5.7. Installing Fileutils

5.7.1. Installation of Fileutils

Install Fileutils by running the following commands:


./configure --disable-nls \
--prefix=$LFS/usr --libexecdir=$LFS/bin --bindir=$LFS/bin &&
make LDFLAGS=-static &&
make install &&
cd $LFS/usr/bin &&
ln -s ../../bin/install

5.7.2. Command explanations

--libexecdir=$LFS/bin: This configure option will set the program executable directory to $LFS/bin. This is normally set to /usr/libexec, but nothing is placed in it. Changing it just prevents that directory from being created.

5.7.3. Contents

The Fileutils package contains the chgrp, chmod, chown, cp, dd, df, dir, dircolors, du, install, ln, ls, mkdir, mkfifo, mknod, mv, rm, rmdir, sync, touch and vdir programs.

5.7.4. Description

5.7.4.1. chgrp

chgrp changes the group ownership of each given file to the named group, which can be either a group name or a numeric group ID.

5.7.4.2. chmod

chmod changes the permissions of each given file according to mode, which can be either a symbolic representation of changes to make, or an octal number representing the bit pattern for the new permissions.

5.7.4.3. chown

chown changes the user and/or group ownership of each given file.

5.7.4.4. cp

cp copies files from one place to another.

5.7.4.5. dd

dd copies a file (from the standard input to the standard output, by default) with a user-selectable blocksize, while optionally performing conversions on it.

5.7.4.6. df

df displays the amount of disk space available on the filesystem containing each file name argument. If no file name is given, the space available on all currently mounted filesystems is shown.

5.7.4.7. ls, dir and vdir

dir and vdir are versions of ls with different default output formats. These programs list each given file or directory name. Directory contents are sorted alphabetically. For ls, files are by default listed in columns, sorted vertically, if the standard output is a terminal; otherwise they are listed one per line. For dir, files are by default listed in columns, sorted vertically. For vdir, files are by default listed in long format.

5.7.4.8. dircolors

dircolors outputs commands to set the LS_COLOR environment variable. The LS_COLOR variable is use to change the default color scheme used by ls and related utilities.

5.7.4.9. du

du displays the amount of disk space used by each argument and for each subdirectory of directory arguments.

5.7.4.10. install

install copies files and sets their permission modes and, if possible, their owner and group.

5.7.4.11. ln

ln makes hard or soft (symbolic) links between files.

5.7.4.12. mkdir

mkdir creates directories with a given name.

5.7.4.13. mkfifo

mkfifo creates a FIFO with each given name.

5.7.4.14. mknod

mknod creates a FIFO, character special file, or block special file with the given file name.

5.7.4.15. mv

mv moves files from one directory to another or renames files, depending on the arguments given to mv.

5.7.4.16. rm

rm removes files or directories.

5.7.4.17. rmdir

rmdir removes directories, if they are empty.

5.7.4.18. shred

shred deletes a file securely, overwriting it first so that its contents can't be recovered.

5.7.4.19. sync

sync forces changed blocks to disk and updates the super block.

5.7.4.20. touch

touch changes the access and modification times of each given file to the current time. Files that do not exist are created empty.