diff --git a/chapter04/creatingminlayout.xml b/chapter04/creatingminlayout.xml
index d4bfe9af1..96f0c591a 100644
--- a/chapter04/creatingminlayout.xml
+++ b/chapter04/creatingminlayout.xml
@@ -18,6 +18,15 @@
   location. We do this so those temporary programs will be overwritten when
   the final versions are built in <xref linkend="chapter-building-system"/>.</para>
 
+  <para>At first, set the owner and permission mode of the
+  <filename class='directory'>$LFS</filename> directory (i.e. the root
+  directory in the newly created file system for the LFS system) to
+  &root; and <literal>755</literal> in case the host distro has been
+  configured to use a different default for <command>mkfs</command>:</para>
+
+<screen><userinput>chown root:root $LFS
+chmod 755 $LFS</userinput></screen>
+
   <para>Create the required directory layout by issuing the following commands as
   <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem>:</para>