TITLE:		After LFS
LFS VERSION:	2.4.4+
AUTHOR:		Max Schattauer <smax@smaximum.de>

SYNOPSIS:
	What to do next when you finished the LFS-Book
        
HINT:
HINT		ver 1.3 13/02/2001

	THIS HINT IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING WRITTEN. IT IS NOT COMPLETE.
	IF YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS, CORRECTIONS AND OTHER COMMENTS FEEL FREE
	TO MAIL THEM TO ME.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
=================


1. Introduction
2. Sources of Help
3. Setting up a workstation 
4. Setting up a server 


1. Introduction
===============

So Far, so Good...

Here we are in confusion, your LFS system is booting and you see the login 
prompt (if not, you maybe should consult some other docs ;) ). Now you are
probably asking what to do next. If this is your first contact with linux, you
should read the newbie hint. It covers the absolute linux basics, so I skip them
here. What we will cover here are general hints on what is needed to actually 
GET WORK DONE with your system.

What now?

The next steps depend on what you plan to do with your new system. Depending on
wether you intend your system to act as a server or a workstation, you'll
probably want to install X or not, or you want to install additional hardware. 
Maybe you wanted to switch from Windows to Linux and don't know which software
is needed to work on the same way.

2. Sources of Help
==================

For general Linux-related material there are a lot of good information sites,
http://www.linuxdoc.org being the first. For more LFS-specific help there are
the sources described here.

2.1 The Hint files

    The hints are probably the best starting point for a certain problem. Since 
    they deal with problems on LFS-machines, you might have a good chance that 
    exactly your problem is described here. By the way, if you solve a problem 
    on your own, feel free to write one, too 8).

2.2 Searching Mailinglist

    Next there is the Mailinglist. It is full with problems and solutions on 
    even the oddest topic, but, by its nature, not sorted. The best thing to is 
    to use the search-engine on the LFS-site. I myself solved many problems that
    way, so give it a shot.

2.3 Filling the Mailinglist

    If you don't find anything, write a mail to the mailinglist. There are a 
    lot of people who most certainly can help you with your troubles, but please
    remember that these people do not want to answer the same questions all the 
    time, so please have a look if your problem has not been discussed before.

2.4 The IRC

    There is an irc-server running at irc.linuxfromscratch.org, channel #lfs. 
    Feel free to join. Well, lfs is not the topic all the time, but you might 
    want to give it a try. 


3. Setting up a workstation
===========================

3.1 The mouse
=============

Some people are in dFire need of the mouse, even before they run X. "Real men 
use the keyboard!" (Just read somewhere in a mailinglist =) ). The tool you want
to go for is called gpm and is described in the gpm-hint.

3.2 X
=====

If you want to use your box as workstation for tasks like reading/writing mail, 
chatting, playing mp3s you probably want to get a graphical user interface, gui.
The gui is an add-on for the console, but it doesn't replace it, keep that in 
mind. On Unix systems, there is the X-Window-system. Here is a difference to 
what you might be used from windows. The Unix gui consists of two parts, the 
X-server itself and some sort of Window-manager/Desktop-Environment.  

3.3 Window managers / Desktop Environments
==========================================

Follow the X11 hint on how to compile the X server on your system. Then deceide 
which window-manager you want to use. X11 comes with twm, which is probably not 
what you think a gui was ;). So you probably want a windowmanager that offers a 
little more options. KDE2 and Gnome are pretty popular desktop environments, or,
if you are low on system resources, you might want want to try xfce or 
Window Maker, which are smaller but yet useful and fast. 
Finally, if you want the multimedia overkill, try out enlightenment which makes
the whole screen dance, but consumes more system resources and needs several
libraries.
There a whole lot more, and it's merely a matter of what suits you better. 

All those can be found at the respective .org or at freshmeat.net

3.4 Applications
================

So now whe have that done, we have a fully functional gui. Nice, isn't it? Next 
we need some Applications. The Desktop Environments already come with a bunch of
those along the way, but lets have a look at it anyway. 

Editors
=======

vi gets REAL fast when you know more than 50 commands. If that's nothing for you
try out, FTE, joe or ZED. There are countless others. 

Browsers
========

That might be a major issue. In my opinion, Microsoft has a an advantage 
here, Linux is somewhat lacking a killer-browser, but let's discuss that at 
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/199/. So let's go with Netscape for the 
moment, since Mozilla is really too bloated right now. I'll stick to the 
4.74 version, still available at www.netscape.com. Watch the netscape-hint, and 
you shouldn't have troubles. When you come from windows, it will probably be 
familiar to you.

Mail
====

Netscape comes with a mail-client, but there are better methods of managing mail
out there. Pine widely used console driven mailer, for X there is balsa for 
example. See the Mail-hint for further information. 

XMMS
====

Yeah, we need some sort of playback device, don't we? Luckily there is a clone 
to a program you will most certainly be familiar with, the X-Multimedia system. 
Get it from www.xmms.org. It works pretty much like it's windows-pendant, you 
can even use the windows-skins. 

IRC
===

Chatting, hum?. No problem. There are two popular IRC-clients, xchat 
(www.xchat.org) and bitchX (www.bitchx.org). Also, if you like the command line,
try irssi (irssi.org). ircII is there too, but that's a bit more complicated
in use.

Burning CDs
===========

For CD-Toasting look for cdrtools and its frontend, gcombust. These are
probably the best tools.

3.5 Library Trouble
===================

Here comes the pain. Setting up libraries and programs depending on these is a 
major worry for people who come from windows. Especially those graphic utilities
need a lot of libs that have to be installed and set up correctly or they 
cowardly refuse to compile. Even more, those major graphic libs (imlib, for 
instance) depend on a bunch of others. You could go for binaries if nothing else
helps, but that's not the LFS-spirit ;).

When adding new libs to your system you probably have to edit a lot of
makefiles, adjust symlinks etc. What makes it even more difficult ist the fact 
that every lib is installed differently. 

One good advice might be to set up your include directories correctly. If some 
package complains about a missing file, just try to go searching for it and 
adjust your include paths.

For example, take X11. Since there was a namechange from X11 to X11R6, you might
have to set up the symlink 

  ln -s /usr/src/X11R6/include/X11 /usr/src/include/X11
  
for some tools.

Also, for some apps you have to edit the Makefile and add 
  
  -I/usr/X11R6/include

to the compiler-flags (CFLAGS). This really depends. 

Other libs need the --enable-shared flag added to the ./configure, so that the
shared part of them is also build correctly (libjpeg, for instance)

>> Anybody got some comments on this? I'm having trouble here and there myself.


4. Setting up a server
======================

So you want your system to act as a server. When saying server here I'm 
referring not to those software server tasks but to those machines that are not 
intended to have people actually working on them. (cruel phrase, I know, my 
english is a bit rusty ;) )

So your server should probably be connected to some sort of network, otherwise
it would make little sense setting up one. Basic networking is set up in the 
LFS-Book, so we can skip that here. What we need next is Internet-Connection.

Dial-in Server
==============

>> Don't wanna brag 'bout my isdn hint :). is there a modem hint? Never had one
>> so I don't know if one is needed =)

Maybe you want to set up your box in a way that it forwards packages to servers
running on other servers in your LAN. Basically, go for the Masquerading hint.
The PPP hint might also be of interest.

Mail Server
===========

Very common mail servers include Sendmail, but this one is a little heavy in
configuration. Maybe POSTFIX is a little easier to configure. See the Mail-Hint
for further information.

Web-Server (HTTP)
=================

Apache is pretty popular. Read the Apache hint.

FTP-Server
==========

Read the Ftp-hint.

SSH-Server
==========

Ssh is used to remotely log into your server. Useful when you ant to administer
your server from another box. See Openssh hint.

NFS-Server
==========

Networking file systems are used to use remote file-systems as if they were on
your machine. Read NFS-server-hint.

>> I'm gonna finish this what-server-to-use-for-what-task when I get my exams 
>> done. :)

Well, this is just a quick overview of what you might want to do when you got
your box running. There's a whole lot more out there, and really goes beyond
the scope of this hint. I hope you found this little hint useful, if you have 
any comments, additions, corrections please mail them to me.


Thanks
======

Thanks on creating this hint apply to the following people

Gerard
Shine <shine@shinewelt.de>
Zertox <zertox@zertox.com>
joe
chemical
The people from #LFS and #Unix
The people supporting the mailinglist
