Hank,
One might think there is a standard way to do this, but my experience is that there can be a lot of variation between different packages.
The ideal setup is that the package uses the GNU auto-configure and make tools, which has steps is similar to what you mention:
1 - Download the software
2 - extract (unzip, untar, etc.) in a directory where you will install from
3 - look for a README or INSTALL file with any instructions
4 - run ./configure --help to see available options
5 - run ./configure with any appropriate options (--prefix is the option is use most commonly)
6 - investigate and fix any problems reported by the configure script
7 - run make to build the code
8 - if the documentation mentions tests, run "make test" to run the tests
9 - run "make install" to actually install the program
10 - refer to documentation for any other steps like environment variables to be setup, etc.
Unfortunately, I occasionally run into packages with variations on these steps, or where the configure or make steps fail.
I'm out this afternoon, but next week I'll take a look at this specific package and see how closely it conforms to the "standard" instructions.
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: Research Computing Support [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hank Stevens
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 9:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: tutorial on make, install, configure etc.
Hi folks (and Dennis),
I need to install (?) a small function on my system (unix on a Mac) called detex. There is an older version already there, and I would like to install the latest from Google Source Code (opendetex).
I occasionally have to do this sort of thing for other small applications, and I was wondering if anyone could explain ( short tutorial ) the typical steps to install, make, etc. for a tarball'd source code file. I attached the archive I want to install today, which I got from Google code.
I found the following code for installing PHP, and I am thinking it is close to what I need (minus the PHP and apache stuff). It would be great if someone code trim this down, and provide **comments or explanations for what each step is doing** that apply generally -- or a link to a pre-made tutorial would be great.
Steps
1. gunzip apache_1.3.x.tar.gz
2. tar xvf apache_1.3.x.tar
3. gunzip php-x.x.x.tar.gz
4. tar xvf php-x.x.x.tar
5. cd apache_1.3.x
6. ./configure --prefix=/www
7. cd ../php-x.x.x
8. ./configure --with-mysql --with-apache=../apache_1.3.x --enable- track-vars 9. make 10. make install 11. cd ../apache_1.3.x 12. ./configure --activate-module=src/modules/php4/libphp4.a
13. make
14. make install
15. cd ../php-x.x.x
16. cp php.ini-dist /usr/local/lib/php.ini 17. Edit your httpd.conf or srm.conf file and add:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
18. Use your normal procedure for restarting the Apache server. (You must
stop and restart the server, not just cause the server to reload by
use a HUP or USR1 signal.)
Thanks,
Hank
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