to its /lib/hwclock/adjtime to comply with FHS.

Option --enable-arch enables the build and installation of the arch command.

Option --enable-partx enables the build and installation of the addpart, delpart and partx commands.

Option --disable-wall disables the build of the wall command which is already provided by sysvinit.

Option --enable-write enables the build and installation of the write command.

Option --disable-makeinstall-chown disables the change of owner to root for installed programs.

XZ-Utils
========

XZ Utils is a general-purpose data compression software with high compression ratio.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/xz-5.0.4.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/xz-5.0.4
./configure \
    --build=${CROSS_HOST} \
    --host=${CROSS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install
# For FHS compatibility:
#mv -v ${TARGET_DIR}/usr/bin/{xz,lzma,lzcat,unlzma,unxz,xzcat} \
#    ${TARGET_DIR}/bin
cd ..
rm -rf xz-5.0.4
popd

Bootscripts
===========

The bootscript archive contains scripts that manage services during system's bootup and shutdown.

# 5 minutes
tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/bootscripts-cross-lfs-1.2-pre11.tar.bz2 \
    -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/bootscripts-cross-lfs-1.2-pre11
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install-bootscripts
make DESTDIR=${TARGET_DIR} install-network
cd ..
rm -rf bootscripts-cross-lfs-1.2-pre11
popd

This installs basic bootscripts required for bootup and shutdown, and network-related bootscripts.

The Kernel
==========

To avoid potential kernel lockup on Loongson 2F machines, we need to add the option -mfix-loongson2f-jump to the environment variable CFLAGS (For more information about the issue, see http://groups.google.com/group/loongson-dev/browse_thread/thread/d9103283141c00fb/e9a8830b01cc1913?hide_quotes=no#msg_d44adf83639fb0bd and http://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2009-11/msg00387.html.):

sed -i.orig \
    "/CFLAGS/s/-mfix-loongson2f-nop/& -Wa,-mfix-loongson2f-jump/" \
    ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bash_profile

Then:

tar xf ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/linux-libre-3.5.4-gnu.tar.bz2 -C ${BUILD_DIR}
pushd ${BUILD_DIR}/linux-3.5.4
make mrproper

Then, if you are compiling the kernel for an Yeeloong 2f netbook:

cp arch/mips/configs/lemote2f_defconfig .config
patch -Np1 -i ${DOWNLOAD_DIR}/100gnu+freedo.patch

Then, if you want to change the configuration:

#make ARCH=mips CROSS_COMPILE=${CROSS_TARGET}- config
make ARCH=mips CROSS_COMPILE=${CROSS_TARGET}- menuconfig

CPU selection
-------------

To know the CPU model you have on a given computer, type cat /proc/cpuinfo inside a terminal.

Machine selection
    System type
        (X) Loongson family of machines
    Machine type
        (X) Lemote Loongson 2F family machines

As you will discover when you type lspci | grep CS5536 in a terminal, AMD CS5536 is used for a variety of things on the Yeeloong: ISA bridge, IDE interface, Multimedia audio controller and two USB Controllers. In order to get the correct time, we need to enable the following option:

    [*] CS5536 MFGPT Timer

     MFGPT stands for Multi-Function General Purpose Timer.

MIPS architecture exists in two flavours: big endian and little endian. The difference resides in the order in which the Bytes are stored in the hardware: little endian's first Byte is the least significant one while big endian's first Byte is the most significant one. In our case, we have a little endian architecture, so:

Endianess selection
    (X) Little endian

CPU selection
    CPU type
        (X) Loongson 2F

If your version of Binutils is 2.20.2 or later, select the following option:

CPU selection
    [*] Loongson 2F Workarounds

It fixes some issues with the Loongson 2F processors (For more information about the issue, see http://groups.google.com/group/loongson-dev/browse_thread/thread/d9103283141c00fb/e9a8830b01cc1913?hide_quotes=no#msg_d44adf83639fb0bd and http://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2009-11/msg00387.html.).

Then, whatever your version of Binutils is:

Kernel type
    Kernel code model
        (X) 64-bit kernel

Optimizations
-------------

If you want higher performance but with increased memory consumption, select a Kernel page size of 16kB:

Kernel type
    Kernel page size
        (X) 16kB

Then, if you want to reduce the size of your kernel (this may increase decompression time at bootup though):

General setup
    Kernel compression mode
        (X) Bzip2

Then, whatever your choice:

General setup
    [*] Support for paging of anonymous memory (swap)

To be able to copy your kernel configuration through kernel versions, you may want to select the following options:

General setup
    <*> Kernel .config support
    [*]   Enable access to .config through /proc/config.gz

If you want to optimize your kernel for size (but not necessarily for speed), select the following option:

General setup
    [*] Optimize for size

Selecting this option will use option -Os of GCC instead of the default -O2.

Compatibility of executables
----------------------------

ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) is a common standard file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps.

Executable file formats
    [*] Kernel support for ELF binaries
    [*] Kernel support for Linux/MIPS 32-bit binary compatibility
    [*]   Kernel support for o32 binaries
    [*]   Kernel support for n32 binaries

Power Management
----------------

Power management is a feature that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power state when inactive.

Power management options
    [*] Power Management support
    [*]   Power Management Debug Support
    [*]     Verbose Power Management debugging
    [*] Suspend to RAM and standby
    [*] Hibernation (aka 'suspend to disk')

To be able to get information on your battery status, select the following option:

Device Drivers
    <*> Power supply class support
        [*]   Power supply debug

Network card configuration
--------------------------

The network card is the component of your computer that lets you browse the internet and receive emails, among other things. This section covers both wired and wireless network cards.

Ethernet card configuration
...........................

To know which ethernet controller you have, type in a terminal:

lspci | grep Ethernet

In order to build the driver for the RTL-8139 ethernet controller:

Device Drivers
    [*] Network device support
        [*] Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)
            <*>   Realtek RTL-8129/8130/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
                  support

Wireless card configuration
...........................

To know which wireless card is connected to your USB port, in a terminal, type:

lsusb | grep Wireless

To be able to build the option cfg80211, which is the current wireless configuration API, not as a module inside the kernel, you will have to select the following option first:

[*] Networking support
    <*>   RF Switch subsystem support

Then:

[*] Networking support
    -*- Wireless
        <*> cfg80211 -wireless configuration API
        [*]   cfg80211 wireless extensions compatibility
        <*> Wireless extensions sysfs files
        <*> Common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers
        [*] lib80211 debugging messages

mac80211 is a framework which driver developers can use to write drivers for SoftMAC wireless devices (See http://www.linuxwireless.org/en/developers/Documentation/mac80211/ for more information.).

The following option needs to be built not as a module in order for the option Realtek 8187 and 8187B USB support to be built inside the kernel not as a module:

[*] Networking support
    -*- Wireless
         <*> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking stack (mac80211)

Enabling EEPROM 93CX6 is required in order to build option Realtek 8187 and 8187B USB support inside the kernel:

Device Drivers
    [*] Misc devices
        EEPROM support
            -*- EEPROM 93CX6 support

If you want built-in support for Realtek 8187 and 8187B:

Device Drivers
    Network device support
        [*] Wireless LAN
            <*>   Realtek 8187 and 8187B USB support

Then:

Device Drivers
    [*] USB support
        {*}   Enable Wireless USB extensions (EXPERIMENTAL)

Flash media
-----------

To know which driver to enable in the kernel, type lsusb | grep multicard in a terminal.

If you want to enable support for USB keys and SDcard:

Device Drivers
    SCSI device support
        <*> SCSI device support
        <*> SCSI disk support

    [*] USB support
        <M>   USB Mass Storage support

    <*> MMC/SD/SDIO card support
        <*>   USB SD Host Controller (USHC) support

File Systems
------------

By default, we recommend using Ext3 filesystem:

File systems
    <*> Ext3 journalling file system support

If you don't need support for RAID or LVM:

Device Drivers
    [ ] Multiple devices driver support (RAID and LVM)

Input devices
-------------

To configure Keyboard:

Device Drivers
    Input device support
        [*]   Keyboards
            <*>   AT keyboard
        [*]   Mice
            <*>   PS/2 mouse
            <*>     Synaptics PS/2 mouse protocol extension

Display
-------

To know your VGA (Video Graphics Array) controller model (VGA refers to display hardware), type lspci | grep VGA in a terminal. A framebuffer is a video output device that drives a video display from a memory buffer containing a complete frame of data (For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framebuffer.).

Device Drivers
    Graphics support
        <*> Support for frame buffer devices
            <M>   Userspace VESA VGA graphics support
        Console display driver support
            <*> Framebuffer Console support
            -*-   VGA 8x16 font

    [*] Staging drivers
        <*>      Silicon Motion SM7XX Frame Buffer Support

Unicode support
---------------

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems (For more information, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode.).

File systems
    -*- Native language support
        <*>   NLS UTF-8

Kernel Compilation
------------------

# 2 hours and 40 minutes
make \
    ARCH=mips \
    CROSS_COMPILE=${CROSS_TARGET}-
make \
    ARCH=mips \
    CROSS_COMPILE=${CROSS_TARGET}- \
    INSTALL_MOD_PATH=${TARGET_DIR} \
    modules_install
cp vmlinuz ${TARGET_DIR}/boot/vmlinuz
cp System.map ${TARGET_DIR}/boot/System.map
cp .config ${TARGET_DIR}/boot/config
cd ..
popd

     because future compilation may need kernel sources, the compilation directory of the kernel should be preserved.

Creating Required Configuration Files for the New System
********************************************************

File for Time Setup
===================

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/sysconfig/clock << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/sysconfig/clock

UTC=1

# End /etc/sysconfig/clock
EOF

Setting up Keyboard Function keys for the Shell
===============================================

Readline default configuration file is set:

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/inputrc << "EOF"
set bell-style none
set convert-meta Off
set horizontal-scroll-mode Off
set input-meta On
set output-meta On
"\eOd": backward-word
"\eOc": forward-word
"\e[1~": beginning-of-line
"\e[4~": end-of-line
"\e[5~": beginning-of-history
"\e[6~": end-of-history
"\e[3~": delete-char
"\e[2~": quoted-insert
"\eOH": beginning-of-line
"\eOF": end-of-line
"\e[H": beginning-of-line
"\e[F": end-of-line
EOF

If convert-meta is set to on, Readline will convert characters with the eighth bit set to an ASCII key sequence by stripping the eighth bit and prefixing an ESC character, converting them to a meta-prefixed key sequence.

horizontal-scroll-mode set to off means that the text of the lines being edited will be wrapped onto a new screen line when they are longer than the width of the screen, instead of being scrolled horizontally on a single screen line.

input-meta If set to on, Readline will enable eight-bit input (it will not clear the eighth bit in the characters it reads), regardless of what the terminal claims it can support.

If output-meta is set to on, Readline will display characters with the eighth bit set directly rather than as a meta-prefixed escape sequence.

Setting up Bash Shell Startup Files
===================================

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/profile << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/profile

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc
export PS1='\[\e[31m\]\A-\W\[\e[00m\]\$ '

# End /etc/profile
EOF

The environement variable LANG defines the default language that should be used on the system. en_US.UTF-8 means ``english'' language, country ``US'' and UTF-8 (UCS Transformation Format—8-bit) encoding (Unicode).

For explanations on PS1, see Environment Variables Setup.

Localhost Setup
===============

echo "HOSTNAME=gllfsc" > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/sysconfig/network

Setting up hosts File
=====================

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/hosts << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 gllfsc localhost

# End /etc/hosts
EOF

Setting up Network Address
==========================

You can choose to have a network static or dynamic address.

Setting up Network Static Address
---------------------------------

pushd ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/sysconfig/network-devices
mkdir -v ifconfig.eth0
cat > ifconfig.eth0/ipv4 << "EOF"
ONBOOT=yes
SERVICE=ipv4-static
IP=192.168.1.1
GATEWAY=192.168.1.2
PREFIX=24
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
EOF
popd

     IP, GATEWAY, BROADCAST addresses are set up according to one's situation.

Setting up Network Dynamic Address
----------------------------------

pushd ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/sysconfig/network-devices
mkdir -v ifconfig.eth0
cat > ifconfig.eth0/ip << "EOF"
ONBOOT=yes
SERVICE=dhcpcd
DHCP_START="-t10"
DHCP_STOP="-k"
EOF
popd

Setting up DNS
==============

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/resolv.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/resolv.conf

nameserver your-main-DNS-address
nameserver your-secondary-DNS-address

# End /etc/resolv.conf
EOF

fstab File Creation
===================

The file /etc/fstab is used at boot to mount partitions under the requested directories.

cat > ${TARGET_DIR}/etc/fstab << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/fstab

# file system    mount-point  type     options        dump  fsck order

/dev/hda4        /            ext3     defaults        1    1
/dev/hda3        swap         swap     pri=1           0    0
proc             /proc        proc     defaults        0    0
sysfs            /sys         sysfs    defaults        0    0
devpts           /dev/pts     devpts   gid=4,mode=620  0    0
shm              /dev/shm     tmpfs    defaults        0    0

# End /etc/fstab
EOF

     the name of the hard drive and the name of filesystem used here have to be modified to reflect your real situation.

The End
*******

Archiving the System
====================

After the system has been completed, we use the command exit to logout as the gllfsc user.

Now, login as the root user.

Then fix the permissions on the new system:

export TARGET_DIR=/gllfsc
pushd ${TARGET_DIR}
mknod -m 600 dev/console c 5 1
mknod -m 666 dev/null c 1 3
cp -a dev/{console,null} lib/udev/devices/
chown -R root:root *

We archive the entire system by using the following command:

# 20 minutes without kernel sources nor cross-tools
tar -cjf gllfsc-20121006.tar.bz2 bin boot dev etc home lib* media \
    mnt opt proc root sbin srv sys tmp usr var
# 60 minutes with kernel sources + cross-tools
#tar -cjf gllfsc-20121006.tar.bz2 *

It is then easy to copy the archive to the target machine and extract.

Some Recommendations
====================

We recommend extracting the system to an empty partition. Moreover, the filesystem of the chosen partition has to be a filesystem supported by the kernel you compiled. Finally, this partition has to be consistent with the system description in the file /etc/fstab you created during setup (see fstab File Creation).

Then, you will have to edit the PMON BIOS configuration file of the target machine: /boot.cfg. This file has to be put on the first partition of the hard drive (http://gnewsense.org/Projects/Lemote#Updating_of_the_PMON_configuration). A minimal /boot.cfg could be:

default 0
timeout 2
showmenu 1

title  GLLFSC
kernel (wd0,3)/boot/vmlinuz
args   console=tty no_auto_cmd root=/dev/hda4 rootdelay=8 machtype=8.9

Further Readings
****************

Haiyong Sun's website (in Chinese): http://youbest.cublog.cn. It includes documents on building a GNU/Linux system for Loongson and a GNU/Hurd system for x86.

Cross [GNU/]Linux from scratch: http://www.cross-lfs.org. Includes a lot of documentation to build a GNU/Linux system by cross-compilation on a variety of hardware, no information (yet) for cross-compiling with sysroot on MIPS though. There is also a Community-driven Beyond [GNU/]Linux From Scratch on http://cblfs.cross-lfs.org. It documents the building of Xorg and TeXLive among other things.

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/more_control_and_pkg_man.txt documents an interesting way of managing packages. Quotation from the file:

     DESCRIPTION:

       * You want to know which packages your files belong to?

       * You want to deinstall software that doesn't have make uninstall?

       * You are bothered by programs installed setuid root behind your back?

       * You don't like packages quietly overwriting files from other packages?

       * You don't like package managers like RPM?

       * YOU WANT TOTAL CONTROL USING ONLY UNIX BUILTINS?

The suckless team (http://suckless.org) is a group of programmers that share the following philosophy (http://suckless.org/philosophy):

     Focus on simplicity, clarity and frugality. Our philosophy is about keeping things simple, minimal and usable. We believe this should become the mainstream philosophy in the IT sector. Unfortunately, the tendency for complex, error-prone and slow software seems to be prevalent in the present-day software industry. We intend to prove the opposite with our software projects.

The simple and lightweight programs released by this team are interesting for machines based on Loongson 2F processor as performance is limited compared to current x86 processors.

GNU Free Documentation License
******************************

     [file fdl-1.3.texi not included]

GNU General Public License
**************************

     [file gpl.texi not included]