1 Installation Instructions
2 *************************
4 Copyright (C) 1994-1996, 1999-2002, 2004-2013 Free Software Foundation,
7 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
8 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
9 notice and this notice are preserved. This file is offered as-is,
10 without warranty of any kind.
15 Briefly, the shell command './configure && make && make install' should
16 configure, build, and install this package. The following more-detailed
17 instructions are generic; see the 'README' file for instructions
18 specific to this package. Some packages provide this 'INSTALL' file but
19 do not implement all of the features documented below. The lack of an
20 optional feature in a given package is not necessarily a bug. More
21 recommendations for GNU packages can be found in *note Makefile
22 Conventions: (standards)Makefile Conventions.
24 The 'configure' shell script attempts to guess correct values for
25 various system-dependent variables used during compilation. It uses
26 those values to create a 'Makefile' in each directory of the package.
27 It may also create one or more '.h' files containing system-dependent
28 definitions. Finally, it creates a shell script 'config.status' that
29 you can run in the future to recreate the current configuration, and a
30 file 'config.log' containing compiler output (useful mainly for
31 debugging 'configure').
33 It can also use an optional file (typically called 'config.cache' and
34 enabled with '--cache-file=config.cache' or simply '-C') that saves the
35 results of its tests to speed up reconfiguring. Caching is disabled by
36 default to prevent problems with accidental use of stale cache files.
38 If you need to do unusual things to compile the package, please try
39 to figure out how 'configure' could check whether to do them, and mail
40 diffs or instructions to the address given in the 'README' so they can
41 be considered for the next release. If you are using the cache, and at
42 some point 'config.cache' contains results you don't want to keep, you
43 may remove or edit it.
45 The file 'configure.ac' (or 'configure.in') is used to create
46 'configure' by a program called 'autoconf'. You need 'configure.ac' if
47 you want to change it or regenerate 'configure' using a newer version of
50 The simplest way to compile this package is:
52 1. 'cd' to the directory containing the package's source code and type
53 './configure' to configure the package for your system.
55 Running 'configure' might take a while. While running, it prints
56 some messages telling which features it is checking for.
58 2. Type 'make' to compile the package.
60 3. Optionally, type 'make check' to run any self-tests that come with
61 the package, generally using the just-built uninstalled binaries.
63 4. Type 'make install' to install the programs and any data files and
64 documentation. When installing into a prefix owned by root, it is
65 recommended that the package be configured and built as a regular
66 user, and only the 'make install' phase executed with root
69 5. Optionally, type 'make installcheck' to repeat any self-tests, but
70 this time using the binaries in their final installed location.
71 This target does not install anything. Running this target as a
72 regular user, particularly if the prior 'make install' required
73 root privileges, verifies that the installation completed
76 6. You can remove the program binaries and object files from the
77 source code directory by typing 'make clean'. To also remove the
78 files that 'configure' created (so you can compile the package for
79 a different kind of computer), type 'make distclean'. There is
80 also a 'make maintainer-clean' target, but that is intended mainly
81 for the package's developers. If you use it, you may have to get
82 all sorts of other programs in order to regenerate files that came
83 with the distribution.
85 7. Often, you can also type 'make uninstall' to remove the installed
86 files again. In practice, not all packages have tested that
87 uninstallation works correctly, even though it is required by the
90 8. Some packages, particularly those that use Automake, provide 'make
91 distcheck', which can by used by developers to test that all other
92 targets like 'make install' and 'make uninstall' work correctly.
93 This target is generally not run by end users.
98 Some systems require unusual options for compilation or linking that the
99 'configure' script does not know about. Run './configure --help' for
100 details on some of the pertinent environment variables.
102 You can give 'configure' initial values for configuration parameters
103 by setting variables in the command line or in the environment. Here is
106 ./configure CC=c99 CFLAGS=-g LIBS=-lposix
108 *Note Defining Variables::, for more details.
113 By default, 'make install' installs the package's commands under
114 '/usr/local/bin', include files under '/usr/local/include', etc. You
115 can specify an installation prefix other than '/usr/local' by giving
116 'configure' the option '--prefix=PREFIX', where PREFIX must be an
119 You can specify separate installation prefixes for
120 architecture-specific files and architecture-independent files. If you
121 pass the option '--exec-prefix=PREFIX' to 'configure', the package uses
122 PREFIX as the prefix for installing programs and libraries.
123 Documentation and other data files still use the regular prefix.
125 In addition, if you use an unusual directory layout you can give
126 options like '--bindir=DIR' to specify different values for particular
127 kinds of files. Run 'configure --help' for a list of the directories
128 you can set and what kinds of files go in them. In general, the default
129 for these options is expressed in terms of '${prefix}', so that
130 specifying just '--prefix' will affect all of the other directory
131 specifications that were not explicitly provided.
133 The most portable way to affect installation locations is to pass the
134 correct locations to 'configure'; however, many packages provide one or
135 both of the following shortcuts of passing variable assignments to the
136 'make install' command line to change installation locations without
137 having to reconfigure or recompile.
139 The first method involves providing an override variable for each
140 affected directory. For example, 'make install
141 prefix=/alternate/directory' will choose an alternate location for all
142 directory configuration variables that were expressed in terms of
143 '${prefix}'. Any directories that were specified during 'configure',
144 but not in terms of '${prefix}', must each be overridden at install time
145 for the entire installation to be relocated. The approach of makefile
146 variable overrides for each directory variable is required by the GNU
147 Coding Standards, and ideally causes no recompilation. However, some
148 platforms have known limitations with the semantics of shared libraries
149 that end up requiring recompilation when using this method, particularly
150 noticeable in packages that use GNU Libtool.
152 The second method involves providing the 'DESTDIR' variable. For
153 example, 'make install DESTDIR=/alternate/directory' will prepend
154 '/alternate/directory' before all installation names. The approach of
155 'DESTDIR' overrides is not required by the GNU Coding Standards, and
156 does not work on platforms that have drive letters. On the other hand,
157 it does better at avoiding recompilation issues, and works well even
158 when some directory options were not specified in terms of '${prefix}'
164 If the package supports it, you can cause programs to be installed with
165 an extra prefix or suffix on their names by giving 'configure' the
166 option '--program-prefix=PREFIX' or '--program-suffix=SUFFIX'.
168 Some packages pay attention to '--enable-FEATURE' options to
169 'configure', where FEATURE indicates an optional part of the package.
170 They may also pay attention to '--with-PACKAGE' options, where PACKAGE
171 is something like 'gnu-as' or 'x' (for the X Window System). The
172 'README' should mention any '--enable-' and '--with-' options that the
175 For packages that use the X Window System, 'configure' can usually
176 find the X include and library files automatically, but if it doesn't,
177 you can use the 'configure' options '--x-includes=DIR' and
178 '--x-libraries=DIR' to specify their locations.
180 Some packages offer the ability to configure how verbose the
181 execution of 'make' will be. For these packages, running './configure
182 --enable-silent-rules' sets the default to minimal output, which can be
183 overridden with 'make V=1'; while running './configure
184 --disable-silent-rules' sets the default to verbose, which can be
185 overridden with 'make V=0'.
187 Specifying the System Type
188 ==========================
190 There may be some features 'configure' cannot figure out automatically,
191 but needs to determine by the type of machine the package will run on.
192 Usually, assuming the package is built to be run on the _same_
193 architectures, 'configure' can figure that out, but if it prints a
194 message saying it cannot guess the machine type, give it the
195 '--build=TYPE' option. TYPE can either be a short name for the system
196 type, such as 'sun4', or a canonical name which has the form:
200 where SYSTEM can have one of these forms:
205 See the file 'config.sub' for the possible values of each field. If
206 'config.sub' isn't included in this package, then this package doesn't
207 need to know the machine type.
209 If you are _building_ compiler tools for cross-compiling, you should
210 use the option '--target=TYPE' to select the type of system they will
213 If you want to _use_ a cross compiler, that generates code for a
214 platform different from the build platform, you should specify the
215 "host" platform (i.e., that on which the generated programs will
216 eventually be run) with '--host=TYPE'.
221 If you want to set default values for 'configure' scripts to share, you
222 can create a site shell script called 'config.site' that gives default
223 values for variables like 'CC', 'cache_file', and 'prefix'. 'configure'
224 looks for 'PREFIX/share/config.site' if it exists, then
225 'PREFIX/etc/config.site' if it exists. Or, you can set the
226 'CONFIG_SITE' environment variable to the location of the site script.
227 A warning: not all 'configure' scripts look for a site script.
232 Variables not defined in a site shell script can be set in the
233 environment passed to 'configure'. However, some packages may run
234 configure again during the build, and the customized values of these
235 variables may be lost. In order to avoid this problem, you should set
236 them in the 'configure' command line, using 'VAR=value'. For example:
238 ./configure CC=/usr/local2/bin/gcc
240 causes the specified 'gcc' to be used as the C compiler (unless it is
241 overridden in the site shell script).
243 Unfortunately, this technique does not work for 'CONFIG_SHELL' due to an
244 Autoconf limitation. Until the limitation is lifted, you can use this
247 CONFIG_SHELL=/bin/bash ./configure CONFIG_SHELL=/bin/bash
249 'configure' Invocation
250 ======================
252 'configure' recognizes the following options to control how it operates.
256 Print a summary of all of the options to 'configure', and exit.
260 Print a summary of the options unique to this package's
261 'configure', and exit. The 'short' variant lists options used only
262 in the top level, while the 'recursive' variant lists options also
263 present in any nested packages.
267 Print the version of Autoconf used to generate the 'configure'
271 Enable the cache: use and save the results of the tests in FILE,
272 traditionally 'config.cache'. FILE defaults to '/dev/null' to
277 Alias for '--cache-file=config.cache'.
282 Do not print messages saying which checks are being made. To
283 suppress all normal output, redirect it to '/dev/null' (any error
284 messages will still be shown).
287 Look for the package's source code in directory DIR. Usually
288 'configure' can determine that directory automatically.
291 Use DIR as the installation prefix. *note Installation Names:: for
292 more details, including other options available for fine-tuning the
293 installation locations.
297 Run the configure checks, but stop before creating any output
300 'configure' also accepts some other, not widely useful, options. Run
301 'configure --help' for more details.