Chapter 12. Building and Installing Free Software

Introduction
Requirements
Compilation
Structure of a distribution
Decompression
A tar.gz archive
The use of GNU Tar
Bzip2
Just do it!
Configuration
Autoconf
Imake
Various shell scripts
Alternatives
Compilation
Make
Rules
Go, go, go!
Explanations
What if... it does not work?
Installation
With Make
Problems
Support
Documentation
Technical support
How to find free software
Acknowledgments

Abstract

We are often asked how to install free software from sources. Compiling software yourself is really easy because most of the steps to follow are the same no matter what the software to install is. The aim of this document is to guide the beginner step by step and explain to him the meaning of each move. We assume that the reader has a minimal knowledge of the UNIX system (ls or mkdir for instance).

This guide is only a guide, not a reference manual. That is why several links are given at the end to answer any remaining questions. This guide can probably be improved, so we appreciate receiving any remarks or corrections on its contents.