Node:Basic Installation, Next:Compilers and Options, Up:Running configure scripts
These are generic installation instructions.
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 compiler
output (useful mainly 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 file configure.ac (or configure.in) is used to create
configure by a program called autoconf. You only need
configure.ac if you want to change it or regenerate
configure using a newer version of autoconf.
The simplest way to compile this package is:
cd to the directory containing the package's source code and type
./configure to configure the package for your system. If you're
using csh on an old version of System V, you might need to type
sh ./configure instead to prevent csh from trying to
execute configure itself.
Running configure takes awhile. While running, it prints some
messages telling which features it is checking for.
make to compile the package.
make check to run any self-tests that come with
the package.
make install to install the programs and any data files and
documentation.
make clean. To also remove the files
that 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 get all sorts
of other programs in order to regenerate files that came with the
distribution.