I've stumbled on a make file "Makefile.am" and I tried to use "make -f Makefile.am" on it to no avail. What am I doing wrong?
It's an automake script/makefile. You can learn everything about automake, autoconf, libtool and such through the called autobook.
Basically, the steps would be to run automake, then autoconf, then configure, then make to build the software you have. These steps are neccessary to build the configure script, that automatically search for needed libraries and such on your system.
The process is not easy, unless your software also includes an already generated "configure" file. If so, the only thing you have to do (mostly) is to just run ./configure, then make, then make install to install the software to a default location. If you want to change configure options, you can also look at ./configure --help.
You stumbled upon an automake file, which is used to create a Makefile from the source, in this case Makefile.am.
From http://developer.gnome.org/doc/GGAD/z70.html, they explain it as:
automake processes Makefile.am to produce a standards-compliant Makefile.in. automake does a lot of work for you: it keeps up with dependencies between source files, for example. It creates all the standard targets, such as install and clean. It also creates more complex targets: simply typing make dist creates a standard .tar.gz file if your Makefile.am is correct.
Basically, you should run 'automake' to make the Makefile, and you will probably run into the same situation with the configure script with 'autoconf'.
Automake: http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/
Wikipedia article on automake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automake
If you are trying to compile a 3rd party application from source, there is usually a 'configure' script located at the top of the source tree. If you run ./configure --help from that location, you'll get a list of options you can set. Usually, --prefix is the most common to use.
After running the script, you'll get standard Makefile's generated from the automake files. From there, you can just execute make normally.
Standard build steps for linux packages are:
./configure
make
make install
see "man automake" or google for autotools. likely you'll want to run something like autogen.sh first.
Related
I wanted to compile glibc source code.so I used "make && make install" command but it gave an error that I first need to configure it and I don't know how to configure it.so how to configure that makefile
You need to run the command ./configure first. This will configure the makefile.
However, it would really be helpful first to read the README file that is in whatever package you are trying to make. They will (or should) have examples on how to install the package.
For example, usually ./configure will take options.. like where you want the package installed, or using a specific compiler or library options.
I'm starting to work with llvm infrastructure, and i'm interested in the use of the debugger tool lldb instead of default gdb. I followed the tutorial of installation of clang (Linux System, through svn options) and now wanted to know if is possible to install lldb only, instead of rebuild the whole structure of llvm. I don't found a especific documentation for that and i don't know any especific forum for llvm, so if anyone know some forum of llvm,
Sorry about my english, i'm a brazilian developer.
I actually found the solution yesterday, but was not sure how the policies to answer your own questions work here, but according to this it's allright. :)
In fact, it is quite simple.
First, you must identify the directory 'src-root' of the installation of the tools llvm/clang using the command 'llvm-config':
llvm-config --src-root
Once you find the directory, you must navigate to the path $src-root/tools and checkout the lldb:
svn co http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/lldb/trunk lldb
The next step is go to the build directory, if the steps of the tutorial has been followed, is just necessary to clean the build directory:
rm -rf *
Now, is the step of building the lldb, I personally have used the autoconf options (classical configure make && make install), but cmake can be used as well. When the configure script runs, the binaries of llvm and clang already installed will be detected, avoiding rebuild the whole structure of llvm/clang.
The parameters of the configure script can be changed, I use as follow because I intend to use the llvm libraries:
../llvm/configure --enable-optimized --enable-assertions --enable-shared --enable-targets=host
Then:
make -j4
sudo make install
where -j4 option is the number of threads (jobs) to be created.
Reference: http://www.felixmorgner.ch/en/blog/building-clang-lldb-and-libc-on-ubuntu/
Archlinux.
I downloaded mtools, which includes mcopy, which is what I'm after. The instructions in the INSTALL file say do this:
# ./configure
# make
These worked fine, now I have a bunch of .o files and of course executables.
What do I need to do, so I can just type
# mcopy
and have it run? Since I don't have it "installed" right now, doing that just says
-bash: mcopy: command not found
The usual linux build sequence is
./configure
make
make check
sudo make install
make check attempts to validate if the build took place correctly; not all Makefiles have it but many do. Note you will need sudo make install to do the install in the usual system directories if you are not root.
You can determine which of these options is available for your particular Makefile by
cat Makefile
and reading the labels on the left of the file.
You could create a symbolic link to the application in your /usr/bin folder like
ln -s /fullpath/to/app /usr/bin/aliasnameforapp
Then you can simple call aliasnameforapp from anywhere.
I am newbie of Autotools. From my understanding, one would use the following basic steps to build software using Autotools:
autoreconf --install
./configure
make
However, I noticed that most open source software packages (on Linux) does not need the 1st step. Most of the time they just need step 2 and 3 to build. It seems that they already are packaged with a Makefile.in. I am wondering why? Do they manually code the Makefile.in, or does the software developer use autoreconf to generate the Makefile.in before creating the software package?
The software developer who creates the tarball (or who checks out the sources from a version control system) will usually invoke autoreconf from a script called bootstrap.sh or autogen.sh which may do other stuff. autoreconf might be invoked by Makefile as well (like when configure.ac has changed).
Most users will never need to run autoreconf, even those who are making some modifications to source (e.g. patches). Only those who need to make modifications to the package itself (making changes to configure.ac and/or Makefile.am) will need autoreconf.
Running autoreconf requires having the correct version of autotools installed already. This leads to a chicken-and-egg problem -- how do you get autotools installed in the first place? It also adds an extra dependency that most end-users don't really need.
As a result, most packagers run autoreconf before producing the source tarballs that they distribute. This means that if you download such a tarball, you can configure and build it without needing to install autotools first.
I want to run 'make install' so I have everything I need, but I'd like it to install the things in their own folder as opposed to the system's /usr/bin etc. is that possible? even if it references tools in the /usr/bin etc.?
It depends on the package. If the Makefile is generated by GNU autotools (./configure) you can usually set the target location like so:
./configure --prefix=/somewhere/else/than/usr/local
If the Makefile is not generated by autotools, but distributed along with the software, simply open it up in an editor and change it. The install target directory is probably defined in a variable somewhere.
Since don't know which version of automake you can use DESTDIR environment variable.
See Makefile to be sure.
For example:
export DESTDIR="$HOME/Software/LocalInstall" && make -j4 install
make DESTDIR=./new/customized/path install
This quick command worked for me for opencv release 3.2.0 installation on Ubuntu 16. DESTDIR path can be relative as well as absolute.
Such redirection can also be useful in case user does not have admin privileges as long as DESTDIR location has right access for the user. e.g /home//
It could be dependent upon what is supported by the module you are trying to compile. If your makefile is generated by using autotools, use:
--prefix=<myinstalldir>
when running the ./configure
some packages allow you to also override when running:
make prefix=<myinstalldir>
however, if your not using ./configure, only way to know for sure is to open up the makefile and check. It should be one of the first few variables at the top.
If the package provides a Makefile.PL - one can use:
perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/home/my/local/lib LIB=/home/my/local/lib
make
make test
make install
* further explanation: https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=564720
I tried the above solutions. None worked.
In the end I opened Makefile file and manually changed prefix path to desired installation path like below.
PREFIX ?= "installation path"
When I tried --prefix, "make" complained that there is not such command input. However, perhaps some packages accepts --prefix which is of course a cleaner solution.
try using INSTALL_ROOT.
make install INSTALL_ROOT=$INSTALL_DIRECTORY