1 GNU Emacs Installation Guide
2 Copyright (c) 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2001 Free software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end of the file for copying permissions.
8 The simplest way to build Emacs is to use the `configure' shell script
9 which attempts to guess correct values for various system-dependent
10 variables and features and find the directories where various system
11 headers and libraries are kept. It then creates a `Makefile' in each
12 subdirectory and a `config.h' file containing system-dependent
13 definitions. Running the `make' utility then builds the package for
16 Here's the procedure to build Emacs using `configure' on systems which
17 are supported by it. If this simplified procedure fails, or if you
18 are using a platform such as MS-Windows, where `configure' script
19 doesn't work, you might need to use various non-default options, and
20 maybe perform some of the steps manually. The more detailed
21 description in the rest of the sections of this guide will help you do
22 that, so please refer to them if the simple procedure does not work.
24 1. Make sure your system has at least 120 MB of free disk space.
26 2a. `cd' to the directory where you unpacked Emacs and invoke the
31 2b. Alternatively, create a separate directory, outside the source
32 directory, where you want to build Emacs, and invoke `configure'
37 where SOURCE-DIR is the top-level Emacs source directory. This
38 may not work unless you use GNU make.
40 3. When `configure' finishes, it prints several lines of details
41 about the system configuration. Read those details carefully
42 looking for anything suspicious, such as wrong CPU and operating
43 system names, wrong places for headers or libraries, missing
44 libraries that you know are installed on your system, etc.
46 If you find anything wrong, you will have to pass to `configure'
47 explicit machine configuration name, and one or more options
48 which tell it where to find various headers and libraries; refer
49 to DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION section below.
51 If `configure' didn't find some image support libraries, such as
52 Xpm, jpeg, etc., and you want to use them refer to the subsection
53 "Image support libraries", below.
55 If the details printed by `configure' don't make any sense to
56 you, assume that `configure' did its job and proceed.
58 4. If you need to run the `configure' script more than once (e.g.,
59 with some non-default options), always clean the source
60 directories before running `configure' again:
65 5. Invoke the `make' program:
69 6. If `make' succeeds, it will build an executable program `emacs'
70 in the `src' directory. You can try this program, to make sure
75 7. Assuming that the program `src/emacs' starts and displays its
76 opening screen, you can install the program and its auxiliary
77 files into their installation directories:
81 You are now ready to use Emacs. If you wish to conserve disk space,
82 you may remove the program binaries and object files from the
83 directory where you built Emacs:
87 You can also save some space by compressing (with `gzip') Info files
88 and installed Lisp source (.el) files which have corresponding .elc
92 ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES
94 * intlfonts-VERSION.tar.gz
96 The intlfonts distribution contains X11 fonts that Emacs needs in
97 order to display international characters. If you see a non-ASCII
98 character appear as a hollow box, that means you don't have a font for
99 it. You might find a font in the intlfonts distribution. If you do
100 have a font for a non-ASCII character, but some characters don't look
101 right, or appear improperly aligned, a font from the intlfonts
102 distribution might look better.
104 The fonts in the intlfonts distribution are also used by the ps-print
105 package for printing international characters. The file
106 lisp/ps-mule.el defines the *.bdf font files required for printing
109 The intlfonts distribution contains its own installation instructions,
110 in the intlfonts/README file.
112 * Image support libraries
114 Emacs needs optional libraries to be able to display images (with the
115 exception of PBM and XBM images whose support is built-in).
117 On some systems, particularly on GNU/Linux, these libraries may
118 already be present or available as additional packages. Note that if
119 there is a separate `dev' or `devel' package, for use at compilation
120 time rather than run time, you will need that as well as the
121 corresponding run time package; typically the dev package will
122 contain header files and a library archive. Otherwise, you can
123 download and build libraries from sources. None of them are vital for
124 running Emacs; however, note that Emacs will not be able to use
125 colored icons in the toolbar if XPM support is not compiled in.
127 Here's the list of these optional libraries, and the URLs where they
130 . libXaw3d for fancy 3D-style
131 scroll bars: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/widgets/Xaw3d/
132 . libxpm for XPM: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/libraries/
133 Get version 3.4k or later, which lets Emacs
134 use its own color allocation functions.
135 . libpng for PNG: ftp://www.libpng.org/pub/png/
136 . libz (for PNG): http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/zlib/
137 . libjpeg for JPEG: ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/
138 Get version 6b -- 6a is reported to fail in
140 . libtiff for TIFF: http://www.libtiff.org/
142 http://prtr-13.ucsc.edu/~badger/software/libungif/index.shtml
143 Ensure you get version 4.1.0b1 or higher of libungif -- a bug in
144 4.1.0 can crash Emacs.
146 Emacs will configure itself to build with these libraries if the
147 `configure' script finds them on your system, unless you supply the
148 appropriate --without-LIB option. In some cases, older versions of
149 these libraries won't work because some routines are missing, and
150 configure should avoid such old versions. If that happens, use the
151 --without-LIB options to `configure'. See below for more details.
155 To take proper advantage of Emacs 21's mule-unicode charsets, you need
156 a Unicode font. For information on Unicode fonts for X, see
157 <URL:http://czyborra.com/unifont/>,
158 <URL:http://openlab.ring.gr.jp/efont/> and
159 <URL:http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Emgk25/ucs-fonts.html>.
160 <URL:http://czyborra.com/charsets/> has basic fonts for Emacs's
163 XFree86 release 4 (from <URL:ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/> and mirrors)
164 contains font support for most, if not all, of the charsets that Emacs
165 supports. The font files should be usable separately with older X
169 DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION:
171 (This is for a Unix or Unix-like system. For MS-DOS and Windows 3.X,
172 see below; search for MSDOG. For Windows 9X, Windows ME, Windows NT,
173 and Windows 2000, see the file nt/INSTALL. For the Mac, see the file
176 1) Make sure your system has enough swapping space allocated to handle
177 a program whose pure code is 1.5 MB and whose data area is at
178 least 2.8 MB and can reach 100 MB or more. If the swapping space is
179 insufficient, you will get an error in the command `temacs -batch -l
180 loadup dump', found in `./src/Makefile.in', or possibly when
181 running the final dumped Emacs.
183 Building Emacs requires about 140 MB of disk space (including the
184 Emacs sources) Once installed, Emacs occupies about 77 MB in the file
185 system where it is installed; this includes the executable files, Lisp
186 libraries, miscellaneous data files, and on-line documentation. If
187 the building and installation take place in different directories,
188 then the installation procedure momentarily requires 140+77 MB.
190 2) Consult `./etc/MACHINES' to see what configuration name you should
191 give to the `configure' program. That file offers hints for
192 getting around some possible installation problems. The file lists
193 many different configurations, but only the part for your machine and
194 operating system is relevant. (The list is arranged in alphabetical
195 order by the vendor name.)
197 3) You can build Emacs in the top-level Emacs source directory
198 or in a separate directory.
200 3a) To build in the top-level Emacs source directory, go to that
201 directory and run the program `configure' as follows:
203 ./configure [CONFIGURATION-NAME] [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
205 The CONFIGURATION-NAME argument should be a configuration name given
206 in `./etc/MACHINES', with the system version number added at the end.
208 You should try first omitting CONFIGURATION-NAME. This way,
209 `configure' will try to guess your system type. If it cannot guess,
210 or if something goes wrong in building or installing Emacs this way,
211 try again specifying the proper CONFIGURATION-NAME explicitly.
213 If you don't want X support, specify `--with-x=no'. If you omit this
214 option, `configure' will try to figure out for itself whether your
215 system has X, and arrange to use it if present.
217 The `--x-includes=DIR' and `--x-libraries=DIR' options tell the build
218 process where the compiler should look for the include files and
219 object libraries used with the X Window System. Normally, `configure'
220 is able to find them; these options are necessary if you have your X
221 Window System files installed in unusual places. These options also
222 accept a list of directories, separated with colons.
224 To get more attractive menus, you can specify an X toolkit when you
225 configure Emacs; use the option `--with-x-toolkit=TOOLKIT', where
226 TOOLKIT is `athena' or `motif' (`yes' and `lucid' are synonyms for
227 `athena'). On some systems, it does not work to use a toolkit with
228 shared libraries. A free implementation of Motif, called LessTif, is
229 available ftom <http://www.lesstif.org>. Compiling with LessTif or
230 Motif causes a standard File Selection Dialog to pop up when you type
231 "C-x C-f" and similar commands. You can get fancy 3D-style scroll
232 bars, even without LessTif/Motif, if you have the Xaw3d library
233 installed (see "Image support libraries" above for Xaw3d
236 The `--with-gcc' option specifies that the build process should
237 compile Emacs using GCC. If you don't want to use GCC, specify
238 `--with-gcc=no'. If you omit this option, `configure' will search
239 for GCC in your path, and use it if present.
241 The Emacs mail reader RMAIL is configured to be able to read mail from
242 a POP3 server by default. Versions of the POP protocol older than
243 POP3 are not supported. For Kerberos-authenticated POP add
244 `--with-kerberos', for Hesiod support add `--with-hesiod'. While POP3
245 is always enabled, whether Emacs actually uses POP is controlled by
246 individual users--see the Rmail chapter of the Emacs manual.
248 For image support you may have to download, build, and install the
249 appropriate image support libraries for image types other than XBM and
250 PBM, see the list of URLs in "ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES" above.
251 (Note that PNG support requires libz in addition to libpng.)
253 To disable individual types of image support in Emacs for some reason,
254 even though configure finds the libraries, you can configure with one
255 or more of these options:
257 --without-xpm for XPM image support
258 --without-jpeg for JPEG image support
259 --without-tiff for TIFF image support
260 --without-gif for GIF image support
261 --without-png for PNG image support
263 Use --without-toolkit-scroll-bars to disable LessTif/Motif or Xaw3d
264 scroll bars. --without-xim disables the use of X Input Methods, and
265 --disable-largefile omits support for files larger than 2GB on systems
266 which support that. Use --without-sound to disable sound support.
268 The `--prefix=PREFIXDIR' option specifies where the installation process
269 should put emacs and its data files. This defaults to `/usr/local'.
270 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in PREFIXDIR/bin
271 (unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise).
272 - The architecture-independent files go in PREFIXDIR/share/emacs/VERSION
273 (where VERSION is the version number of Emacs, like `19.27').
274 - The architecture-dependent files go in
275 PREFIXDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION
276 (where CONFIGURATION is the configuration name, like mips-dec-ultrix4.2),
277 unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise.
279 The `--exec-prefix=EXECDIR' option allows you to specify a separate
280 portion of the directory tree for installing architecture-specific
281 files, like executables and utility programs. If specified,
282 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in EXECDIR/bin, and
283 - The architecture-dependent files go in
284 EXECDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION.
285 EXECDIR/bin should be a directory that is normally in users' PATHs.
287 For example, the command
289 ./configure mips-dec-ultrix --with-x11
291 configures Emacs to build for a DECstation running Ultrix, with
292 support for the X11 window system.
294 `configure' doesn't do any compilation or installation
295 itself. It just creates the files that influence those things:
296 `./Makefile', `lib-src/Makefile', `oldXMenu/Makefile',
297 `lwlib/Makefile', `src/Makefile', and `./src/config.h'. For details
298 on exactly what it does, see the section called `CONFIGURATION BY
301 When it is done, `configure' prints a description of what it did and
302 creates a shell script `config.status' which, when run, recreates the
303 same configuration. If `configure' exits with an error after
304 disturbing the status quo, it removes `config.status'. `configure'
305 also creates a file `config.cache' that saves the results of its tests
306 to make reconfiguring faster, and a file `config.log' containing compiler
307 output (useful mainly for debugging `configure'). You can give
308 `configure' the option `--cache-file=FILE' to use the results of the
309 tests in FILE instead of `config.cache'. Set FILE to `/dev/null' to
310 disable caching, for debugging `configure'.
312 If the description of the system configuration printed by `configure'
313 is not right, or if it claims some of the fatures or libraries are not
314 available when you know they are, look at the `config.log' file for
315 the trace of the failed tests performed by `configure' to check
316 whether these features are supported. Typically, some test fails
317 because the compiler cannot find some function in the system
318 libraries, or some macro-processor definition in the system headers.
320 Some tests might fail because the compiler should look in special
321 directories for some header files, or link against optional
322 libraries, or use special compilation options. You can force
323 `configure' and the build process which follows it to do that by
324 setting the variables CPPFLAGS, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, LIBS, and CC before
325 running `configure'. CPPFLAGS lists the options passed to the
326 preprocessor, CFLAGS are compilation options, LDFLAGS are options used
327 when linking, LIBS are libraries to link against, and CC is the
328 command which invokes the compiler.
330 Here's an example of a `configure' invocation, assuming a Bourne-like
331 shell such as Bash, which uses these variables:
333 CPPFLAGS='-I/foo/myinclude' LDFLAGS='-L/bar/mylib' \
334 CFLAGS='-O3' LIBS='-lfoo -lbar' ./configure
336 (this is all one long line). This tells `configure' to instruct the
337 preprocessor to look in the `/foo/myinclude' directory for header
338 files (in addition to the standard directories), instruct the linker
339 to look in `/bar/mylib' for libraries, pass the -O3 optimization
340 switch to the compiler, and link against libfoo.a and libbar.a
341 libraries in addition to the standard ones.
343 The work of `configure' can be done by editing various files in the
344 distribution, but using `configure' is easier. See the section called
345 "CONFIGURATION BY HAND" below if you want to do the configuration
348 3b) To build in a separate directory, go to that directory
349 and run the program `configure' as follows:
351 SOURCE-DIR/configure CONFIGURATION-NAME [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
353 SOURCE-DIR refers to the top-level Emacs source directory which is
354 where Emacs's configure script is located. `configure' looks for the
355 Emacs source code in the directory that `configure' is in.
357 To build in a separate directory, you must use a version of `make'
358 that supports the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'.
360 3c) Some people try to build in a separate directory by filling
361 it full of symlinks to the files in the real source directory.
362 If you do that, `make all' does work, but `make install' fails:
363 it copies the symbolic links rather than the actual files.
365 As far as is known, there is no particular reason to use
366 a directory full of links rather than use the standard GNU
367 facilities to build in a separate directory (see 3b above).
369 4) Look at `./lisp/paths.el'; if some of those values are not right
370 for your system, set up the file `./lisp/site-init.el' with Emacs
371 Lisp code to override them; it is not a good idea to edit paths.el
372 itself. YOU MUST USE THE LISP FUNCTION `setq' TO ASSIGN VALUES,
373 rather than `defvar', as used by `./lisp/paths.el'. For example,
375 (setq news-inews-program "/usr/bin/inews")
377 is how you would override the default value of the variable
378 news-inews-program (which is "/usr/local/inews").
380 Before you override a variable this way, *look at the value* that the
381 variable gets by default! Make sure you know what kind of value the
382 variable should have. If you don't pay attention to what you are
383 doing, you'll make a mistake.
385 5) Put into `./lisp/site-init.el' or `./lisp/site-load.el' any Emacs
386 Lisp code you want Emacs to load before it is dumped out. Use
387 site-load.el for additional libraries if you arrange for their
388 documentation strings to be in the etc/DOC file (see
389 src/Makefile.in if you wish to figure out how to do that). For all
390 else, use site-init.el. Do not load byte-compiled code which
391 was build with a non-nil value of `byte-compile-dynamic'.
393 If you set load-path to a different value in site-init.el or
394 site-load.el, Emacs will use *precisely* that value when it starts up
395 again. If you do this, you are on your own!
397 Note that, on some systems, the code you place in site-init.el must
398 not use expand-file-name or any other function which may look
399 something up in the system's password and user information database.
400 See `./etc/PROBLEMS' for more details on which systems this affects.
402 The `site-*.el' files are nonexistent in the distribution. You do not
403 need to create them if you have nothing to put in them.
405 6) Refer to the file `./etc/TERMS' for information on fields you may
406 wish to add to various termcap entries. The files `./etc/termcap.ucb'
407 and `./etc/termcap.dat' may already contain appropriately-modified
410 7) Run `make' in the top directory of the Emacs distribution to finish
411 building Emacs in the standard way. The final executable file is
412 named `src/emacs'. You can execute this file "in place" without
413 copying it, if you wish; then it automatically uses the sibling
414 directories ../lisp, ../lib-src, ../info.
416 Or you can "install" the executable and the other Emacs into their
417 installed locations, with `make install'. By default, Emacs's files
418 are installed in the following directories:
420 `/usr/local/bin' holds the executable programs users normally run -
421 `emacs', `etags', `ctags', `b2m', `emacsclient',
424 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp' holds the Emacs Lisp library;
425 `VERSION' stands for the number of the Emacs version
426 you are installing, like `18.59' or `19.27'. Since the
427 Lisp library changes from one version of Emacs to
428 another, including the version number in the path
429 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed
430 at the same time; in particular, you don't have to
431 make Emacs unavailable while installing a new version.
433 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
434 files installed for Emacs version VERSION only.
436 `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
437 files installed for all Emacs versions.
439 When Emacs is installed, it searches for its Lisp files
440 in `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp', then in
441 `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp', and finally in
442 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp'.
444 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/etc' holds the Emacs tutorial, the DOC
445 file, the `yow' database, and other
446 architecture-independent files Emacs might need while
447 running. VERSION is as specified for `.../lisp'.
449 `/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME' contains executable
450 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to
452 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are
453 installing, and `CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the argument
454 you gave to the `configure' program to identify the
455 architecture and operating system of your machine,
456 like `mips-dec-ultrix' or `sparc-sun-sunos'. Since
457 these files are specific to the version of Emacs,
458 operating system, and architecture in use, including
459 the configuration name in the path allows you to have
460 several versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and
461 operating systems installed at the same time; this is
462 useful for sites at which different kinds of machines
463 share the file system Emacs is installed on.
465 `/usr/local/info' holds the on-line documentation for Emacs, known as
466 "info files". Many other GNU programs are documented
467 using info files as well, so this directory stands
468 apart from the other, Emacs-specific directories.
470 `/usr/local/man/man1' holds the man pages for the programs installed
473 If these directories are not what you want, you can specify where to
474 install Emacs's libraries and data files or where Emacs should search
475 for its Lisp files by giving values for `make' variables as part of
476 the command. See the section below called `MAKE VARIABLES' for more
479 8) Check the file `dir' in your site's info directory (usually
480 /usr/local/info) to make sure that it has a menu entry for the Emacs
483 9) If your system uses lock files to interlock access to mailer inbox files,
484 then you might need to make the movemail program setuid or setgid
485 to enable it to write the lock files. We believe this is safe.
487 10) You are done! You can remove executables and object files from
488 the build directory by typing `make clean'. To also remove the files
489 that `configure' created (so you can compile Emacs for a different
490 configuration), type `make distclean'. If you don't need some, or all
491 of the input methods from the Leim package, you can remove the
492 unneeded files in the leim/quail, leim/skk, and leim/skk-dic
493 subdirectories of your site's lisp directory (usually
494 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/).
500 You can change where the build process installs Emacs and its data
501 files by specifying values for `make' variables as part of the `make'
502 command line. For example, if you type
504 make install bindir=/usr/local/gnubin
506 the `bindir=/usr/local/gnubin' argument indicates that the Emacs
507 executable files should go in `/usr/local/gnubin', not
510 Here is a complete list of the variables you may want to set.
512 `bindir' indicates where to put executable programs that users can
513 run. This defaults to /usr/local/bin.
515 `datadir' indicates where to put the architecture-independent
516 read-only data files that Emacs refers to while it runs; it
517 defaults to /usr/local/share. We create the following
518 subdirectories under `datadir':
519 - `emacs/VERSION/lisp', containing the Emacs Lisp library, and
520 - `emacs/VERSION/etc', containing the Emacs tutorial, the DOC
521 file, and the `yow' database.
522 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
523 like `18.59' or `19.0'. Since these files vary from one version
524 of Emacs to another, including the version number in the path
525 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed at the
526 same time; this means that you don't have to make Emacs
527 unavailable while installing a new version.
529 `libexecdir' indicates where to put architecture-specific data files that
530 Emacs refers to as it runs; it defaults to `/usr/local/libexec'.
531 We create the following subdirectories under `libexecdir':
532 - `emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME', containing executable
533 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to run
535 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
536 and `CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the argument you gave to the
537 `configure' program to identify the architecture and operating
538 system of your machine, like `mips-dec-ultrix' or
539 `sparc-sun-sunos'. Since these files are specific to the version
540 of Emacs, operating system, and architecture in use, including
541 the configuration name in the path allows you to have several
542 versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and operating systems
543 installed at the same time; this is useful for sites at which
544 different kinds of machines share the file system Emacs is
547 `infodir' indicates where to put the info files distributed with
548 Emacs; it defaults to `/usr/local/info'.
550 `mandir' indicates where to put the man pages for Emacs and its
551 utilities (like `etags'); it defaults to
552 `/usr/local/man/man1'.
554 `manext' gives the extension the man pages should be installed with.
555 It should contain a period, followed by the appropriate
556 digit. It defaults to `.1'. For example given the default
557 values for `mandir' and `manext', the Emacs man page would be
558 installed as `/usr/local/man/man1/emacs.1'.
560 `prefix' doesn't give a path for any specific part of Emacs; instead,
561 its value is used to determine the defaults for all the
562 architecture-independent path variables - `datadir',
563 `sharedstatedir', `infodir', and `mandir'. Its default value is
564 `/usr/local'; the other variables add on `lib' or `man' to it
567 For example, suppose your site generally places GNU software
568 under `/usr/users/software/gnusoft' instead of `/usr/local'.
570 `prefix=/usr/users/software/gnusoft'
571 in the arguments to `make', you can instruct the build process
572 to place all of the Emacs data files in the appropriate
573 directories under that path.
575 `exec_prefix' serves the same purpose as `prefix', but instead
576 determines the default values for the architecture-dependent
577 path variables - `bindir' and `libexecdir'.
579 The above variables serve analogous purposes in the makefiles for all
580 GNU software; this variable is specific to Emacs.
582 `archlibdir' indicates where Emacs installs and expects the executable
583 files and other architecture-dependent data it uses while
584 running. Its default value, based on `libexecdir' (which
585 see), is `/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME'
586 (where VERSION and CONFIGURATION-NAME are as described above).
588 Remember that you must specify any variable values you need each time
589 you run `make' in the top directory. If you run `make' once to build
590 emacs, test it, and then run `make' again to install the files, you
591 must provide the same variable settings each time. To make the
592 settings persist, you can edit them into the `Makefile' in the top
593 directory, but be aware that running the `configure' program erases
594 `Makefile' and rebuilds it from `Makefile.in'.
596 The path for finding Lisp files is specified in src/paths.h,
597 a file which is generated by running configure. To change the path,
598 you can edit the definition of PATH_LOADSEARCH in that file
599 before you run `make'.
601 The top-level Makefile stores the variable settings it used in the
602 Makefiles for the subdirectories, so you don't have to specify them
603 when running make in the subdirectories.
606 CONFIGURATION BY HAND
608 Instead of running the `configure' program, you have to perform the
611 1) Copy `./src/config.in' to `./src/config.h'.
613 2) Consult `./etc/MACHINES' to see what configuration name you should
614 use for your system. Look at the code of the `configure' script to
615 see which operating system and architecture description files from
616 `src/s' and `src/m' should be used for that configuration name. Edit
617 `src/config.h', and change the two `#include' directives to include
618 the appropriate system and architecture description files.
620 2) Edit `./src/config.h' to set the right options for your system. If
621 you need to override any of the definitions in the s/*.h and m/*.h
622 files for your system and machine, do so by editing config.h, not by
623 changing the s/*.h and m/*.h files. Occasionally you may need to
624 redefine parameters used in `./lib-src/movemail.c'.
626 3) Create src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile from the corresponding
627 `Makefile.in' files. First copy `Makefile.in' to `Makefile.c',
628 then edit in appropriate substitutions for the @...@ constructs,
629 and then copy the shell commands near the end of `configure'
630 that run cpp to construct `Makefile'.
632 4) Create `Makefile' files in various other directories
633 from the corresponding `Makefile.in' files. This isn't so hard,
634 just a matter of substitution.
636 The `configure' script is built from `configure.in' by the `autoconf'
637 program. You need version 2.51 or newer of `autoconf' to rebuild
640 BUILDING GNU EMACS BY HAND
642 Once Emacs is configured, running `make' in the top directory performs
645 1) Run `make src/paths.h' in the top directory. This produces
646 `./src/paths.h' from the template file `./src/paths.in', changing
647 the paths to the values specified in `./Makefile'.
649 2) Go to directory `./lib-src' and run `make'. This creates
650 executables named `ctags' and `etags' and `wakeup' and `make-docfile'
651 and `digest-doc' and `test-distrib'. And others.
653 3) Go to directory `./src' and Run `make'. This refers to files in
654 the `./lisp' and `./lib-src' subdirectories using names `../lisp' and
657 This creates a file `./src/emacs' which is the runnable Emacs,
658 which has another name that contains a version number.
659 Each time you do this, that version number increments in the last place.
661 It also creates a file in `./etc' whose name is `DOC' followed by the
662 current Emacs version. This file contains documentation strings for
663 all the functions in Emacs. Each time you run make to make a new
664 emacs, a new DOC file with a new name is made. You must keep the DOC
665 file for an Emacs version as long as you keep using that Emacs
671 The steps below are done by running `make install' in the main
672 directory of the Emacs distribution.
674 1) Copy `./lisp' and its subdirectories, `./etc', and the executables
675 in `./lib-src' to their final destinations, as selected in `./src/paths.h'.
677 Strictly speaking, not all of the executables in `./lib-src' need be copied.
678 - The programs `cvtmail', `emacsserver', `fakemail', `hexl',
679 `movemail', `profile', `rcs2log', `timer', `vcdiff', `wakeup',
680 and `yow' are used by Emacs; they do need to be copied.
681 - The programs `etags', `ctags', `emacsclient', `b2m', and `rcs-checkin'
682 are intended to be run by users; they are handled below.
683 - The programs `make-docfile' and `test-distrib' were
684 used in building Emacs, and are not needed any more.
685 - The programs `digest-doc' and `sorted-doc' convert a `DOC' file into
686 a file for users to read. There is no important reason to move them.
688 2) Copy the files in `./info' to the place specified in
689 `./lisp/site-init.el' or `./lisp/paths.el'. Note that if the
690 destination directory already contains a file named `dir', you
691 probably don't want to replace it with the `dir' file in the Emacs
692 distribution. Instead, you should make sure that the existing `dir'
693 file contains an appropriate menu entry for the Emacs info.
695 3) Copy `./src/emacs' to `/usr/local/bin', or to some other directory
696 in users' search paths. `./src/emacs' has an alternate name
697 `./src/emacs-EMACSVERSION'; you may wish to make a symbolic link named
698 `/usr/local/bin/emacs' pointing to that alternate name, as an easy way
699 of installing different versions.
701 You can delete `./src/temacs'.
703 4) Copy the programs `b2m', `emacsclient', `ctags', `etags', and
704 `rcs-checkin' from `./lib-src' to `/usr/local/bin'. These programs are
705 intended for users to run.
707 5) Copy the man pages in `./etc' for emacs, ctags, and etags into the
708 appropriate man directories.
710 6) The files in the `./src' subdirectory, except for `emacs', are not
711 used by Emacs once it is built. However, it is very desirable to keep
712 the source on line for debugging.
717 See the file PROBLEMS in etc subdirectory for a list of various
718 problems sometimes encountered, and what to do about them.
721 Installation on MSDOG (a.k.a. MSDOS)
723 To install on MSDOG, you need to have the GNU C compiler for MSDOG
724 (also known as djgpp), GNU Make, rm, mv, and sed. See the remarks in
725 config.bat for more information about locations and versions. The
726 file etc/FAQ includes pointers to Internet sites where you can find
727 the necessary utilities; search for "MS-DOS". The configuration step
728 (see below) will test for these utilities and will refuse to continue
729 if any of them isn't found.
731 Recompiling Lisp files in the `lisp' subdirectory using the various
732 targets in the lisp/Makefile file requires additional utilities:
733 `find' and `xargs' (from Findutils), `touch' (from Fileutils) GNU
734 `echo' and `test' (from Sh-utils), `tr, `sort', and `uniq' (from
735 Textutils), and a port of Bash. However, you should not normally need
736 to run lisp/Makefile, as all the Lisp files are distributed in
737 byte-compiled form as well.
739 If you are building the MSDOG version of Emacs on an MSDOG-like system
740 which supports long file names (e.g. Windows 95), you need to make
741 sure that long file names are handled consistently both when you
742 unpack the distribution and compile it. If you intend to compile with
743 DJGPP v2.0 or later, and long file names support is enabled (LFN=y in
744 the environment), you need to unpack Emacs distribution in a way that
745 doesn't truncate the original long filenames to the DOS 8.3 namespace;
746 the easiest way to do this is to use djtar program which comes with
747 DJGPP, since it will note the LFN setting and behave accordingly.
748 DJGPP v1 doesn't support long filenames, so you must unpack Emacs with
749 a program that truncates the filenames to 8.3 naming as it extracts
750 files; again, using djtar after setting LFN=n is the recommended way.
751 You can build Emacs with LFN=n even if you use DJGPP v2, if some of
752 your tools don't support long file names: just ensure that LFN is set
753 to `n' during both unpacking and compiling.
755 (By the time you read this, you have already unpacked the Emacs
756 distribution, but if the explanations above imply that you should have
757 done it differently, it's safer to delete the directory tree created
758 by the unpacking program and unpack Emacs again, than to risk running
759 into problems during the build process.)
761 It is important to understand that the runtime support of long file
762 names by the Emacs binary is NOT affected by the LFN setting during
763 compilation; Emacs compiled with DJGPP v2.0 or later will always
764 support long file names on Windows 9X no matter what was the setting
765 of LFN at compile time. However, if you compiled with LFN disabled
766 and want to enable LFN support after Emacs was already built, you need
767 to make sure that the support files in the lisp, etc and info
768 directories are called by their original long names as found in the
769 distribution. You can do this either by renaming the files manually,
770 or by extracting them from the original distribution archive with
771 djtar after you set LFN=y in the environment.
773 To unpack Emacs with djtar, type this command:
777 (This assumes that the Emacs distribution is called `emacs.tgz' on
780 If you want to print international characters, install the intlfonts
781 distribution. For this, create a directory called `fonts' under the
782 Emacs top-level directory (usually called `emacs-XX.YY') created by
783 unpacking emacs.tgz, chdir into the directory emacs-XX.YY/fonts, and
786 djtar -x intlfonts.tgz
788 When unpacking is done, a directory called `emacs-XX.YY' will be
789 created, where XX.YY is the Emacs version. To build and install
790 Emacs, chdir to that directory and type these commands:
795 Running "config msdos" checks for several programs that are required
796 to configure and build Emacs; if one of those programs is not found,
797 CONFIG.BAT stops and prints an error message. If you have DJGPP
798 version 2.0 or 2.01, it will complain about a program called
799 DJECHO.EXE. These old versions of DJGPP shipped that program under
800 the name ECHO.EXE, so you can simply copy ECHO.EXE to DJECHO.EXE and
801 rerun CONFIG.BAT. If you have neither ECHO.EXE nor DJECHO.EXE, you
802 should be able to find them in your djdevNNN.zip archive (where NNN is
803 the DJGPP version number).
805 On Windows NT or Windows 2000, running "config msdos" might print an
806 error message like "VDM has been already loaded". This is because
807 those systems have a program called `redir.exe' which is incompatible
808 with a program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by
809 config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to
810 the front of your PATH environment variable.
812 To install the international fonts, chdir to the intlfonts-X.Y
813 directory created when you unpacked the intlfonts distribution (X.Y is
814 the version number of the fonts' distribution), and type the following
817 make bdf INSTALLDIR=..
819 After Make finishes, you may remove the directory intlfonts-X.Y; the
820 fonts are installed into the fonts/bdf subdirectory of the top-level
821 Emacs directory, and that is where Emacs will look for them by
824 Building Emacs creates executable files in the src and lib-src
825 directories. Installing Emacs on MSDOS moves these executables to a
826 sibling directory called bin. For example, if you build in directory
827 /emacs, installing moves the executables from /emacs/src and
828 /emacs/lib-src to the directory /emacs/bin, so you can then delete the
829 subdirectories /emacs/src and /emacs/lib-src if you wish. The only
830 subdirectories you need to keep are bin, lisp, etc and info. (If you
831 installed intlfonts, keep the fonts directory and all its
832 subdirectories as well.) The bin subdirectory should be added to your
833 PATH. The msdos subdirectory includes a PIF and an icon file for
834 Emacs which you might find useful if you run Emacs under MS Windows.
836 Emacs on MSDOS finds the lisp, etc and info directories by looking in
837 ../lisp, ../etc and ../info, starting from the directory where the
838 Emacs executable was run from. You can override this by setting the
839 environment variables EMACSDATA (for the location of `etc' directory),
840 EMACSLOADPATH (for the location of `lisp' directory) and INFOPATH (for
841 the location of the `info' directory).
843 MSDOG is a not a multitasking operating system, so Emacs features such
844 as asynchronous subprocesses that depend on multitasking will not
845 work. Synchronous subprocesses do work.
847 Version 2.0 of djgpp has two bugs that affect Emacs. We've included
848 corrected versions of two files from djgpp in the msdos subdirectory:
849 is_exec.c and sigaction.c. To work around the bugs, compile these
850 files and link them into temacs. Djgpp versions 2.01 and later have
851 these bugs fixed, so upgrade if you can before building Emacs.
855 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
856 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
857 copyright notice and permission notice are preserved,
858 and that the distributor grants the recipient permission
859 for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
861 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
862 of this document, or of portions of it,
863 under the above conditions, provided also that they
864 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them,
865 and that any new or changed statements about the activities
866 of the Free Software Foundation are approved by the Foundation.