11.5.1. Deciding what to do next
Now that LFS is complete and you have a bootable system, what do you do? The next step is to decide how to use it. Generally, there are two broad categories to consider: workstation or server. Indeed, these categories are not mutually exclusive. The applications needed for each category can be combined onto a single system, but let's look at them separately for now.
A server is the simpler category. Generally this consists of a web server such as the Apache HTTP Server and a database server such as MariaDB. However other services are possible. The operating system embedded in a single use device falls into this category.
On the other hand, a workstation is much more complex. It generally requires a graphical user environment such as LXDE, XFCE, KDE, or Gnome based on a basic graphical environment and several graphical based applications such as the Firefox web browser, Thunderbird email client, or LibreOffice office suite. These applications require many (several hundred depending on desired capabilities) more packages of support applications and libraries.
In addition to the above, there is a set of applications for system management for all kinds of systems. These applications are all in the BLFS book. Not all packages are needed in every environments. For example dhcpcd, is not normally appropriate for a server and wireless_tools, are normally only useful for a laptop system.
11.5.2. Working in a basic LFS environment
When you initially boot into LFS, you have all the internal tools to build additional packages. Unfortunately, the user environment is quite sparse. There are a couple of ways to improve this:
11.5.2.1. Work remotely via ssh
This method also provides a full graphical environment, but first requires installing sshd on the LFS system, usually in the LFS command line. It also requires a second computer.
You may use the scp command to upload the package sources to be built onto the LFS system. If you want to download the sources onto the LFS system directly instead, install libtasn1, p11-kit, make-ca, and wget in chroot (or upload their sources using scp after booting the LFS system).
11.5.2.2. Work from the LFS command line
This method requires installing libtasn1, p11-kit, make-ca, wget, gpm, and links (or lynx) after rebooting into the new LFS system. You may need a removable stroage device to copy these packages into the target system. At this point the default system has six virtual consoles. Switching consoles is as easy as using the Alt+Fx key combinations where Fx is between F1 and F6. The Alt+← and Alt+→ combinations also will change the console.
At this point you can log into two different virtual consoles and run the links or lynx browser in one console and bash in the other. GPM then allows copying commands from the browser with the left mouse button, switching consoles, and pasting into the other console.
![[Note]](../images/note.png)
Note
As a side note, switching of virtual consoles can also be done from an X Window instance with the Ctrl+Alt+Fx key combination, but the mouse copy operation does not work between the graphical interface and a virtual console. You can return to the X Window display with the Ctrl+Alt+Fx combination, where Fx is usually F1 but may be F7.