Throughout this book, the environment variable CLFS will be used several times. You should ensure
that this variable is always defined throughout the CLFS build
process. It should be set to the name of the directory where you will
be building your CLFS system - we will use /mnt/clfs as an example, but the directory choice
is up to you. If you are building CLFS on a separate partition, this
directory will be the mount point for the partition. Choose a
directory location and set the variable with the following command:
export CLFS=/mnt/clfs
Having this variable set is beneficial in that commands such as install -dv ${CLFS}/tools can be typed literally. The shell will automatically replace “${CLFS}” with “/mnt/clfs” (or whatever the variable was set to) when it processes the command line.
Do not forget to check that ${CLFS} is set
whenever you leave and reenter the current working environment (such
as when doing a su to
root or another user). Check that the
CLFS variable is set up properly with:
echo ${CLFS}
Make sure the output shows the path to your CLFS system's build
location, which is /mnt/clfs if the
provided example was followed. If the output is incorrect, use the
command given earlier on this page to set ${CLFS} to the correct directory name.