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| Linux From Scratch | |
|---|---|
| Developer | Gerard Beekmans et al. |
| OS family | Unix-like |
| Working state | Current |
| Source model | Open source |
| Initial release | December 1999; 25 years ago (1999-12) |
| Latest release | 12.4[1]  / 1 September 2025; 2 months ago (1 September 2025) |
| Update method | Source-based |
| Package manager | None (source-based) |
| Supported platforms | IA-32,x86-64,PowerPC,ARM[2] |
| Kernel type | Monolithic |
| Default user interface | CLI |
| License | Creative Commons licenses Mainly CC BY-NC-SA[3] andMIT License |
| Official website | linuxfromscratch.org |
Linux From Scratch (LFS) is a type ofLinux installation, and the name of a book written byGerard Beekmans, and as of May 2021, mainly maintained by Bruce Dubbs. The book gives readers instructions on how to build a Linux system fromsource. The book is available freely from the Linux From Scratch site.[4]
Linux From Scratch is a way to install a working Linux system by building all components of it manually. This is, naturally, a longer process than installing a pre-compiledLinux distribution. According to theLinux From Scratch site, the advantages to this method are a compact, flexible and secure system and a greater understanding of the internal workings of the Linux-based operating systems.[5]
To keep LFS small and focused, the bookBeyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS) was created, which presents instructions on how to further develop the basic Linux system that was created in LFS. It introduces and guides the reader through additions to the system including theX Window System,desktop environments (KDE,GNOME,Xfce,LXDE),productivity software,web browsers,programming languages and tools,multimedia software, andnetwork management andsystem administration tools. Since Release 7.4, the BLFS book version matches the LFS book version.[6]
The bookCross Linux From Scratch (CLFS) focuses oncross compiling, including compiling forheadless orembedded systems that canrun Linux, but lack the resources needed tocompile Linux.[7] CLFS supports a broad range ofprocessors and addresses advanced techniques not included in the LFS book such as cross-buildtoolchains, multilibrary support (32 & 64-bitlibraries side-by-side), and alternativeinstruction set architectures such asItanium,SPARC,MIPS, andAlpha. The project is archived and was last updated in August 2017.[7]
The Linux from Scratch project, likeBitBake, also supports cross-compiling Linux forARM embedded systems such as theRaspberry Pi andBeagleBone.[8][9]
The bookHardened Linux From Scratch (HLFS) focuses on security enhancements such ashardened kernel patches, mandatoryaccess control policies,stack-smashing protection, andaddress space layout randomization.[10] Besides its main purpose of creating asecurity-focused operating system, HLFS had the secondary goal of being a security teaching tool. It has not been updated since 2011. As of 17 February 2025, the HLFS book has disappeared from the LFS web site.
Automated Linux From Scratch (ALFS) is a project designed to automate the process of creating an LFS system.[11] It is aimed at users who have gone through the LFS and BLFS books several times and wish to reduce the amount of work involved.[12] A secondary goal is to act as a test of the LFS and BLFS books by directly extracting and running instructions from the XML sources of the LFS and BLFS books.
Other subprojects:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| MLFS | Multilib-LFS is a variant of LFS that builds a system which is able to execute 32-bit binaries. |
| GLFS | Gaming Linux From Scratch is based on BLFS and helps user install gaming support software likeSteam orWine on a new LFS or MLFS system. |
| Hints | Collection of documents that explain how to enhance LFS system in ways that are not included in the LFS or BLFS books. |
| Patches | Central repository for all patches useful to an LFS user. |
| LFS Editor's Guide | A document that describes the LFS development process. |
| Museum | Copies of ancient LFS and BLFS versions. |
A cleanpartition and a working Linux system with a compiler and some essentialsoftware libraries are required to build LFS. Instead of installing from an existing Linux system, one can also use a Live CD to build an LFS system.
The project formerly maintained the Linux From Scratch Live CD.[13] LFS Live CD contains all the source packages (in the full version of the Live CD only), the LFS book, automated building tools and (except for the minimal Live CD version) anXfce GUI environment to work in. The official LFS Live CD is no longer maintained, and cannot be used to build the LFS version 7 or later.[13] There are, however, two unofficial builds that can be used to build a 32-bit or 64-bit kernel and userspace respectively for LFS 7.x.[14]
First, atoolchain must be compiled consisting of the tools used to compile LFS, likeGCC,glibc,binutils, and other necessary utilities. Then, theroot directory must be changed, (usingchroot), to the toolchain'spartition to start building the final system. One of the first packages to compile is glibc; after that, the toolchain'slinker must be adjusted tolink against the newly built glibc, so that all other packages that will make up the finished system can be linked against it as well. During thechroot phase,bash's hashing feature is turned off and the temporary toolchain's bin directory moved to the end of PATH. This way the newly compiled programs come first in PATH and the new system builds on its own new components.
| Component | Description | License |
|---|---|---|
| Acl | An access control list (ACL), with respect to a computer file system, is a list of permissions attached to an object. | GNU GPL |
| Attr | Commands for Manipulating Filesystem Extended Attributes. | |
| Autoconf | Tool for producingconfigure scripts forC,C++,Fortran, Fortran 77,Erlang,Objective-C software onUnix-like computer systems. | |
| Automake | Aprogramming tool that produces portablemakefiles for use by themake program, used in compiling software. | |
| Bash | Afree softwareUnix shell written for theGNU Project | |
| bc | bc is a basic calculator (often referred to as bench calculator), is "an arbitrary precision calculator language" with syntax similar to theC programming language. | |
| Binutils | A collection ofprogramming tools for the manipulation ofobject code in various object file formats. | |
| Bison | Aparser generator that is part of theGNU Project. Bison converts agrammar description for acontext-free grammar into source code for aC,C++ orJava parser. | |
| Bzip2 | Afree andopen sourcelossless data compressionalgorithm and program developed byJulian Seward. | BSD-like License |
| Check | A unit testing framework forC. | GNU GPL |
| Coreutils | Apackage ofGNUsoftware containing many of the basic tools, such ascat,ls, andrm, needed forUnix-likeoperating systems. | |
| DejaGnu | A framework for testing other programs. It has a main script called runtest that goes through a directory looking at configuration files and then runs some tests with given criteria. | |
| Diffutils | Adata comparison utility that outputs the differences between two files. | |
| E2fsprogs | e2fsprogs (sometimes called the e2fs programs) is a set of utilities for maintaining theext2,ext3 andext4file systems. | |
| Elfutils | A collection of utilities and libraries to read, create and modify ELF binary files. | GNU GPL andGNU LGPL |
| Eudev | A fork ofudev to avoid dependency on the systemd architecture. The resulting fork is called eudev and it makes udev functionality available withoutsystemd. | GNU GPL |
| Expat | Astream-orientedXML 1.0 parserlibrary, written inC. | MIT License |
| Expect | Expect is aUnix automation and testing tool as an extension to theTcl scripting language, for interactiveapplications such astelnet,ftp,passwd,fsck,rlogin,tip,ssh, and others. | Public domain |
| File | file command is a standard Unix program for recognizing the type of data contained in a computer file. | BSD-like License |
| Findutils | TheGNU Find Utilities are the basic directory searching utilities of the GNU operating system. | GNU GPL |
| Flex | flex (fastlexical analyzer generator) is afree software alternative tolex. | BSD license |
| Gawk | Gawk is aprogramming language that is designed for processing text-based data, either in files or data streams | GNU GPL |
| GCC | The GNU Compiler Collection (usually shortened to GCC) is acompiler system produced by theGNU Project supporting variousprogramming languages | |
| GDBM | GDBM simpledatabase engines | |
| Gettext | Gettext is theGNUinternationalization and localization (i18n) library. | |
| Glibc | The GNUC Library, commonly known as glibc, is theC standard library released by theGNU Project. | |
| GMP | The GNU Multiple-Precision Library, also known as GMP, is afree library forarbitrary-precision arithmetic, operating on signedintegers,rational numbers, andfloating point numbers. | |
| Gperf | A perfect hash function generator. For a given list of strings, it produces a hash function and hash table, in form ofC orC++ code, for looking up a value depending on the input string. The hash function is perfect, which means that the hash table has no collisions, and the hash table lookup needs a single string comparison only. | |
| Grep | grep is acommand line text search utility originally written forUnix. | |
| Groff | Groff is theGNU replacement for thetroff andnrofftext formatters. | |
| GRUB | GNU GRUB (short for GNU GRand Unified Bootloader) is aboot loader package from theGNU Project. | |
| Gzip | Gzip is asoftware application used forfile compression. gzip is short for GNU zip | |
| iana-etc. | iana-etc. installs services and protocols using data from theInternet Assigned Numbers Authority. Included are snapshots of the data from the IANA, scripts to transform that data into the needed formats, and scripts to fetch the latest data. | Open Software License |
| Inetutils | A collection of network tools, including:telnet,ftp, andrsh. | GNU GPL |
| Intltool | A set of tools to centralize translation of many different file formats using GNU gettext-compatible PO files. | |
| iproute2 | A collection ofuserspace utilities for controlling and monitoring various aspects ofnetworking in theLinux kernel, includingrouting, network interfaces, tunnels,traffic control, and network-relateddevice drivers. | |
| Kbd | A package contains tools for managing the Linux console (Linux console, virtual terminals on it, keyboard, etc.). Mainly, what they do is loading console fonts and keyboard maps. Also this package contains a set of various fonts and keyboard maps. | |
| Kmod | A multi-call binary which implements the programs used to control Linux Kernel modules. | |
| less | less is aterminal pagerprogram onUnix,Windows andUnix-like systems used to view (but not change) the contents of atext file one screen at a time. | Dual: eitherGPL orBSD-like License |
| LFS-Bootscripts | The LFS-Bootscripts package contains a set of scripts to start/stop the LFS system at bootup/shutdown. The configuration files and procedures needed to customize the boot process are described in the following sections. | Creative Commons licenses andMIT License |
| Libcap | An alternative to the superuser model of privilege under Linux. | BSD-3-Clause orGPL-2.0-only[16] |
| Libelf | The elfutils project provides libraries and tools for ELF files and DWARF data. Most utilities in this package are available in other packages, but the library is needed to build the Linux kernel using the default (and most efficient) configuration. | dualGPLv2+/LGPLv3+[17] |
| Libffi | A Portable Foreign Function Interface Library. | MIT License |
| Libpipeline | Libpipeline is a C library for manipulating pipelines of subprocesses in a flexible and convenient way. | GNU GPL |
| Libtool | GNU Libtool is aGNUprogramming tool from theGNU build system used for creating portable compiledlibraries. | |
| Libxcrypt | Package that provides the libcrypt library needed by various packages (notably, Shadow) for hashing passwords. It replaces the obsolete libcrypt implementation in Glibc. | GNULGPLv2.1[18] |
| Linux kernel | The Linux kernel is an operating systemkernel used by theLinux family ofUnix-likeoperating systems. | GNU GPL |
| GNU m4 | GNU m4 is theGNU version of them4 macro preprocessor. | |
| make | Make is autility forautomatically building executable programs and libraries fromsource code. | |
| Man-DB | Man-DB is an implementation of the standard Unix documentation system accessed using the man command. It uses a Berkeley DB database in place of the traditional flat-text whatis databases. | |
| Man-pages | A man page (short for manual page) is a form of online software documentation usually found on aUnix orUnix-like operating system. | Multiple Licenses.[19] |
| Meson | an open source build system meant to be both extremely fast, and, even more importantly, as user friendly as possible. | Apache License |
| MPC | A C library for the arithmetic of complex numbers witharbitrarily high precision | GNU LGPL |
| MPFR | GNU C library for multiple-precision floating-point computations with correct rounding. | GNU LGPL andGNU GPL for special exception part of the source code |
| ncurses | A programming library for writing text user interfaces in a terminal-independent manner | X11 License[20] |
| Ninja | A small build system with a focus on speed. | Apache License |
| OpenSSL | A softwarelibrary for applications that provide secure communications overcomputer networks against eavesdropping, and identify the party at the other end. It is widely used byInternetservers, including the majority ofHTTPSwebsites. | Apache License 1.0 and four-clauseBSD License |
| Patch | A computer tool forUnixprograms that updates text files according to instructions contained in a separate file, called apatch file. | GNU GPL |
| Perl | A dynamic interpreted programming language | Artistic License 1.0[21][22] orGNU GPL[23] |
| Pkgconf | A computer program that provides a unified interface for querying installedlibraries for the purpose ofcompiling software from itssource code. | GNU GPL |
| Procps-NG | A set of command line and full-screen utilities that provide information out of the pseudo-filesystem most commonly located at/proc. This filesystem provides a simple interface to the kernel data structures. The programs of procps generally concentrate on the structures that describe the processes running on the system. | GNU GPL andGNU LGPL |
| Psmisc | A set of some small useful utilities that use theproc filesystem. | GNU GPL |
| Python | An open source interpreted high-level programming language for general-purpose programming | Python Software Foundation License |
| Python Documentation | Package contains the Python development environment. | |
| Readline | GNU readline is asoftware library created and maintained by theGNU Project. | GNU GPL |
| sed | sed (stream editor) is aUnix utility that (a) parses text files and (b) implements aprogramming language which can apply textual transformations to such files. | |
| Shadow | A tool on mostUnix andUnix-like operating systems used to change a user'spassword. The password entered by the user is run through akey derivation function to create ahashed version of the new password, which is saved. Only the hashed version is stored; the entered password is not saved for security reasons. | Artistic License orBSD-like License |
| Sysklogd | A Kernel and system loggingdaemons that provides two system utilities which provide support for system logging and kernel message trapping. Support of both internet and unix domain sockets enables this utility package to support both local and remote logging. | GNU GPL |
| Sysvinit | System V style init programs that control the booting and shutdown system. | |
| tar | tar is a program that provides the ability to create tar archives, as well as various other kinds of manipulation. | |
| Tcl | Tool Command Language is a dynamicscripting language. | BSD-like License[24] |
| Texinfo | A typesetting syntax used for generating documentation in both on-line also printed form and the official documentation format of the GNU project. | GNU GPL |
| tzdata | The public-domain time zone database contains code and data that represent the history of local time for many representative locations around the globe. | Public domain andBSD |
| Udev Configuration Tarball | The Udev package contains programs for dynamic creation of device nodes. The development of udev has been merged with systemd, but most of systemd is incompatible with LFS. Here we build and install just the needed udev files. | Creative Commons licenses andMIT License |
| util-linux | The Util-linux package contains miscellaneous utility programs. Among them are utilities for handling file systems, consoles, partitions, and messages. | GNU GPL |
| Vim | A text editor built to create and change any kind of text. | Free software (Vim License[25]),charityware |
| Wheel | This library is the reference implementation of the Python wheel packaging standard, as defined in PEP 427. | MIT |
| XML::Parser | Perl module that interfaces withExpat | Artistic License 2.0[26] |
| XZ Utils | A general-purpose data compression software with a high compression ratio. XZ Utils were written for POSIX-like systems, but also work on some not-so-POSIX systems. XZ Utils are the successor to LZMA Utils. | GNU GPL andGNU LGPL |
| Zlib | Zlib is asoftware library used fordata compression. | zlib license |
| zstd | zstd a fast lossless compression algorithm and data compression tool. Compress or decompress .zst files. | BSD + GPLv2 dual license.[27][28] |
This is a list of the packages included in CLFS version 1.1.0. Unless otherwise noted, this list is applicable to all supported architectures.
|
|
|
A "standard build unit" ("SBU") is a term used during initial bootstrapping of the system, and represents the amount of time required to build the first package in LFS on a given computer. Its creation was prompted by the long time required to build an LFS system, and the desire of many users to know how long a source tarball will take to build ahead of time.
As of Linux From Scratch version 10.1, the first package built by the user is GNU binutils. When building it, users are encouraged to measure the build process using shell constructs and dub that time the system's "standard build unit". Once this number is known, an estimate of the time required to build later packages is expressed relative to the known SBU.
Several packages built during compilation take much longer to build than binutils, including theGNU C Library (rated at 4.2 SBUs) and theGNU Compiler Collection (rated at 11 SBUs). The unit must be interpreted as an approximation; various factors influence the actual time required to build a package.
LWN.net reviewed LFS in 2004:[30]
Linux From Scratch is a wonderful project. It should become a compulsory reading material for all Linux training courses, and something that every Linux enthusiast should complete at least once. This would also create another interesting side effect: people who tend to be quick in expressing dissatisfaction on the distributions' mailing lists and forums would probably show a lot more respect for the developers. Installing a ready-made distribution is a trivial task. Building up a set of 4 CDs containing a stable, secure and reliable operating system, plus thousands of applications, is most definitely not.
Tux Machines wrote a review about Linux From Scratch 6.1 in 2005:[31]
Now on to BLFS. Unfortunately Beyond Linux From Scratch is always a book behind it seems. To me it's not a real install until one can log into a window manager.
Tux Machines also has a second[32] and a third part[33] of the review.
Other source-based Linux distributions:
