Going Beyond BLFS
The packages that are installed in this book are only the tip of the
iceberg. We hope that the experience you gained with the LFS book and the BLFS
book will give you the background needed to compile, install and configure
packages that are not included in this book.
If you are in search of a package that is not in the book, the following
are different ways you can search for the concerned package.
If you know the name of the package, then search FreshMeat for
at . Also search Google at
. Sometimes a search for the rpm at
or the deb at
can also
lead to the website for the package.
If you know the name of the executable, but not the package that
the executable belongs to, first try a google
search with the name of the executable. If the results are overwhelming, try
searching for the given executable in the debian repository at
.
Some general hints on handling new packages:
Many of the newer packages follow the ./configure
&& make && make install dance
routine. Help on the
options accepted by configure can be obtained via the command
./configure --help.
Most of the packages contain documentation on compiling and
installing the package. Some of the documents are excellent, some not so
excellent. Check out the homepage of the package for any additional and updated
hints for compiling and configuring the package.
If you are having a problem compiling the package, try
searching the lfs archives at
for the error or if that fails try searching google. If everything else fails,
try the blfs support mailing-list/news-server.
If you have found a package that is only available in .deb or .rpm format,
there are two small scripts rpm2targz and deb2targz that are available at
to convert
the archives into a simple tar.gz format.