The following shell commands:
test -f configure || ./bootstrap ./configure make make install
should configure, build, and install this package. The first line, which bootstraps, is intended for developers; when building from distribution tarballs it does nothing and can be skipped.
The following more-detailed instructions are generic; see the README file for instructions specific to this package. More recommendations for GNU packages can be found in Makefile Conventions in GNU Coding Standards.
Many packages have scripts meant for developers instead of ordinary
builders, as they may use developer tools that are less commonly installed,
or they may access the network, which has privacy implications.
If the bootstrap
shell script exists, it attempts to build the
configure
shell script and related files, possibly
using developer tools or the network. Because the output of
bootstrap
is system-independent, it is normally run by a
package developer so that its output can be put into the distribution
tarball and ordinary builders and users need not run bootstrap
.
Some packages have commands like ./autopull.sh
and
./autogen.sh
that you can run instead of ./bootstrap
,
for more fine-grained control over bootstrapping.
The configure
shell script attempts to guess correct values
for various system-dependent variables used during compilation. It uses
those values to create a Makefile in each directory of the
package. It may also create one or more .h files containing
system-dependent definitions. Finally, it creates a shell script
config.status that you can run in the future to recreate the
current configuration, and a file config.log containing
output useful for debugging configure
.
It can also use an optional file (typically called config.cache and enabled with --cache-file=config.cache or simply -C) that saves the results of its tests to speed up reconfiguring. Caching is disabled by default to prevent problems with accidental use of stale cache files.
If you need to do unusual things to compile the package, please try to
figure out how configure
could check whether to do them, and
mail diffs or instructions to the address given in the README so
they can be considered for the next release. If you are using the
cache, and at some point config.cache contains results you don’t
want to keep, you may remove or edit it.
The autoconf
program generates configure from the file
configure.ac. Normally you should edit configure.ac
instead of editing configure directly.
The simplest way to compile this package is:
cd
to the directory containing the package’s source code.
configure
prints
messages telling which features it is checking for.
configure
created (so you can compile the package for a
different kind of computer), type ‘make distclean’. There is also
a ‘make maintainer-clean’ target, but that is intended mainly for
the package’s developers. If you use it, you may have to bootstrap again.