# Introduction

This chapter shows how to compile and install a minimal Linux system. This system will contain just enough tools to start constructing the final CLFS system in chapter-building-system and allow a working environment with more user convenience than a minimum environment would.

The tools in this chapter are cross-compiled using the toolchain in `/cross-tools` and will be installed under the `${CLFS}/tools` directory to keep them separate from the files installed in chapter-building-system and the host production directories. Since the packages compiled here are temporary, we do not want them to pollute the soon-to-be CLFS system.

Check one last time that the `CLFS` environment variable is set up properly:

    echo ${CLFS}

Make sure the output shows the path to the CLFS partition's mount point, which is `/mnt/clfs`, using our example.

During this section of the build you will see several WARNING messages like the one below. It is safe to ignore these messages.

    configure: WARNING: If you wanted to set the --build type, don't use --host.
        If a cross compiler is detected then cross compile mode will be used.