Required host system tools

There are several additional dependencies due to the fact that cross-compiled tools cannot be used. It is debatable whether they have to be added to ${CLFS}/cross-tools or to the host requirements. My own (extremist) viewpoint is that any kind of LFS should be bootstrappable even from this uClibc-based system: http://www.uclibc.org/downloads/root_fs_i386.ext2.bz2 (20 MB).

Most additional host system requirements are really just for CLFS 2.0. In CLFS 1.x, since the final-system build is not cross-compiled, the only host tools needed are the necessary programs for building the temp-system, which for the most part basically just boils down do the tools needed for Binutils, GCC, and Glibc, though of course there may be some arch-specific packages needed (generally for the boot method).

Indeed. While still in CLFS-2.0, I add m4 (for bison and autoconf, see Ticket #62), texinfo (for sed HTML docs, Ticket #63) and autoconf (for automake).

Well, autoconf can be worked around:

./configure --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET} \
    --prefix=/usr \
    am_cv_autoconf_installed=yes \
    am_cv_autoconf_works=yes \
    am_cv_autoconf_version=2.59

or equivalent config.cache statements.

bash depends on yacc (part of bison)

Flex is needed for kbd

The same as LFS is good to use. There are not special requirements for the other architectures, unless you consider some of the extras we build for Sparc, Elftoaout, MIPS depending on the System. We build it, so it's not a dependency as I see it.

I'll copy the Host Reqs. page from LFS, with a couple minor changes. I'll add a note that the kernel version requirement only applies to builds using the chroot method. Also, I'm not sure how the explanation of building a kernel yourself should work. The book links to the "making the system bootable" chapter, but those instructions are for the *target* system, which of course is not necessarily the same as the host. Should we just keep it like that and hope the user can figure out how the instructions should apply to the host? Or maybe have basic kernel compilation/installation instructions right the host reqs. page?

The part about setting up the bootloader (which LFS says "assuming the host uses GRUB" and has a link to the grub setup page) I think can just replaced with "see the host system documentation on setting up its bootloader."

Fixed in r2615 - Host System Requirements page has been added.