1 GNU Emacs Installation Guide
2 Copyright (c) 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2000 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. If you want to be able to input international characters which
25 your keyboard doesn't support directly (i.e. you cannot type
26 them at the shell prompt), download the leim-M.N.tar.gz
27 distribution and unpack it into the same directory where you have
28 unpacked the main Emacs distribution. See ADDITIONAL
29 DISTRIBUTION FILES, below, for more about this.
31 2. Make sure your system has at least 120 MB of free disk space.
33 3a. `cd' to the directory where you unpacked Emacs and invoke the
38 3b. Alternatively, create a separate directory, outside the source
39 directory, where you want to build Emacs, and invoke `configure'
44 where SOURCE-DIR is the top-level Emacs source directory. This
45 may not work unless you use GNU make.
47 4. When `configure' finishes, it prints several lines of details
48 about the system configuration. Read those details carefully
49 looking for anything suspicious, such as wrong CPU and operating
50 system names, wrong places for headers or libraries, missing
51 libraries that you know are installed on your system, etc.
53 If you find anything wrong, you will have to pass to `configure'
54 explicit machine configuration name, and one or more options
55 which tell it where to find various headers and libraries; refer
56 to DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION section below.
58 If `configure' didn't find some image support libraries, such as
59 Xpm, jpeg, etc., and you want to use them refer to the subsection
60 "Image support libraries", below.
62 If the details printed by `configure' don't make any sense to
63 you, assume that `configure' did its job and proceed.
65 5. If you need to run the `configure' script more than once (e.g.,
66 with some non-default options), always clean the source
67 directories before running `configure' again:
72 6. Invoke the `make' program:
76 7. If `make' succeeds, it will build an executable program `emacs'
77 in the `src' directory. You can try this program, to make sure
82 8. Assuming that the program `src/emacs' starts and displays its
83 opening screen, you can install the program and its auxiliary
84 files into their installation directories:
88 You are now ready to use Emacs. If you wish to conserve disk space,
89 you may remove the program binaries and object files from the
90 directory where you built Emacs:
94 You can also save some space by compressing (with `gzip') Info files
95 and installed Lisp source (.el) files which have corresponding .elc
99 ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES
103 The Emacs Lisp code for input methods for various international
104 character scripts allows you to input characters in scripts which are
105 not directly supported by your keyboard. It is distributed in a
106 separate tar file because it amounts to a significant fraction of the
107 size of the distribution. This tar file is called leim-M.N.tar.gz,
108 with the same version number as Emacs, and it unpacks into the
109 directory emacs-M.N/leim.
111 You should unpack leim-M.N.tar.gz into the same directory where you
112 have previously unpacked the main Emacs distribution. It fills in the
113 contents of one subdirectory, which is present in the main Emacs
114 distribution only in dummy form.
116 Once you have unpacked the Leim tar file into the Emacs source tree,
117 building and installing Emacs automatically installs the input method
118 support as well. If you have built Emacs without unpacking Leim
119 first, just unpack Leim, build Emacs again, and install it again.
121 * intlfonts-VERSION.tar.gz
123 The intlfonts distribution contains X11 fonts that Emacs needs in
124 order to display international characters. If you see a non-ASCII
125 character appear as a hollow box, that means you don't have a font for
126 it. You might find a font in the intlfonts distribution. If you do
127 have a font for a non-ASCII character, but some characters don't look
128 right, or appear improperly aligned, a font from the intlfonts
129 distribution might look better.
131 The fonts in the intlfonts distribution are also used by the ps-print
132 package for printing international characters. The file
133 lisp/ps-mule.el defines the *.bdf font files required for printing
136 The intlfonts distribution contains its own installation instructions,
137 in the intlfonts/README file.
139 * elisp-manual-M.N.tar.gz
141 This distribution contains the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual which
142 complements the Emacs Manual. (The Emacs Manual is accessible from
143 within the editor by typing "C-h i", then selecting the "Emacs" item
144 from the menu, or by clicking "Help" in the menu bar and selecting
145 "Read Emacs Manual".) It is a good idea to install the Emacs Lisp
146 Reference Manual after installing Emacs, to complete the on-line
147 documentation of Emacs in Info.
149 If you have installed Texinfo, you can install the Emacs Lisp
150 Reference Manual this way (after unpacking the elisp-manual-M.N.tar.gz
154 ./configure --prefix=PREFIXDIR
157 Otherwise, you can install it manually. Just copy the files elisp and
158 elisp-* from the elisp-manual-M.N directory to your site's info
159 directory (see the description of `infodir', below), and make sure
160 that file `dir' in this directory contains an entry like this:
162 * Elisp: (elisp). The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual.
164 * Image support libraries
166 Emacs needs optional libraries to be able to display images (with the
167 exception of PBM and XBM images whose support is built-in).
169 On some systems, particularly on GNU/Linux, these libraries may
170 already be present or available as additional packages. Note that if
171 there is a separate `dev' or `devel' package, for use at compilation
172 time rather than run time, you will need that as well as the
173 corresponding run time package; typically the dev package will
174 contain header files and a library archive. Otherwise, you can
175 download and build libraries from sources. None of them are vital for
176 running Emacs; however, note that Emacs will not be able to use
177 colored icons in the toolbar if XPM support is not compiled in.
179 Here's the list of these optional libraries, and the URLs where they
182 . libXaw3d for fancy 3D-style
183 scroll bars: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/widgets/Xaw3d/
184 . libxpm for XPM: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/libraries/
185 . libpng for PNG: ftp://www.libpng.org/pub/png/
186 . libz (for PNG): http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/zlib/
187 . libjpeg for JPEG: ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/
188 Get version 6b -- 6a is reported to fail in
190 . libtiff for TIFF: http://www.libtiff.org/
192 http://prtr-13.ucsc.edu/~badger/software/libungif/index.shtml
193 Ensure you get version 4.1.0b1 or higher of libungif -- a bug in
194 4.1.0 can crash Emacs.
196 Emacs will configure itself to build with these libraries if the
197 `configure' script finds them on your system, unless you supply the
198 appropriate --without-LIB option. In some cases, older versions of
199 these libraries won't work because some routines are missing, and
200 configure should avoid such old versions. If that happens, use the
201 --without-LIB options to `configure'. See below for more details.
205 To take proper advantage of Emacs 21's mule-unicode charsets, you need
206 a Unicode font. For information on Unicode fonts for X, see
207 <URL:http://czyborra.com/unifont/>,
208 <URL:http://openlab.ring.gr.jp/efont/> and
209 <URL:http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Emgk25/ucs-fonts.html>.
210 <URL:http://czyborra.com/charsets/> has basic fonts for Emacs's
213 XFree86 release 4 (from <URL:ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/> and mirrors)
214 contains font support for most, if not all, of the charsets that Emacs
215 supports. The font files should be usable separately with older X
219 DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION:
221 (This is for a Unix or Unix-like system. For MS-DOS and Windows 3.X,
222 see below; search for MSDOG. For Windows 9X, Windows ME, Windows NT,
223 and Windows 2000, see the file nt/INSTALL. For the Mac, see the file
226 1) Make sure your system has enough swapping space allocated to handle
227 a program whose pure code is 1.5 MB and whose data area is at
228 least 2.5 MB and can reach 80 MB or more. If the swapping space is
229 insufficient, you will get an error in the command `temacs -batch -l
230 loadup dump', found in `./src/Makefile.in', or possibly when
231 running the final dumped Emacs.
233 Building Emacs requires about 95 MB of disk space (including the Emacs
234 sources), or 130 MB if Leim is used. Once installed, Emacs occupies
235 about 60 MB (70 MB with Leim) in the file system where it is
236 installed; this includes the executable files, Lisp libraries,
237 miscellaneous data files, and on-line documentation. If the building
238 and installation take place in different directories, then the
239 installation procedure momentarily requires 95+60 MB (130+70 MB).
241 2) Consult `./etc/MACHINES' to see what configuration name you should
242 give to the `configure' program. That file offers hints for
243 getting around some possible installation problems. The file lists
244 many different configurations, but only the part for your machine and
245 operating system is relevant. (The list is arranged in alphabetical
246 order by the vendor name.)
248 3) You can build Emacs in the top-level Emacs source directory
249 or in a separate directory.
251 3a) To build in the top-level Emacs source directory, go to that
252 directory and run the program `configure' as follows:
254 ./configure [CONFIGURATION-NAME] [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
256 The CONFIGURATION-NAME argument should be a configuration name given
257 in `./etc/MACHINES', with the system version number added at the end.
259 You should try first omitting CONFIGURATION-NAME. This way,
260 `configure' will try to guess your system type. If it cannot guess,
261 or if something goes wrong in building or installing Emacs this way,
262 try again specifying the proper CONFIGURATION-NAME explicitly.
264 If you don't want X support, specify `--with-x=no'. If you omit this
265 option, `configure' will try to figure out for itself whether your
266 system has X, and arrange to use it if present.
268 The `--x-includes=DIR' and `--x-libraries=DIR' options tell the build
269 process where the compiler should look for the include files and
270 object libraries used with the X Window System. Normally, `configure'
271 is able to find them; these options are necessary if you have your X
272 Window System files installed in unusual places. These options also
273 accept a list of directories, separated with colons.
275 To get more attractive menus, you can specify an X toolkit when you
276 configure Emacs; use the option `--with-x-toolkit=TOOLKIT', where
277 TOOLKIT is `athena' or `motif' (`yes' and `lucid' are synonyms for
278 `athena'). On some systems, it does not work to use a toolkit with
279 shared libraries. A free implementation of Motif, called LessTif, is
280 available ftom <http://www.lesstif.org>. Compiling with LessTif or
281 Motif causes a standard File Selection Dialog to pop up when you type
282 "C-x C-f" and similar commands. You can get fancy 3D-style scroll
283 bars, even without LessTif/Motif, if you have the Xaw3d library
284 installed (see "Image support libraries" above for Xaw3d
287 The `--with-gcc' option specifies that the build process should
288 compile Emacs using GCC. If you don't want to use GCC, specify
289 `--with-gcc=no'. If you omit this option, `configure' will search
290 for GCC in your path, and use it if present.
292 The Emacs mail reader RMAIL is configured to be able to read mail from
293 a POP3 server by default. Versions of the POP protocol older than
294 POP3 are not supported. For Kerberos-authenticated POP add
295 `--with-kerberos', for Hesiod support add `--with-hesiod'. While POP3
296 is always enabled, whether Emacs actually uses POP is controlled by
297 individual users--see the Rmail chapter of the Emacs manual.
299 For image support you may have to download, build, and install the
300 appropriate image support libraries for image types other than XBM and
301 PBM, see the list of URLs in "ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES" above.
302 (Note that PNG support requires libz in addition to libpng.)
304 To disable individual types of image support in Emacs for some reason,
305 even though configure finds the libraries, you can configure with one
306 or more of these options:
308 --without-xpm for XPM image support
309 --without-jpeg for JPEG image support
310 --without-tiff for TIFF image support
311 --without-gif for GIF image support
312 --without-png for PNG image support
314 Use --without-toolkit-scroll-bars to disable LessTif/Motif or Xaw3d
315 scroll bars. --without-xim disables the use of X Input Methods, and
316 --disable-largefile omits support for files larger than 2GB on systems
319 The `--prefix=PREFIXDIR' option specifies where the installation process
320 should put emacs and its data files. This defaults to `/usr/local'.
321 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in PREFIXDIR/bin
322 (unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise).
323 - The architecture-independent files go in PREFIXDIR/share/emacs/VERSION
324 (where VERSION is the version number of Emacs, like `19.27').
325 - The architecture-dependent files go in
326 PREFIXDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION
327 (where CONFIGURATION is the configuration name, like mips-dec-ultrix4.2),
328 unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise.
330 The `--exec-prefix=EXECDIR' option allows you to specify a separate
331 portion of the directory tree for installing architecture-specific
332 files, like executables and utility programs. If specified,
333 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in EXECDIR/bin, and
334 - The architecture-dependent files go in
335 EXECDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION.
336 EXECDIR/bin should be a directory that is normally in users' PATHs.
338 For example, the command
340 ./configure mips-dec-ultrix --with-x11
342 configures Emacs to build for a DECstation running Ultrix, with
343 support for the X11 window system.
345 `configure' doesn't do any compilation or installation
346 itself. It just creates the files that influence those things:
347 `./Makefile', `lib-src/Makefile', `oldXMenu/Makefile',
348 `lwlib/Makefile', `src/Makefile', and `./src/config.h'. For details
349 on exactly what it does, see the section called `CONFIGURATION BY
352 When it is done, `configure' prints a description of what it did and
353 creates a shell script `config.status' which, when run, recreates the
354 same configuration. If `configure' exits with an error after
355 disturbing the status quo, it removes `config.status'. `configure'
356 also creates a file `config.cache' that saves the results of its tests
357 to make reconfiguring faster, and a file `config.log' containing compiler
358 output (useful mainly for debugging `configure'). You can give
359 `configure' the option `--cache-file=FILE' to use the results of the
360 tests in FILE instead of `config.cache'. Set FILE to `/dev/null' to
361 disable caching, for debugging `configure'.
363 If the description of the system configuration printed by `configure'
364 is not right, or if it claims some of the fatures or libraries are not
365 available when you know they are, look at the `config.log' file for
366 the trace of the failed tests performed by `configure' to check
367 whether these features are supported. Typically, some test fails
368 because the compiler cannot find some function in the system
369 libraries, or some macro-processor definition in the system headers.
371 Some tests might fail because the compiler should look in special
372 directories for some header files, or link against optional
373 libraries, or use special compilation options. You can force
374 `configure' and the build process which follows it to do that by
375 setting the variables CPPFLAGS, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, LIBS, and CC before
376 running `configure'. CPPFLAGS lists the options passed to the
377 preprocessor, CFLAGS are compilation options, LDFLAGS are options used
378 when linking, LIBS are libraries to link against, and CC is the
379 command which invokes the compiler.
381 Here's an example of a `configure' invocation, assuming a Bourne-like
382 shell such as Bash, which uses these variables:
384 CPPFLAGS='-I/foo/myinclude' LDFLAGS='-L/bar/mylib' \
385 CFLAGS='-O3' LIBS='-lfoo -lbar' ./configure
387 (this is all one long line). This tells `configure' to instruct the
388 preprocessor to look in the `/foo/myinclude' directory for header
389 files (in addition to the standard directories), instruct the linker
390 to look in `/bar/mylib' for libraries, pass the -O3 optimization
391 switch to the compiler, and link against libfoo.a and libbar.a
392 libraries in addition to the standard ones.
394 The work of `configure' can be done by editing various files in the
395 distribution, but using `configure' is easier. See the section called
396 "CONFIGURATION BY HAND" below if you want to do the configuration
399 3b) To build in a separate directory, go to that directory
400 and run the program `configure' as follows:
402 SOURCE-DIR/configure CONFIGURATION-NAME [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
404 SOURCE-DIR refers to the top-level Emacs source directory which is
405 where Emacs's configure script is located. `configure' looks for the
406 Emacs source code in the directory that `configure' is in.
408 To build in a separate directory, you must use a version of `make'
409 that supports the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'.
411 3c) Some people try to build in a separate directory by filling
412 it full of symlinks to the files in the real source directory.
413 If you do that, `make all' does work, but `make install' fails:
414 it copies the symbolic links rather than the actual files.
416 As far as is known, there is no particular reason to use
417 a directory full of links rather than use the standard GNU
418 facilities to build in a separate directory (see 3b above).
420 4) Look at `./lisp/paths.el'; if some of those values are not right
421 for your system, set up the file `./lisp/site-init.el' with Emacs
422 Lisp code to override them; it is not a good idea to edit paths.el
423 itself. YOU MUST USE THE LISP FUNCTION `setq' TO ASSIGN VALUES,
424 rather than `defvar', as used by `./lisp/paths.el'. For example,
426 (setq news-inews-program "/usr/bin/inews")
428 is how you would override the default value of the variable
429 news-inews-program (which is "/usr/local/inews").
431 Before you override a variable this way, *look at the value* that the
432 variable gets by default! Make sure you know what kind of value the
433 variable should have. If you don't pay attention to what you are
434 doing, you'll make a mistake.
436 5) Put into `./lisp/site-init.el' or `./lisp/site-load.el' any Emacs
437 Lisp code you want Emacs to load before it is dumped out. Use
438 site-load.el for additional libraries if you arrange for their
439 documentation strings to be in the etc/DOC file (see
440 src/Makefile.in if you wish to figure out how to do that). For all
441 else, use site-init.el. Do not load byte-compiled code which
442 was build with a non-nil value of `byte-compile-dynamic'.
444 If you set load-path to a different value in site-init.el or
445 site-load.el, Emacs will use *precisely* that value when it starts up
446 again. If you do this, you are on your own!
448 Note that, on some systems, the code you place in site-init.el must
449 not use expand-file-name or any other function which may look
450 something up in the system's password and user information database.
451 See `./etc/PROBLEMS' for more details on which systems this affects.
453 The `site-*.el' files are nonexistent in the distribution. You do not
454 need to create them if you have nothing to put in them.
456 6) Refer to the file `./etc/TERMS' for information on fields you may
457 wish to add to various termcap entries. The files `./etc/termcap.ucb'
458 and `./etc/termcap.dat' may already contain appropriately-modified
461 7) Run `make' in the top directory of the Emacs distribution to finish
462 building Emacs in the standard way. The final executable file is
463 named `src/emacs'. You can execute this file "in place" without
464 copying it, if you wish; then it automatically uses the sibling
465 directories ../lisp, ../lib-src, ../info.
467 Or you can "install" the executable and the other Emacs into their
468 installed locations, with `make install'. By default, Emacs's files
469 are installed in the following directories:
471 `/usr/local/bin' holds the executable programs users normally run -
472 `emacs', `etags', `ctags', `b2m', `emacsclient',
475 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp' holds the Emacs Lisp library;
476 `VERSION' stands for the number of the Emacs version
477 you are installing, like `18.59' or `19.27'. Since the
478 Lisp library changes from one version of Emacs to
479 another, including the version number in the path
480 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed
481 at the same time; in particular, you don't have to
482 make Emacs unavailable while installing a new version.
484 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
485 files installed for Emacs version VERSION only.
487 `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
488 files installed for all Emacs versions.
490 When Emacs is installed, it searches for its Lisp files
491 in `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp', then in
492 `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp', and finally in
493 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp'.
495 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/etc' holds the Emacs tutorial, the DOC
496 file, the `yow' database, and other
497 architecture-independent files Emacs might need while
498 running. VERSION is as specified for `.../lisp'.
500 `/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME' contains executable
501 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to
503 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are
504 installing, and `CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the argument
505 you gave to the `configure' program to identify the
506 architecture and operating system of your machine,
507 like `mips-dec-ultrix' or `sparc-sun-sunos'. Since
508 these files are specific to the version of Emacs,
509 operating system, and architecture in use, including
510 the configuration name in the path allows you to have
511 several versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and
512 operating systems installed at the same time; this is
513 useful for sites at which different kinds of machines
514 share the file system Emacs is installed on.
516 `/usr/local/info' holds the on-line documentation for Emacs, known as
517 "info files". Many other GNU programs are documented
518 using info files as well, so this directory stands
519 apart from the other, Emacs-specific directories.
521 `/usr/local/man/man1' holds the man pages for the programs installed
524 If these directories are not what you want, you can specify where to
525 install Emacs's libraries and data files or where Emacs should search
526 for its Lisp files by giving values for `make' variables as part of
527 the command. See the section below called `MAKE VARIABLES' for more
530 8) Check the file `dir' in your site's info directory (usually
531 /usr/local/info) to make sure that it has a menu entry for the Emacs
534 9) If your system uses lock files to interlock access to mailer inbox files,
535 then you might need to make the movemail program setuid or setgid
536 to enable it to write the lock files. We believe this is safe.
538 10) You are done! You can remove executables and object files from
539 the build directory by typing `make clean'. To also remove the files
540 that `configure' created (so you can compile Emacs for a different
541 configuration), type `make distclean'. If you don't need some, or all
542 of the input methods from the Leim package, you can remove the
543 unneeded files in the leim/quail, leim/skk, and leim/skk-dic
544 subdirectories of your site's lisp directory (usually
545 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/).
551 You can change where the build process installs Emacs and its data
552 files by specifying values for `make' variables as part of the `make'
553 command line. For example, if you type
555 make install bindir=/usr/local/gnubin
557 the `bindir=/usr/local/gnubin' argument indicates that the Emacs
558 executable files should go in `/usr/local/gnubin', not
561 Here is a complete list of the variables you may want to set.
563 `bindir' indicates where to put executable programs that users can
564 run. This defaults to /usr/local/bin.
566 `datadir' indicates where to put the architecture-independent
567 read-only data files that Emacs refers to while it runs; it
568 defaults to /usr/local/share. We create the following
569 subdirectories under `datadir':
570 - `emacs/VERSION/lisp', containing the Emacs Lisp library, and
571 - `emacs/VERSION/etc', containing the Emacs tutorial, the DOC
572 file, and the `yow' database.
573 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
574 like `18.59' or `19.0'. Since these files vary from one version
575 of Emacs to another, including the version number in the path
576 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed at the
577 same time; this means that you don't have to make Emacs
578 unavailable while installing a new version.
580 `libexecdir' indicates where to put architecture-specific data files that
581 Emacs refers to as it runs; it defaults to `/usr/local/libexec'.
582 We create the following subdirectories under `libexecdir':
583 - `emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME', containing executable
584 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to run
586 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
587 and `CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the argument you gave to the
588 `configure' program to identify the architecture and operating
589 system of your machine, like `mips-dec-ultrix' or
590 `sparc-sun-sunos'. Since these files are specific to the version
591 of Emacs, operating system, and architecture in use, including
592 the configuration name in the path allows you to have several
593 versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and operating systems
594 installed at the same time; this is useful for sites at which
595 different kinds of machines share the file system Emacs is
598 `infodir' indicates where to put the info files distributed with
599 Emacs; it defaults to `/usr/local/info'.
601 `mandir' indicates where to put the man pages for Emacs and its
602 utilities (like `etags'); it defaults to
603 `/usr/local/man/man1'.
605 `manext' gives the extension the man pages should be installed with.
606 It should contain a period, followed by the appropriate
607 digit. It defaults to `.1'. For example given the default
608 values for `mandir' and `manext', the Emacs man page would be
609 installed as `/usr/local/man/man1/emacs.1'.
611 `prefix' doesn't give a path for any specific part of Emacs; instead,
612 its value is used to determine the defaults for all the
613 architecture-independent path variables - `datadir',
614 `sharedstatedir', `infodir', and `mandir'. Its default value is
615 `/usr/local'; the other variables add on `lib' or `man' to it
618 For example, suppose your site generally places GNU software
619 under `/usr/users/software/gnusoft' instead of `/usr/local'.
621 `prefix=/usr/users/software/gnusoft'
622 in the arguments to `make', you can instruct the build process
623 to place all of the Emacs data files in the appropriate
624 directories under that path.
626 `exec_prefix' serves the same purpose as `prefix', but instead
627 determines the default values for the architecture-dependent
628 path variables - `bindir' and `libexecdir'.
630 The above variables serve analogous purposes in the makefiles for all
631 GNU software; this variable is specific to Emacs.
633 `archlibdir' indicates where Emacs installs and expects the executable
634 files and other architecture-dependent data it uses while
635 running. Its default value, based on `libexecdir' (which
636 see), is `/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME'
637 (where VERSION and CONFIGURATION-NAME are as described above).
639 Remember that you must specify any variable values you need each time
640 you run `make' in the top directory. If you run `make' once to build
641 emacs, test it, and then run `make' again to install the files, you
642 must provide the same variable settings each time. To make the
643 settings persist, you can edit them into the `Makefile' in the top
644 directory, but be aware that running the `configure' program erases
645 `Makefile' and rebuilds it from `Makefile.in'.
647 The path for finding Lisp files is specified in src/paths.h,
648 a file which is generated by running configure. To change the path,
649 you can edit the definition of PATH_LOADSEARCH in that file
650 before you run `make'.
652 The top-level Makefile stores the variable settings it used in the
653 Makefiles for the subdirectories, so you don't have to specify them
654 when running make in the subdirectories.
657 CONFIGURATION BY HAND
659 Instead of running the `configure' program, you have to perform the
662 1) Copy `./src/config.in' to `./src/config.h'.
664 2) Consult `./etc/MACHINES' to see what configuration name you should
665 use for your system. Look at the code of the `configure' script to
666 see which operating system and architecture description files from
667 `src/s' and `src/m' should be used for that configuration name. Edit
668 `src/config.h', and change the two `#include' directives to include
669 the appropriate system and architecture description files.
671 2) Edit `./src/config.h' to set the right options for your system. If
672 you need to override any of the definitions in the s/*.h and m/*.h
673 files for your system and machine, do so by editing config.h, not by
674 changing the s/*.h and m/*.h files. Occasionally you may need to
675 redefine parameters used in `./lib-src/movemail.c'.
677 3) Create src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile from the corresponding
678 `Makefile.in' files. First copy `Makefile.in' to `Makefile.c',
679 then edit in appropriate substitutions for the @...@ constructs,
680 and then copy the shell commands near the end of `configure'
681 that run cpp to construct `Makefile'.
683 4) Create `Makefile' files in various other directories
684 from the corresponding `Makefile.in' files. This isn't so hard,
685 just a matter of substitution.
687 The `configure' script is built from `configure.in' by the `autoconf'
688 program. You need version 2.8 or newer of `autoconf' to rebuild
691 BUILDING GNU EMACS BY HAND
693 Once Emacs is configured, running `make' in the top directory performs
696 1) Run `make src/paths.h' in the top directory. This produces
697 `./src/paths.h' from the template file `./src/paths.in', changing
698 the paths to the values specified in `./Makefile'.
700 2) Go to directory `./lib-src' and run `make'. This creates
701 executables named `ctags' and `etags' and `wakeup' and `make-docfile'
702 and `digest-doc' and `test-distrib'. And others.
704 3) Go to directory `./src' and Run `make'. This refers to files in
705 the `./lisp' and `./lib-src' subdirectories using names `../lisp' and
708 This creates a file `./src/emacs' which is the runnable Emacs,
709 which has another name that contains a version number.
710 Each time you do this, that version number increments in the last place.
712 It also creates a file in `./etc' whose name is `DOC' followed by the
713 current Emacs version. This file contains documentation strings for
714 all the functions in Emacs. Each time you run make to make a new
715 emacs, a new DOC file with a new name is made. You must keep the DOC
716 file for an Emacs version as long as you keep using that Emacs
722 The steps below are done by running `make install' in the main
723 directory of the Emacs distribution.
725 1) Copy `./lisp' and its subdirectories, `./etc', and the executables
726 in `./lib-src' to their final destinations, as selected in `./src/paths.h'.
728 Strictly speaking, not all of the executables in `./lib-src' need be copied.
729 - The programs `cvtmail', `emacsserver', `fakemail', `hexl',
730 `movemail', `profile', `rcs2log', `timer', `vcdiff', `wakeup',
731 and `yow' are used by Emacs; they do need to be copied.
732 - The programs `etags', `ctags', `emacsclient', `b2m', and `rcs-checkin'
733 are intended to be run by users; they are handled below.
734 - The programs `make-docfile' and `test-distrib' were
735 used in building Emacs, and are not needed any more.
736 - The programs `digest-doc' and `sorted-doc' convert a `DOC' file into
737 a file for users to read. There is no important reason to move them.
739 2) Copy the files in `./info' to the place specified in
740 `./lisp/site-init.el' or `./lisp/paths.el'. Note that if the
741 destination directory already contains a file named `dir', you
742 probably don't want to replace it with the `dir' file in the Emacs
743 distribution. Instead, you should make sure that the existing `dir'
744 file contains an appropriate menu entry for the Emacs info.
746 3) Copy `./src/emacs' to `/usr/local/bin', or to some other directory
747 in users' search paths. `./src/emacs' has an alternate name
748 `./src/emacs-EMACSVERSION'; you may wish to make a symbolic link named
749 `/usr/local/bin/emacs' pointing to that alternate name, as an easy way
750 of installing different versions.
752 You can delete `./src/temacs'.
754 4) Copy the programs `b2m', `emacsclient', `ctags', `etags', and
755 `rcs-checkin' from `./lib-src' to `/usr/local/bin'. These programs are
756 intended for users to run.
758 5) Copy the man pages in `./etc' for emacs, ctags, and etags into the
759 appropriate man directories.
761 6) The files in the `./src' subdirectory, except for `emacs', are not
762 used by Emacs once it is built. However, it is very desirable to keep
763 the source on line for debugging.
768 See the file PROBLEMS in etc subdirectory for a list of various
769 problems sometimes encountered, and what to do about them.
772 Installation on MSDOG (a.k.a. MSDOS)
774 To install on MSDOG, you need to have the GNU C compiler for MSDOG
775 (also known as djgpp), GNU Make, rm, mv, and sed. See the remarks in
776 config.bat for more information about locations and versions. The
777 file etc/FAQ includes pointers to Internet sites where you can find
778 the necessary utilities; search for "MS-DOS". The configuration step
779 (see below) will test for these utilities and will refuse to continue
780 if any of them isn't found.
782 Recompiling Lisp files in the `lisp' subdirectory using the various
783 targets in the lisp/Makefile file requires additional utilities:
784 `find' and `xargs' (from Findutils), `touch' (from Fileutils) GNU
785 `echo' and `test' (from Sh-utils), `tr, `sort', and `uniq' (from
786 Textutils), and a port of Bash. However, you should not normally need
787 to run lisp/Makefile, as all the Lisp files are distributed in
788 byte-compiled form as well.
790 If you are building the MSDOG version of Emacs on an MSDOG-like system
791 which supports long file names (e.g. Windows 95), you need to make
792 sure that long file names are handled consistently both when you
793 unpack the distribution and compile it. If you intend to compile with
794 DJGPP v2.0 or later, and long file names support is enabled (LFN=y in
795 the environment), you need to unpack Emacs distribution in a way that
796 doesn't truncate the original long filenames to the DOS 8.3 namespace;
797 the easiest way to do this is to use djtar program which comes with
798 DJGPP, since it will note the LFN setting and behave accordingly.
799 DJGPP v1 doesn't support long filenames, so you must unpack Emacs with
800 a program that truncates the filenames to 8.3 naming as it extracts
801 files; again, using djtar after setting LFN=n is the recommended way.
802 You can build Emacs with LFN=n even if you use DJGPP v2, if some of
803 your tools don't support long file names: just ensure that LFN is set
804 to `n' during both unpacking and compiling.
806 (By the time you read this, you have already unpacked the Emacs
807 distribution, but if the explanations above imply that you should have
808 done it differently, it's safer to delete the directory tree created
809 by the unpacking program and unpack Emacs again, than to risk running
810 into problems during the build process.)
812 It is important to understand that the runtime support of long file
813 names by the Emacs binary is NOT affected by the LFN setting during
814 compilation; Emacs compiled with DJGPP v2.0 or later will always
815 support long file names on Windows 9X no matter what was the setting
816 of LFN at compile time. However, if you compiled with LFN disabled
817 and want to enable LFN support after Emacs was already built, you need
818 to make sure that the support files in the lisp, etc and info
819 directories are called by their original long names as found in the
820 distribution. You can do this either by renaming the files manually,
821 or by extracting them from the original distribution archive with
822 djtar after you set LFN=y in the environment.
824 To unpack Emacs with djtar, type this command:
828 (This assumes that the Emacs distribution is called `emacs.tgz' on
831 If you need to type international characters, you will need to unpack
832 the Leim distribution (see the description near the beginning of this
833 file). You unpack it from the same directory where you unpacked
834 Emacs. To unpack Leim with djtar, assuming the Leim distribution is
835 called `leim.tgz', type this command:
839 If you want to print international characters, install the intlfonts
840 distribution. For this, create a directory called `fonts' under the
841 Emacs top-level directory (usually called `emacs-XX.YY') created by
842 unpacking emacs.tgz, chdir into the directory emacs-XX.YY/fonts, and
845 djtar -x intlfonts.tgz
847 When unpacking is done, a directory called `emacs-XX.YY' will be
848 created, where XX.YY is the Emacs version. To build and install
849 Emacs, chdir to that directory and type these commands:
854 Running "config msdos" checks for several programs that are required
855 to configure and build Emacs; if one of those programs is not found,
856 CONFIG.BAT stops and prints an error message. If you have DJGPP
857 version 2.0 or 2.01, it will complain about a program called
858 DJECHO.EXE. These old versions of DJGPP shipped that program under
859 the name ECHO.EXE, so you can simply copy ECHO.EXE to DJECHO.EXE and
860 rerun CONFIG.BAT. If you have neither ECHO.EXE nor DJECHO.EXE, you
861 should be able to find them in your djdevNNN.zip archive (where NNN is
862 the DJGPP version number).
864 To install the international fonts, chdir to the intlfonts-X.Y
865 directory created when you unpacked the intlfonts distribution (X.Y is
866 the version number of the fonts' distribution), and type the following
869 make bdf INSTALLDIR=..
871 After Make finishes, you may remove the directory intlfonts-X.Y; the
872 fonts are installed into the fonts/bdf subdirectory of the top-level
873 Emacs directory, and that is where Emacs will look for them by
876 Building Emacs creates executable files in the src and lib-src
877 directories. Installing Emacs on MSDOS moves these executables to a
878 sibling directory called bin. For example, if you build in directory
879 /emacs, installing moves the executables from /emacs/src and
880 /emacs/lib-src to the directory /emacs/bin, so you can then delete the
881 subdirectories /emacs/src and /emacs/lib-src if you wish. The only
882 subdirectories you need to keep are bin, lisp, etc and info. (If you
883 installed Leim, keep the leim subdirectory, and if you installed
884 intlfonts, keep the fonts directory and all its subdirectories as well.)
885 The bin subdirectory should be added to your PATH. The msdos
886 subdirectory includes a PIF and an icon file for Emacs which you might
887 find useful if you run Emacs under MS Windows.
889 Emacs on MSDOS finds the lisp, etc and info directories by looking in
890 ../lisp, ../etc and ../info, starting from the directory where the
891 Emacs executable was run from. You can override this by setting the
892 environment variables EMACSDATA (for the location of `etc' directory),
893 EMACSLOADPATH (for the location of `lisp' directory) and INFOPATH (for
894 the location of the `info' directory).
896 MSDOG is a not a multitasking operating system, so Emacs features such
897 as asynchronous subprocesses that depend on multitasking will not
898 work. Synchronous subprocesses do work.
900 Version 2.0 of djgpp has two bugs that affect Emacs. We've included
901 corrected versions of two files from djgpp in the msdos subdirectory:
902 is_exec.c and sigaction.c. To work around the bugs, compile these
903 files and link them into temacs. Djgpp versions 2.01 and later have
904 these bugs fixed, so upgrade if you can before building Emacs.
908 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
909 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
910 copyright notice and permission notice are preserved,
911 and that the distributor grants the recipient permission
912 for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
914 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
915 of this document, or of portions of it,
916 under the above conditions, provided also that they
917 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them,
918 and that any new or changed statements about the activities
919 of the Free Software Foundation are approved by the Foundation.