lfs-book/chapter04/aboutlfs.xml

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  <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent">
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<sect1 id="prepare-aboutlfs">
<title>About $LFS</title>
<?dbhtml filename="aboutlfs.html"?>

<para>Throughout this book the environment variable LFS will be used several
times. It is paramount that this variable is always defined. It should be set
to the mount point you chose for your LFS partition. Check that your LFS
variable is set up properly with:</para>

<screen><userinput>echo $LFS</userinput></screen>

<para>Make sure the output shows the path to your LFS partition's mount
point, which is <filename class="directory">/mnt/lfs</filename> if you
followed our example. If the output is wrong, you can always set the variable
with:</para>

<screen><userinput>export LFS=/mnt/lfs</userinput></screen>

<para>Having this variable set means that if you are told to run a command like
<command>mkdir $LFS/tools</command>, you can type it literally. Your shell
will replace <quote>$LFS</quote> with <quote>/mnt/lfs</quote> (or whatever 
you set the variable to) when it processes the command line.</para>

<para>Don't forget to check that <quote>$LFS</quote> is set whenever you leave and
reenter the environment (as when doing a <quote>su</quote> to root or another user).
</para>

</sect1>