LFS 11.2 systemd with EFI and pacman

Installing LFS systemd edition with EFI support and maintain it with pacman package manager

Based on Linux From Scratch
Based on the guide writen by James Kimball in 2013
Based on Pacman on LFS 8.1" By Ben Van Daele
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License

FAQ

• Q: What is this? Another arch-based distro?
• A: Nope. This is more LFS than arch-based clone. But it's using pacman packages manager developed by arch linux community.
• Q: But LFS never used any package manager, it's not LFS philosophy.
• A: True, but this is not pure LFS. It's using most of LFS instruction to build software and put them in pacman's format packages.
• Q: Why then using package manager at all if you can compile and install all manualy?
• A: When you building LFS, you might found what you did mistake, for example installed software in wrong prefix or used lib64 instead of lib or did another mistake. Fixing this could be problem, because you need find all installed files and remove them. Using packages, could help you track installed files and revert changes back if needed.
• Q: Dependensies, repo and etc for pacman packages?
• A: Nope. No dependensies. Packages what you will produce will only contating pure LFS compiled programs and you need resolve nesesary dependisies for missing libraries and headers yourself. They will be stored localy on you PC in separate folder not on server.
• Q: But is it possible to made my own repo for my own packages in case if I need reinstall stuff fast?
• A: Yes, it's possible but not covered here. You need read additional info using arch wiki.
• Q: Why sytemd and EFI?
• A: Systemd is standard for most linux distros now. If you want use old init scripts you must do it yourself. EFI used in 99% modern PC now, if you still have legacy BIOS you need install grub and again do it yourself.
• Q: Version XX.X ? But LFS almost released XX.X+1 now.
• A: I'll update this guide later when next stable LFS XX.X+1 will be released.

Introduction

This guide is divided in few stages:

• Stage 1 - Almost same as LFS book. You will only need download additional archives required for building pacman, EFI support in systemd and initramfs.
• Stage 2 - Similar to LFS book, when you build cross toolchain and cross compile temporary tools for your system where you later chroot in to it.
• Stage 3 - Chrooting to your system, building more temporary stuff and installing temporary pacman there. Almost same as LFS book with few small changes.
• Stage 4 - Installing part of basic system software, same as LFS book, but using PKGBUILD files to produce pacman's packages to track it.
• Stage 5 - Reinstalling pacman as basic software and putting it in pacman's package too.
• Stage 6 - Finishing building basic software. Installing support for EFI in systemd. Installing systemd package. Installing packages for building initramfs Making systemd bootable with systemd-boot and finishing the book.

Stage 1

Follow the book instructions until you reach chapter 3.1. Introduction. When you finishing downloading LFS packages using:

wget --input-file=wget-list --continue --directory-prefix=$LFS/sources

If desired do md5 checksums:

pushd $LFS/sources
  md5sum -c md5sums
popd

Get additional archives and place them to you $LFS/osurces folder too :

• libarchive: wget https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/releases/download/v3.6.1/libarchive-3.6.1.tar.xz --directory-prefix=$LFS/sources
• fakeroot: wget https://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/f/fakeroot/fakeroot_1.29.orig.tar.gz --directory-prefix=$LFS/sources
• pacman: wget https://sources.archlinux.org/other/pacman/pacman-6.0.1.tar.xz --directory-prefix=$LFS/sources
• gnu-efi: wget https://download.sourceforge.net/gnu-efi/gnu-efi-3.0.15.tar.bz2 --directory-prefix=$LFS/sources
• cpio: wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/cpio/cpio-2.13.tar.bz2 --directory-prefix=$LFS/sources
• dracut: wget -O dracut-057.tar.gz https://github.com/dracutdevs/dracut/archive/refs/tags/057.tar.gz --directory-prefix=$LFS/sources

I'm not providing here md5 sums for them, if you want to check use other download sources and do it yourself. This shouldn't be big issue.

Note: You may skip download patches for LFS archives because they all present in packages folder with PKGBUILD files.

Download packages folder from this repo, using git clone or as zip file and unpack it to $LFS/sources folder. No additional instruction here, please google how to use git if needed. This is guide not covering any aspect of using linux, if you tried pure LFS early you probably have some linux knowledge. Nothing personal.

Note: EFI boot require separate partition formated to FAT32 file system. Keep it in mind when reading chapters 2.4. Creating a New Partition and 2.5. Creating a File System on the Partition. Assuming what you are using GPT layout on your disk.

Proceed next now, using LFS book until you reach iii. General Compilation Instructions

Stage 2

As it was said, this is just same as LFS chapters from 5. Compiling a Cross-Toolchain to 6.18. GCC-12.2.0 - Pass 2. Follow LFS book instructions.

Stage 3

Follow LFS book chapters from 7. Entering Chroot and Building Additional Temporary Tools to 7.10. Perl-5.36.0. Now you need break, read some info and follow this guide.

pacman and makepkg dependencies

To build latest pacman and use makepkg for creating you own packages you will need to install those libraries and tools:

• zlib
• opensll
• python with zlib module for .pyz files
• ninja
• meson as .pyz file
• util-linux for getopt
• libcap
• su from shadow
• libarchive
• pkg-config
• fakeroot

Build these packages using the following commands. Just like the LFS book, these commands assume you have extracted the relevant sources and cd'd into the resulting directory.

zlib 1.2.12

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make install
rm -fv /usr/lib/libz.a

openssl 3.0.5

./config --prefix=/usr         \
         --openssldir=/etc/ssl \
         --libdir=lib          \
         shared                \
         zlib-dynamic
make         
sed -i '/INSTALL_LIBS/s/libcrypto.a libssl.a//' Makefile
make MANSUFFIX=ssl install

python 3.10.6

./configure --prefix=/usr   \
            --enable-shared \
            --without-ensurepip
make
make install

Note: This is temporary python builded with same commands as LFS book chapter 7.11. Python-3.10.2. All messages about missing libararies and headers could be safely ignored because you only need zlib module. Even openssl has already build, it's not require for this version of python, if desired you could build openssl after python.

ninja 1.11.0

python3 configure.py --bootstrap
install -vm755 ninja /usr/bin/
install -vDm644 misc/bash-completion /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/ninja
install -vDm644 misc/zsh-completion  /usr/share/zsh/site-functions/_ninja

meson 0.63.1

Note: Since python was build without setuptools module you need put meson in single executable ziped file what will be stored in /source directory. This file will be used by python later to build pacman

./packaging/create_zipapp.py --outfile meson.pyz --interpreter '/usr/bin/python3' .
cp meson.pyz ..

util-linux 2.38.1

mkdir -pv /var/lib/hwclock
./configure ADJTIME_PATH=/var/lib/hwclock/adjtime    \
            --libdir=/usr/lib    \
            --docdir=/usr/share/doc/util-linux-2.38.1 \
            --disable-chfn-chsh  \
            --disable-login      \
            --disable-nologin    \
            --disable-su         \
            --disable-setpriv    \
            --disable-runuser    \
            --disable-pylibmount \
            --disable-static     \
            --without-python     \
            runstatedir=/run
make
make install

libcap 2.65

sed -i '/install -m.*STA/d' libcap/Makefile
make prefix=/usr lib=lib
make prefix=/usr lib=lib install

shadow 4.12.2

sed -i 's/groups$(EXEEXT) //' src/Makefile.in
find man -name Makefile.in -exec sed -i 's/groups\.1 / /'   {} \;
find man -name Makefile.in -exec sed -i 's/getspnam\.3 / /' {} \;
find man -name Makefile.in -exec sed -i 's/passwd\.5 / /'   {} \;
./configure --sysconfdir=/etc \
            --disable-static
make
cp ./src/su /usr/bin/

libarchive 3.6.1

sed '/linux\/fs\.h/d' -i libarchive/archive_read_disk_posix.c
./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-static
make
make install

pkg-config 0.29.2

./configure --prefix=/usr              \
            --with-internal-glib       \
            --disable-host-tool        \
            --docdir=/usr/share/doc/pkg-config-0.29.2
make
make install

fakeroot 1.29

./configure --prefix=/usr                   \
            --libdir=/usr/lib/libfakeroot   \
            --disable-static                \
            --with-ipc=sysv
make
make install

pacman 6.0.1

cp ../meson.pyz .
python3 meson.pyz --prefix=/usr                   \
                  --buildtype=plain               \
                  -Ddoc=disabled                  \
                  -Ddoxygen=enabled               \
                  -Dscriptlet-shell=/usr/bin/bash \
                  -Dldconfig=/usr/bin/ldconfig    \
build
python3 meson.pyz compile -C build
python3 meson.pyz install -C build
rm ../meson.pyz

This will have installed, amongst others, the makepkg.conf and pacman.conf config files in /etc; you may want to edit them. For makepkg.conf, be sure that CARCH and CHOST are appropriate, e.g.:

CARCH="x86_64"
CHOST="x86_64-lfs-linux-gnu"

For deafult makepkg using options such striping debug symbols keeping static libraries empty directories and compress man files. Also it removes some info files like .pod. Some of those change not compatible with lfs and should be changed. Edit lines in makepkg.conf file to achive it:

OPTIONS=(strip !libtool !staticlibs !zipman purge)
PURGE_TARGETS=(usr/{,share}/info/dir .packlist)

If you desire you can change them for you own use. Refer to makepkg.conf manual.

You can set your name and email address as the PACKAGER if you want.

Setting up to build packages with pacman using makepkg

Makepkg not allow build packages under root user. LFS book using user tester for test when building basic system software in chapter 8. This user could be used to envoke makepkg in chroot environment:

su tester -c "PATH=$PATH LANG=$LANG makepkg <options>"

Note: if you start building and get error about impossible to write to build folder, check folder permission. It should be 777. If needed change it:

chmod -v 777 .

Now you need finish building temporary tools with text-info package, refer to 7.12. Texinfo-6.8 of book.

Stage 4

Clean up temporary system acording book, remove some files and move missplaced directories:

rm -rf /usr/share/{info,man,doc}/*
find /usr/{lib,libexec} -name \*.la -delete
rm -rf /tools
find /usr -name \*.packlist -delete
install -vdm755 /usr/share/gdb/auto-load/usr/lib
mv -v /usr/lib/*gdb.py /usr/share/gdb/auto-load/usr/lib

Change to directory for building packages

cd /source/packages

Before you start build packages, using makepkg command, you will need PKGBUILD files and some patches. They all present inside subfolders in /source/packages directory

Change to package directory. Your first package will be linux-api-headers. Even it was installed manually you need reinstall it with pacman for future easy removal or replacement in case of upgrading system.

cd linux-api-headers
cp ../../sources linux-5.19.2.tar.xz .
su tester -c "PATH=$PATH LANG=$LANG makepkg -c"
mv linux-api-headers-5.19.2-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz ..
cd ..
pacman -U linux-api-headers-5.19.9-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz --overwrite=*

For second and rest packages follow book order. Instructions for building will stay same. First you need change to package directory and copy package tarball file. Next you envoke makepkg as example above, move builded pacman package to /source/packages directory and install it to final system.

Build next three packages:

• Man-pages-5.13
• Iana-Etc-20220812
• Glibc-2.36

using instruction above.

Note: You need add time zone data, or some packages later will not build corectly.

LFS book using a lot of commands to do that, but instead of it just use PKGBUILD file build and install tzdata package.

Set you time zone, for example:

ln -sfv /usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Eastern /etc/localtime

The dynamic loader will be configured automaticly according commands present in glibc PKGBUILD file.

Note: Setup LANG variable acording your system locale. It will be later used while building GCC. Incorect setup of it will produce building error.

For example for US issue this:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Note: After you build and install GCC with pacman, you must change makepkg.conf file:

CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"

And remove unneeded partial compiler:

find /usr -depth -name $(uname -m)-lfs-linux-gnu\* | xargs rm -rf

Now you can contnue build system until you finish chapter 8.34. Bash-5.1.16

Note: When you build and install bash with pacman you will use exec /usr/bin/bash --login command to run compiled bash. This also reset LANG variable. You must set it back:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Note: When you start building python as pacman package, make sure what you have mounted /dev/shm as it done in BLFS book, otherwise you can't build js-91 package later in BLFS book. I don't know is it bug related or host system (I'm using arch linux as host), but I'm strongly recommend you do this command to mount /dev/shm before you start building python:

mount -t tmpfs devshm /dev/shm

Don't worry this mount point only needs to build python and could be removed later when it will be installed.

Continue now building basic software until you finish chapter 8.58. Groff-1.22.4

Stage 5

It's time now to reinstall pacman as pacman's package. But before you need build and reinstall as pacman's packages two libraries:

• libarchive
• fakeroot

Build them using PKGBUILD files and install using pacman -U <package name> --overwrite=* command. Backup yours .config files, because reinstalling pacman will overwrite them:

cp /etc/pacman.conf /etc/pacman.conf-back
cp /etc/makepkg.conf /etc/makepkg.conf-back

Note: I found a bug what pacman compiled in chroot as temporary tool, installs packages with wrong ownership and permissions. It might be dependencies related, I'm not sure yet. You need fix permissions and ownership after you install fakeroot as pacman's package:

chmod 755 /usr/bin/faked
chmod 755 /usr/bin/fakeroot
chown -R root:root /usr

Finally you can build pacman as it's own package and intall it as basic software. After finishing, don't forget restore your config files:

su tester -c "PATH=$PATH LANG=$LANG makepkg -c"
pacman -U pacman-6.0.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz --overwrite=*

And restore .config files back:

mv /etc/pacman.conf-back /etc/pacman.conf
mv /etc/makepkg.conf-back /etc/makepkg.conf

As soon as you will do it, there is no more issues with missing executable flag (644 instead of 755) and tester:tester ownership on files when using pacman.

Stage 6

Skip building chapter 8.59. GRUB-2.06. Since system will be booted in EFI mode, instead of grub bootloader you will use systemd-boot. Continue build pakages from chapter 8.60. Gzip-1.12, using PKBUILD files and install them to your final system until you reach chapter 8.70. Jinja2-3.1.2. Now you need build additional package gnu-efi which adds EFI support to systemd. Build and install it using correspondent PKGBUILD file. When you finish building and installing gnu-efi package you can build systemd package. The PKGBUILD has some additional lines to satisfy EFI support for systemd and use later systemd-boot command to install bootloader:

-Dgnu-efi=true          \
-Dsbat-distro='lfs'     \
-Dsbat-distro-summary="Linux From Scratch"  \
-Dsbat-distro-url="https://linuxfromscratch.org"

Build and install systemd package. Continue from chapter 8.72. D-Bus-1.14.0 to chapter 8.78. Stripping. Skip chapter 8.79. Cleaning Up. User tester still needed for package building, so keep him.

Build and install packages for creating ititramfs:

• cpio
• dracut

Mount you EFI partition if you have not did it early:

mount /dev/xxx /boot

Where xxx your EFI partition name. For example sda1 for primary hard disk. Proceed to chapter 9. System Configuration until you reach chapter 10.3. Linux-5.19.2.

Linux firmware

Most of modern PC require additional firmware in order to boot kernel and use computer devices. The great article about could be found in BLFS book. I would recommend you inspect you hardware using lsmod command. When you deside which firmware you need, copy necessary folders and files in your /usr/lib/firmware folder. For exmaple if you using laptop with cheap AMD GPU picasso/raven family you need copy content of amdgpu folder inside of /usr/lib/firmware/amdgpu. You don't need all files, you just need all picasso*.bin, raven*.bin. If you want support all devices and make sure to boot you system in different PCs just copy everything to /usr/lib/firmware

Compile and install Linux kernel and it's modules using PKGFILE

Note: config file for linux kernel contain minimal default parametrs for fast compilation and EFI support. If you desire change it you need unpack linux-5.19.2.tar.xz, change to linux-5.19.2 folder, copy config file as hidden .config run make menuconfig, change or set kernel options, quit, save new .config file and replace config file in \sources\packages\linux folder:

cd /sources
tar xf linux-5.19.2.tar.xz
cd linux-5.19.2
cp /sources/packages/linux/config ./.config
make menuconfig
cp ./.config /sources/packages/linux/config

Install bootloader, using bootctl command:

bootctl install

Install cpio and dracut packages. Create initramfs using dracut:

dracut --kver=5.19.2
mv /boot/initramfs-5.19.2.img /boot/initramfs-5.19.2-lfs-11.2-systemd.img

Change necessary loader entires in /bool/loader folder:

cd /boot/loader
echo 'default lfs` > loader.conf
cd entires
cat > lfs.conf << EOF
title Linux From Scratch
linux /vmlinuz-5.19.2-lfs-systemd
initrd /initramfs-5.19.2-lfs-11.2-systemd.img
options root=/dev/sda3 rw
EOF

Note: replace root=/dev/sda3 by yours root partiton using vim

Congratulations! You are done. If you kernel were set correctly and you have necessary firmware you could reboot now to yours new LFS with pacman system. Enjoy funny penguines while booting which represent amount of you PC CPU cores.