You should be able to build a CLFS system from just about any Unix-type operating system. Your host system should have the following software with the minimum versions indicated. Also note that many distributions will place software headers into separate packages, often in the form of “[package-name]-devel” or “[package-name]-dev”. Be sure to install those if your distribution provides them.
Bash-2.05a
Binutils-2.12 (Versions greater than 2.19.1 are not recommended as they have not been tested)
Bison-1.26a
Bzip2-1.0.2
Coreutils-5.0 (or Sh-Utils-2.0, Textutils-2.0, and Fileutils-4.1)
Diffutils-2.8
Findutils-4.1.20
Gawk-3.0
Gcc-2.95.3 (Versions greater than 4.4.1 are not recommended as they have not been tested)
EGLIBC-2.2.5 (Versions greater than 2.10.1 are not recommended as they have not been tested)
Grep-2.5
Gzip-1.2.4
Linux 2.6.22
Make-3.79.1
Patch-2.5.4
Sed-3.0.2
Tar-1.14
Texinfo
To see whether your host system has all the appropriate versions, run the following:
cat > version-check.sh << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash
# Simple script to list version numbers of critical development tools
bash --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f2-4
echo -n "Binutils: "; ld --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f3-4
bison --version | head -n1
bzip2 --version 2>&1 < /dev/null | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f1,6-
echo -n "Coreutils: "; chown --version | head -n1 | cut -d")" -f2
diff --version | head -n1
find --version | head -n1
gawk --version | head -n1
gcc --version | head -n1
/lib/libc.so.6 | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f1-7
grep --version | head -n1
gzip --version | head -n1
uname -s -r
make --version | head -n1
patch --version | head -n1
sed --version | head -n1
tar --version | head -n1
EOF
bash version-check.sh