excuse the noobishness, i'm wondering if in blfs the non-root user that is unpacking and patching makefiles, etc., gets write privleges to the /usr/src directory. i kinda thought that root owned everything but the tmp and home directories, and i doubt /usr/src gets the same permissions as $LFS/sources, a+wt, but i dunno...
or is the non-root user added to a group that has the permissions, i.e., write access to /usr/src? or something else entirely? in bhlfs a non-root user named builder is to be created, but the commands to do so are missing...

thanks.

It's up to you what permissions you set, it's your system. My policy is that users can write in their home folder and /tmp and nowhere else. I untar and compile packages on my gnome desktop and as I don't need a /usr/src folder, I don't create one. YMMV

roger that, usually i just build in my home directory, however i was (am) trying to do it as the blfs book instructs, with the sources in /usr/src and the default install directory as /usr.

good to hear i wasn't way off base with the /home and /tmp directory conjectures, thanks for clearing that up for me....