lfs-book/chapter06/glibc.xml

<sect1 id="ch06-glibc" xreflabel="Glibc">
<title>Installing Glibc-&glibc-version;</title>
<?dbhtml filename="glibc.html" dir="chapter06"?>

<para>The Glibc package contains the main C library. This library provides all
the basic routines for allocating memory, searching directories, opening and
closing files, reading and writing them, string handling, pattern matching,
arithmetic, and so on.</para>

<screen>Estimated build time:           &glibc-time;
Estimated required disk space:  &glibc-compsize;</screen>

&aa-glibc-down;
&aa-glibc-dep;

<sect2><title>&nbsp;</title><para>&nbsp;</para></sect2>

<sect2>
<title>Installation of Glibc</title>

<para>The Glibc build system is very well self-contained and will install
perfectly, even though our compiler specs file and linker are still pointing
at <filename>/tools</filename>. We cannot adjust the specs and linker before
the Glibc install, because the Glibc autoconf tests would then give bogus
results and thus defeat our goal of achieving a clean build.</para>

<note><para>The test suite for Glibc in this section is considered
<emphasis>critical</emphasis>. Our advice is to not skip it under any
circumstance.</para></note>

<para>Before starting to build Glibc, remember to unpack the Glibc-linuxthreads
again inside the <filename>glibc-&glibc-version;</filename> directory, and to
unset any environment variables that override the default optimization
flags.</para>

<para>Apply the same patch we used previously:</para>
                                                                                
<screen><userinput>patch -Np1 -i ../&glibc-sscanf-patch;</userinput></screen>

<para>The Glibc documentation recommends building Glibc outside of the source
directory in a dedicated build directory:</para>

<screen><userinput>mkdir ../glibc-build
cd ../glibc-build</userinput></screen>

<para>Now prepare Glibc for compilation:</para>

<screen><userinput>../glibc-&glibc-version;/configure --prefix=/usr \
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--disable-profile --enable-add-ons \
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--libexecdir=/usr/lib --with-headers=/usr/include</userinput></screen>

<para>The meaning of the new configure options:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><userinput>--libexecdir=/usr/lib</userinput>: This changes the
location of the <filename>pt_chown</filename> program from its default of 
<filename class="directory">/usr/libexec</filename> to
<filename class="directory">/usr/lib</filename>. The use of
<emphasis>libexec</emphasis> is considered not FHS compliant because the FHS
doesn't even mention it.</para></listitem>

<listitem><para><userinput>--with-headers=/usr/include</userinput>: This
ensures that the kernel headers in <filename>/usr/include</filename> are used
for this build. If you don't pass this switch then the headers from
<filename>/tools/include</filename> are used which of course is not ideal
(although they should be identical). Using this switch has the advantage
that you will be informed immediately should you have forgotten to install the
kernel headers into <filename>/usr/include</filename>.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>Compile the package:</para>

<screen><userinput>make</userinput></screen>

<para>Test the results:</para>

<screen><userinput>make check</userinput></screen>

<para>The test suite notes from <xref linkend="ch05-glibc"/> are still very much
appropriate here. Be sure to refer back there should you have any doubts.</para>

<para>Though it is a harmless message, the install stage of Glibc will
complain about the absence of <filename>/etc/ld.so.conf</filename>. Fix this
annoying little warning with:</para>

<screen><userinput>touch /etc/ld.so.conf</userinput></screen>

<para>And install the package:</para>

<screen><userinput>make install</userinput></screen>

<para>The locales that can make your system respond in a different language
weren't installed by the above command. Do it with this:</para>

<screen><userinput>make localedata/install-locales</userinput></screen>

<para>An alternative to running the previous command is to install only those
locales which you need or want. This can be achieved using the
<userinput>localedef</userinput> command. Information on this can be found in
the <filename>INSTALL</filename> file in the
<filename>glibc-&glibc-version;</filename> tree. However,  there are a number
of locales that are essential for the tests of future packages to pass
correctly. The following instructions, in place of the install-locales
command above, will install the minimum set of locales necessary for the
tests to run successfully:</para>

<screen><userinput>mkdir -p /usr/lib/locale
localedef -i de_DE -f ISO-8859-1 de_DE
localedef -i de_DE@euro -f ISO-8859-15 de_DE@euro
localedef -i en_HK -f ISO-8859-1 en_HK
localedef -i en_PH -f ISO-8859-1 en_PH
localedef -i en_US -f ISO-8859-1 en_US
localedef -i es_MX -f ISO-8859-1 es_MX
localedef -i fr_FR -f ISO-8859-1 fr_FR
localedef -i fr_FR@euro -f ISO-8859-15 fr_FR@euro
localedef -i it_IT -f ISO-8859-1 it_IT
localedef -i ja_JP -f EUC-JP ja_JP</userinput></screen>

<para>Finally, build the linuxthreads man pages:</para>

<screen><userinput>make -C ../&glibc-dir;/linuxthreads/man</userinput></screen>

<para>And install these pages:</para>

<screen><userinput>make -C ../&glibc-dir;/linuxthreads/man install</userinput></screen>

</sect2>

&c6-cf-glibc;

&aa-glibc-shortdesc;
&aa-glibc-desc;

</sect1>