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 * Image support libraries
141 Emacs needs optional libraries to be able to display images (with the
142 exception of PBM and XBM images whose support is built-in).
144 On some systems, particularly on GNU/Linux, these libraries may
145 already be present or available as additional packages. Note that if
146 there is a separate `dev' or `devel' package, for use at compilation
147 time rather than run time, you will need that as well as the
148 corresponding run time package; typically the dev package will
149 contain header files and a library archive. Otherwise, you can
150 download and build libraries from sources. None of them are vital for
151 running Emacs; however, note that Emacs will not be able to use
152 colored icons in the toolbar if XPM support is not compiled in.
154 Here's the list of these optional libraries, and the URLs where they
157 . libXaw3d for fancy 3D-style
158 scroll bars: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/widgets/Xaw3d/
159 . libxpm for XPM: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/libraries/
160 Get version 3.4k or later, which lets Emacs
161 use its own color allocation functions.
162 . libpng for PNG: ftp://www.libpng.org/pub/png/
163 . libz (for PNG): http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/zlib/
164 . libjpeg for JPEG: ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/
165 Get version 6b -- 6a is reported to fail in
167 . libtiff for TIFF: http://www.libtiff.org/
169 http://prtr-13.ucsc.edu/~badger/software/libungif/index.shtml
170 Ensure you get version 4.1.0b1 or higher of libungif -- a bug in
171 4.1.0 can crash Emacs.
173 Emacs will configure itself to build with these libraries if the
174 `configure' script finds them on your system, unless you supply the
175 appropriate --without-LIB option. In some cases, older versions of
176 these libraries won't work because some routines are missing, and
177 configure should avoid such old versions. If that happens, use the
178 --without-LIB options to `configure'. See below for more details.
182 To take proper advantage of Emacs 21's mule-unicode charsets, you need
183 a Unicode font. For information on Unicode fonts for X, see
184 <URL:http://czyborra.com/unifont/>,
185 <URL:http://openlab.ring.gr.jp/efont/> and
186 <URL:http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Emgk25/ucs-fonts.html>.
187 <URL:http://czyborra.com/charsets/> has basic fonts for Emacs's
190 XFree86 release 4 (from <URL:ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/> and mirrors)
191 contains font support for most, if not all, of the charsets that Emacs
192 supports. The font files should be usable separately with older X
196 DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION:
198 (This is for a Unix or Unix-like system. For MS-DOS and Windows 3.X,
199 see below; search for MSDOG. For Windows 9X, Windows ME, Windows NT,
200 and Windows 2000, see the file nt/INSTALL. For the Mac, see the file
203 1) Make sure your system has enough swapping space allocated to handle
204 a program whose pure code is 1.5 MB and whose data area is at
205 least 2.5 MB and can reach 80 MB or more. If the swapping space is
206 insufficient, you will get an error in the command `temacs -batch -l
207 loadup dump', found in `./src/Makefile.in', or possibly when
208 running the final dumped Emacs.
210 Building Emacs requires about 95 MB of disk space (including the Emacs
211 sources), or 130 MB if Leim is used. Once installed, Emacs occupies
212 about 60 MB (70 MB with Leim) in the file system where it is
213 installed; this includes the executable files, Lisp libraries,
214 miscellaneous data files, and on-line documentation. If the building
215 and installation take place in different directories, then the
216 installation procedure momentarily requires 95+60 MB (130+70 MB).
218 2) Consult `./etc/MACHINES' to see what configuration name you should
219 give to the `configure' program. That file offers hints for
220 getting around some possible installation problems. The file lists
221 many different configurations, but only the part for your machine and
222 operating system is relevant. (The list is arranged in alphabetical
223 order by the vendor name.)
225 3) You can build Emacs in the top-level Emacs source directory
226 or in a separate directory.
228 3a) To build in the top-level Emacs source directory, go to that
229 directory and run the program `configure' as follows:
231 ./configure [CONFIGURATION-NAME] [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
233 The CONFIGURATION-NAME argument should be a configuration name given
234 in `./etc/MACHINES', with the system version number added at the end.
236 You should try first omitting CONFIGURATION-NAME. This way,
237 `configure' will try to guess your system type. If it cannot guess,
238 or if something goes wrong in building or installing Emacs this way,
239 try again specifying the proper CONFIGURATION-NAME explicitly.
241 If you don't want X support, specify `--with-x=no'. If you omit this
242 option, `configure' will try to figure out for itself whether your
243 system has X, and arrange to use it if present.
245 The `--x-includes=DIR' and `--x-libraries=DIR' options tell the build
246 process where the compiler should look for the include files and
247 object libraries used with the X Window System. Normally, `configure'
248 is able to find them; these options are necessary if you have your X
249 Window System files installed in unusual places. These options also
250 accept a list of directories, separated with colons.
252 To get more attractive menus, you can specify an X toolkit when you
253 configure Emacs; use the option `--with-x-toolkit=TOOLKIT', where
254 TOOLKIT is `athena' or `motif' (`yes' and `lucid' are synonyms for
255 `athena'). On some systems, it does not work to use a toolkit with
256 shared libraries. A free implementation of Motif, called LessTif, is
257 available ftom <http://www.lesstif.org>. Compiling with LessTif or
258 Motif causes a standard File Selection Dialog to pop up when you type
259 "C-x C-f" and similar commands. You can get fancy 3D-style scroll
260 bars, even without LessTif/Motif, if you have the Xaw3d library
261 installed (see "Image support libraries" above for Xaw3d
264 The `--with-gcc' option specifies that the build process should
265 compile Emacs using GCC. If you don't want to use GCC, specify
266 `--with-gcc=no'. If you omit this option, `configure' will search
267 for GCC in your path, and use it if present.
269 The Emacs mail reader RMAIL is configured to be able to read mail from
270 a POP3 server by default. Versions of the POP protocol older than
271 POP3 are not supported. For Kerberos-authenticated POP add
272 `--with-kerberos', for Hesiod support add `--with-hesiod'. While POP3
273 is always enabled, whether Emacs actually uses POP is controlled by
274 individual users--see the Rmail chapter of the Emacs manual.
276 For image support you may have to download, build, and install the
277 appropriate image support libraries for image types other than XBM and
278 PBM, see the list of URLs in "ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES" above.
279 (Note that PNG support requires libz in addition to libpng.)
281 To disable individual types of image support in Emacs for some reason,
282 even though configure finds the libraries, you can configure with one
283 or more of these options:
285 --without-xpm for XPM image support
286 --without-jpeg for JPEG image support
287 --without-tiff for TIFF image support
288 --without-gif for GIF image support
289 --without-png for PNG image support
291 Use --without-toolkit-scroll-bars to disable LessTif/Motif or Xaw3d
292 scroll bars. --without-xim disables the use of X Input Methods, and
293 --disable-largefile omits support for files larger than 2GB on systems
296 The `--prefix=PREFIXDIR' option specifies where the installation process
297 should put emacs and its data files. This defaults to `/usr/local'.
298 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in PREFIXDIR/bin
299 (unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise).
300 - The architecture-independent files go in PREFIXDIR/share/emacs/VERSION
301 (where VERSION is the version number of Emacs, like `19.27').
302 - The architecture-dependent files go in
303 PREFIXDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION
304 (where CONFIGURATION is the configuration name, like mips-dec-ultrix4.2),
305 unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise.
307 The `--exec-prefix=EXECDIR' option allows you to specify a separate
308 portion of the directory tree for installing architecture-specific
309 files, like executables and utility programs. If specified,
310 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in EXECDIR/bin, and
311 - The architecture-dependent files go in
312 EXECDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION.
313 EXECDIR/bin should be a directory that is normally in users' PATHs.
315 For example, the command
317 ./configure mips-dec-ultrix --with-x11
319 configures Emacs to build for a DECstation running Ultrix, with
320 support for the X11 window system.
322 `configure' doesn't do any compilation or installation
323 itself. It just creates the files that influence those things:
324 `./Makefile', `lib-src/Makefile', `oldXMenu/Makefile',
325 `lwlib/Makefile', `src/Makefile', and `./src/config.h'. For details
326 on exactly what it does, see the section called `CONFIGURATION BY
329 When it is done, `configure' prints a description of what it did and
330 creates a shell script `config.status' which, when run, recreates the
331 same configuration. If `configure' exits with an error after
332 disturbing the status quo, it removes `config.status'. `configure'
333 also creates a file `config.cache' that saves the results of its tests
334 to make reconfiguring faster, and a file `config.log' containing compiler
335 output (useful mainly for debugging `configure'). You can give
336 `configure' the option `--cache-file=FILE' to use the results of the
337 tests in FILE instead of `config.cache'. Set FILE to `/dev/null' to
338 disable caching, for debugging `configure'.
340 If the description of the system configuration printed by `configure'
341 is not right, or if it claims some of the fatures or libraries are not
342 available when you know they are, look at the `config.log' file for
343 the trace of the failed tests performed by `configure' to check
344 whether these features are supported. Typically, some test fails
345 because the compiler cannot find some function in the system
346 libraries, or some macro-processor definition in the system headers.
348 Some tests might fail because the compiler should look in special
349 directories for some header files, or link against optional
350 libraries, or use special compilation options. You can force
351 `configure' and the build process which follows it to do that by
352 setting the variables CPPFLAGS, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, LIBS, and CC before
353 running `configure'. CPPFLAGS lists the options passed to the
354 preprocessor, CFLAGS are compilation options, LDFLAGS are options used
355 when linking, LIBS are libraries to link against, and CC is the
356 command which invokes the compiler.
358 Here's an example of a `configure' invocation, assuming a Bourne-like
359 shell such as Bash, which uses these variables:
361 CPPFLAGS='-I/foo/myinclude' LDFLAGS='-L/bar/mylib' \
362 CFLAGS='-O3' LIBS='-lfoo -lbar' ./configure
364 (this is all one long line). This tells `configure' to instruct the
365 preprocessor to look in the `/foo/myinclude' directory for header
366 files (in addition to the standard directories), instruct the linker
367 to look in `/bar/mylib' for libraries, pass the -O3 optimization
368 switch to the compiler, and link against libfoo.a and libbar.a
369 libraries in addition to the standard ones.
371 The work of `configure' can be done by editing various files in the
372 distribution, but using `configure' is easier. See the section called
373 "CONFIGURATION BY HAND" below if you want to do the configuration
376 3b) To build in a separate directory, go to that directory
377 and run the program `configure' as follows:
379 SOURCE-DIR/configure CONFIGURATION-NAME [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
381 SOURCE-DIR refers to the top-level Emacs source directory which is
382 where Emacs's configure script is located. `configure' looks for the
383 Emacs source code in the directory that `configure' is in.
385 To build in a separate directory, you must use a version of `make'
386 that supports the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'.
388 3c) Some people try to build in a separate directory by filling
389 it full of symlinks to the files in the real source directory.
390 If you do that, `make all' does work, but `make install' fails:
391 it copies the symbolic links rather than the actual files.
393 As far as is known, there is no particular reason to use
394 a directory full of links rather than use the standard GNU
395 facilities to build in a separate directory (see 3b above).
397 4) Look at `./lisp/paths.el'; if some of those values are not right
398 for your system, set up the file `./lisp/site-init.el' with Emacs
399 Lisp code to override them; it is not a good idea to edit paths.el
400 itself. YOU MUST USE THE LISP FUNCTION `setq' TO ASSIGN VALUES,
401 rather than `defvar', as used by `./lisp/paths.el'. For example,
403 (setq news-inews-program "/usr/bin/inews")
405 is how you would override the default value of the variable
406 news-inews-program (which is "/usr/local/inews").
408 Before you override a variable this way, *look at the value* that the
409 variable gets by default! Make sure you know what kind of value the
410 variable should have. If you don't pay attention to what you are
411 doing, you'll make a mistake.
413 5) Put into `./lisp/site-init.el' or `./lisp/site-load.el' any Emacs
414 Lisp code you want Emacs to load before it is dumped out. Use
415 site-load.el for additional libraries if you arrange for their
416 documentation strings to be in the etc/DOC file (see
417 src/Makefile.in if you wish to figure out how to do that). For all
418 else, use site-init.el. Do not load byte-compiled code which
419 was build with a non-nil value of `byte-compile-dynamic'.
421 If you set load-path to a different value in site-init.el or
422 site-load.el, Emacs will use *precisely* that value when it starts up
423 again. If you do this, you are on your own!
425 Note that, on some systems, the code you place in site-init.el must
426 not use expand-file-name or any other function which may look
427 something up in the system's password and user information database.
428 See `./etc/PROBLEMS' for more details on which systems this affects.
430 The `site-*.el' files are nonexistent in the distribution. You do not
431 need to create them if you have nothing to put in them.
433 6) Refer to the file `./etc/TERMS' for information on fields you may
434 wish to add to various termcap entries. The files `./etc/termcap.ucb'
435 and `./etc/termcap.dat' may already contain appropriately-modified
438 7) Run `make' in the top directory of the Emacs distribution to finish
439 building Emacs in the standard way. The final executable file is
440 named `src/emacs'. You can execute this file "in place" without
441 copying it, if you wish; then it automatically uses the sibling
442 directories ../lisp, ../lib-src, ../info.
444 Or you can "install" the executable and the other Emacs into their
445 installed locations, with `make install'. By default, Emacs's files
446 are installed in the following directories:
448 `/usr/local/bin' holds the executable programs users normally run -
449 `emacs', `etags', `ctags', `b2m', `emacsclient',
452 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp' holds the Emacs Lisp library;
453 `VERSION' stands for the number of the Emacs version
454 you are installing, like `18.59' or `19.27'. Since the
455 Lisp library changes from one version of Emacs to
456 another, including the version number in the path
457 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed
458 at the same time; in particular, you don't have to
459 make Emacs unavailable while installing a new version.
461 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
462 files installed for Emacs version VERSION only.
464 `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
465 files installed for all Emacs versions.
467 When Emacs is installed, it searches for its Lisp files
468 in `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp', then in
469 `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp', and finally in
470 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp'.
472 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/etc' holds the Emacs tutorial, the DOC
473 file, the `yow' database, and other
474 architecture-independent files Emacs might need while
475 running. VERSION is as specified for `.../lisp'.
477 `/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME' contains executable
478 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to
480 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are
481 installing, and `CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the argument
482 you gave to the `configure' program to identify the
483 architecture and operating system of your machine,
484 like `mips-dec-ultrix' or `sparc-sun-sunos'. Since
485 these files are specific to the version of Emacs,
486 operating system, and architecture in use, including
487 the configuration name in the path allows you to have
488 several versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and
489 operating systems installed at the same time; this is
490 useful for sites at which different kinds of machines
491 share the file system Emacs is installed on.
493 `/usr/local/info' holds the on-line documentation for Emacs, known as
494 "info files". Many other GNU programs are documented
495 using info files as well, so this directory stands
496 apart from the other, Emacs-specific directories.
498 `/usr/local/man/man1' holds the man pages for the programs installed
501 If these directories are not what you want, you can specify where to
502 install Emacs's libraries and data files or where Emacs should search
503 for its Lisp files by giving values for `make' variables as part of
504 the command. See the section below called `MAKE VARIABLES' for more
507 8) Check the file `dir' in your site's info directory (usually
508 /usr/local/info) to make sure that it has a menu entry for the Emacs
511 9) If your system uses lock files to interlock access to mailer inbox files,
512 then you might need to make the movemail program setuid or setgid
513 to enable it to write the lock files. We believe this is safe.
515 10) You are done! You can remove executables and object files from
516 the build directory by typing `make clean'. To also remove the files
517 that `configure' created (so you can compile Emacs for a different
518 configuration), type `make distclean'. If you don't need some, or all
519 of the input methods from the Leim package, you can remove the
520 unneeded files in the leim/quail, leim/skk, and leim/skk-dic
521 subdirectories of your site's lisp directory (usually
522 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/).
528 You can change where the build process installs Emacs and its data
529 files by specifying values for `make' variables as part of the `make'
530 command line. For example, if you type
532 make install bindir=/usr/local/gnubin
534 the `bindir=/usr/local/gnubin' argument indicates that the Emacs
535 executable files should go in `/usr/local/gnubin', not
538 Here is a complete list of the variables you may want to set.
540 `bindir' indicates where to put executable programs that users can
541 run. This defaults to /usr/local/bin.
543 `datadir' indicates where to put the architecture-independent
544 read-only data files that Emacs refers to while it runs; it
545 defaults to /usr/local/share. We create the following
546 subdirectories under `datadir':
547 - `emacs/VERSION/lisp', containing the Emacs Lisp library, and
548 - `emacs/VERSION/etc', containing the Emacs tutorial, the DOC
549 file, and the `yow' database.
550 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
551 like `18.59' or `19.0'. Since these files vary from one version
552 of Emacs to another, including the version number in the path
553 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed at the
554 same time; this means that you don't have to make Emacs
555 unavailable while installing a new version.
557 `libexecdir' indicates where to put architecture-specific data files that
558 Emacs refers to as it runs; it defaults to `/usr/local/libexec'.
559 We create the following subdirectories under `libexecdir':
560 - `emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME', containing executable
561 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to run
563 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
564 and `CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the argument you gave to the
565 `configure' program to identify the architecture and operating
566 system of your machine, like `mips-dec-ultrix' or
567 `sparc-sun-sunos'. Since these files are specific to the version
568 of Emacs, operating system, and architecture in use, including
569 the configuration name in the path allows you to have several
570 versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and operating systems
571 installed at the same time; this is useful for sites at which
572 different kinds of machines share the file system Emacs is
575 `infodir' indicates where to put the info files distributed with
576 Emacs; it defaults to `/usr/local/info'.
578 `mandir' indicates where to put the man pages for Emacs and its
579 utilities (like `etags'); it defaults to
580 `/usr/local/man/man1'.
582 `manext' gives the extension the man pages should be installed with.
583 It should contain a period, followed by the appropriate
584 digit. It defaults to `.1'. For example given the default
585 values for `mandir' and `manext', the Emacs man page would be
586 installed as `/usr/local/man/man1/emacs.1'.
588 `prefix' doesn't give a path for any specific part of Emacs; instead,
589 its value is used to determine the defaults for all the
590 architecture-independent path variables - `datadir',
591 `sharedstatedir', `infodir', and `mandir'. Its default value is
592 `/usr/local'; the other variables add on `lib' or `man' to it
595 For example, suppose your site generally places GNU software
596 under `/usr/users/software/gnusoft' instead of `/usr/local'.
598 `prefix=/usr/users/software/gnusoft'
599 in the arguments to `make', you can instruct the build process
600 to place all of the Emacs data files in the appropriate
601 directories under that path.
603 `exec_prefix' serves the same purpose as `prefix', but instead
604 determines the default values for the architecture-dependent
605 path variables - `bindir' and `libexecdir'.
607 The above variables serve analogous purposes in the makefiles for all
608 GNU software; this variable is specific to Emacs.
610 `archlibdir' indicates where Emacs installs and expects the executable
611 files and other architecture-dependent data it uses while
612 running. Its default value, based on `libexecdir' (which
613 see), is `/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME'
614 (where VERSION and CONFIGURATION-NAME are as described above).
616 Remember that you must specify any variable values you need each time
617 you run `make' in the top directory. If you run `make' once to build
618 emacs, test it, and then run `make' again to install the files, you
619 must provide the same variable settings each time. To make the
620 settings persist, you can edit them into the `Makefile' in the top
621 directory, but be aware that running the `configure' program erases
622 `Makefile' and rebuilds it from `Makefile.in'.
624 The path for finding Lisp files is specified in src/paths.h,
625 a file which is generated by running configure. To change the path,
626 you can edit the definition of PATH_LOADSEARCH in that file
627 before you run `make'.
629 The top-level Makefile stores the variable settings it used in the
630 Makefiles for the subdirectories, so you don't have to specify them
631 when running make in the subdirectories.
634 CONFIGURATION BY HAND
636 Instead of running the `configure' program, you have to perform the
639 1) Copy `./src/config.in' to `./src/config.h'.
641 2) Consult `./etc/MACHINES' to see what configuration name you should
642 use for your system. Look at the code of the `configure' script to
643 see which operating system and architecture description files from
644 `src/s' and `src/m' should be used for that configuration name. Edit
645 `src/config.h', and change the two `#include' directives to include
646 the appropriate system and architecture description files.
648 2) Edit `./src/config.h' to set the right options for your system. If
649 you need to override any of the definitions in the s/*.h and m/*.h
650 files for your system and machine, do so by editing config.h, not by
651 changing the s/*.h and m/*.h files. Occasionally you may need to
652 redefine parameters used in `./lib-src/movemail.c'.
654 3) Create src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile from the corresponding
655 `Makefile.in' files. First copy `Makefile.in' to `Makefile.c',
656 then edit in appropriate substitutions for the @...@ constructs,
657 and then copy the shell commands near the end of `configure'
658 that run cpp to construct `Makefile'.
660 4) Create `Makefile' files in various other directories
661 from the corresponding `Makefile.in' files. This isn't so hard,
662 just a matter of substitution.
664 The `configure' script is built from `configure.in' by the `autoconf'
665 program. You need version 2.8 or newer of `autoconf' to rebuild
668 BUILDING GNU EMACS BY HAND
670 Once Emacs is configured, running `make' in the top directory performs
673 1) Run `make src/paths.h' in the top directory. This produces
674 `./src/paths.h' from the template file `./src/paths.in', changing
675 the paths to the values specified in `./Makefile'.
677 2) Go to directory `./lib-src' and run `make'. This creates
678 executables named `ctags' and `etags' and `wakeup' and `make-docfile'
679 and `digest-doc' and `test-distrib'. And others.
681 3) Go to directory `./src' and Run `make'. This refers to files in
682 the `./lisp' and `./lib-src' subdirectories using names `../lisp' and
685 This creates a file `./src/emacs' which is the runnable Emacs,
686 which has another name that contains a version number.
687 Each time you do this, that version number increments in the last place.
689 It also creates a file in `./etc' whose name is `DOC' followed by the
690 current Emacs version. This file contains documentation strings for
691 all the functions in Emacs. Each time you run make to make a new
692 emacs, a new DOC file with a new name is made. You must keep the DOC
693 file for an Emacs version as long as you keep using that Emacs
699 The steps below are done by running `make install' in the main
700 directory of the Emacs distribution.
702 1) Copy `./lisp' and its subdirectories, `./etc', and the executables
703 in `./lib-src' to their final destinations, as selected in `./src/paths.h'.
705 Strictly speaking, not all of the executables in `./lib-src' need be copied.
706 - The programs `cvtmail', `emacsserver', `fakemail', `hexl',
707 `movemail', `profile', `rcs2log', `timer', `vcdiff', `wakeup',
708 and `yow' are used by Emacs; they do need to be copied.
709 - The programs `etags', `ctags', `emacsclient', `b2m', and `rcs-checkin'
710 are intended to be run by users; they are handled below.
711 - The programs `make-docfile' and `test-distrib' were
712 used in building Emacs, and are not needed any more.
713 - The programs `digest-doc' and `sorted-doc' convert a `DOC' file into
714 a file for users to read. There is no important reason to move them.
716 2) Copy the files in `./info' to the place specified in
717 `./lisp/site-init.el' or `./lisp/paths.el'. Note that if the
718 destination directory already contains a file named `dir', you
719 probably don't want to replace it with the `dir' file in the Emacs
720 distribution. Instead, you should make sure that the existing `dir'
721 file contains an appropriate menu entry for the Emacs info.
723 3) Copy `./src/emacs' to `/usr/local/bin', or to some other directory
724 in users' search paths. `./src/emacs' has an alternate name
725 `./src/emacs-EMACSVERSION'; you may wish to make a symbolic link named
726 `/usr/local/bin/emacs' pointing to that alternate name, as an easy way
727 of installing different versions.
729 You can delete `./src/temacs'.
731 4) Copy the programs `b2m', `emacsclient', `ctags', `etags', and
732 `rcs-checkin' from `./lib-src' to `/usr/local/bin'. These programs are
733 intended for users to run.
735 5) Copy the man pages in `./etc' for emacs, ctags, and etags into the
736 appropriate man directories.
738 6) The files in the `./src' subdirectory, except for `emacs', are not
739 used by Emacs once it is built. However, it is very desirable to keep
740 the source on line for debugging.
745 See the file PROBLEMS in etc subdirectory for a list of various
746 problems sometimes encountered, and what to do about them.
749 Installation on MSDOG (a.k.a. MSDOS)
751 To install on MSDOG, you need to have the GNU C compiler for MSDOG
752 (also known as djgpp), GNU Make, rm, mv, and sed. See the remarks in
753 config.bat for more information about locations and versions. The
754 file etc/FAQ includes pointers to Internet sites where you can find
755 the necessary utilities; search for "MS-DOS". The configuration step
756 (see below) will test for these utilities and will refuse to continue
757 if any of them isn't found.
759 Recompiling Lisp files in the `lisp' subdirectory using the various
760 targets in the lisp/Makefile file requires additional utilities:
761 `find' and `xargs' (from Findutils), `touch' (from Fileutils) GNU
762 `echo' and `test' (from Sh-utils), `tr, `sort', and `uniq' (from
763 Textutils), and a port of Bash. However, you should not normally need
764 to run lisp/Makefile, as all the Lisp files are distributed in
765 byte-compiled form as well.
767 If you are building the MSDOG version of Emacs on an MSDOG-like system
768 which supports long file names (e.g. Windows 95), you need to make
769 sure that long file names are handled consistently both when you
770 unpack the distribution and compile it. If you intend to compile with
771 DJGPP v2.0 or later, and long file names support is enabled (LFN=y in
772 the environment), you need to unpack Emacs distribution in a way that
773 doesn't truncate the original long filenames to the DOS 8.3 namespace;
774 the easiest way to do this is to use djtar program which comes with
775 DJGPP, since it will note the LFN setting and behave accordingly.
776 DJGPP v1 doesn't support long filenames, so you must unpack Emacs with
777 a program that truncates the filenames to 8.3 naming as it extracts
778 files; again, using djtar after setting LFN=n is the recommended way.
779 You can build Emacs with LFN=n even if you use DJGPP v2, if some of
780 your tools don't support long file names: just ensure that LFN is set
781 to `n' during both unpacking and compiling.
783 (By the time you read this, you have already unpacked the Emacs
784 distribution, but if the explanations above imply that you should have
785 done it differently, it's safer to delete the directory tree created
786 by the unpacking program and unpack Emacs again, than to risk running
787 into problems during the build process.)
789 It is important to understand that the runtime support of long file
790 names by the Emacs binary is NOT affected by the LFN setting during
791 compilation; Emacs compiled with DJGPP v2.0 or later will always
792 support long file names on Windows 9X no matter what was the setting
793 of LFN at compile time. However, if you compiled with LFN disabled
794 and want to enable LFN support after Emacs was already built, you need
795 to make sure that the support files in the lisp, etc and info
796 directories are called by their original long names as found in the
797 distribution. You can do this either by renaming the files manually,
798 or by extracting them from the original distribution archive with
799 djtar after you set LFN=y in the environment.
801 To unpack Emacs with djtar, type this command:
805 (This assumes that the Emacs distribution is called `emacs.tgz' on
808 If you need to type international characters, you will need to unpack
809 the Leim distribution (see the description near the beginning of this
810 file). You unpack it from the same directory where you unpacked
811 Emacs. To unpack Leim with djtar, assuming the Leim distribution is
812 called `leim.tgz', type this command:
816 If you want to print international characters, install the intlfonts
817 distribution. For this, create a directory called `fonts' under the
818 Emacs top-level directory (usually called `emacs-XX.YY') created by
819 unpacking emacs.tgz, chdir into the directory emacs-XX.YY/fonts, and
822 djtar -x intlfonts.tgz
824 When unpacking is done, a directory called `emacs-XX.YY' will be
825 created, where XX.YY is the Emacs version. To build and install
826 Emacs, chdir to that directory and type these commands:
831 Running "config msdos" checks for several programs that are required
832 to configure and build Emacs; if one of those programs is not found,
833 CONFIG.BAT stops and prints an error message. If you have DJGPP
834 version 2.0 or 2.01, it will complain about a program called
835 DJECHO.EXE. These old versions of DJGPP shipped that program under
836 the name ECHO.EXE, so you can simply copy ECHO.EXE to DJECHO.EXE and
837 rerun CONFIG.BAT. If you have neither ECHO.EXE nor DJECHO.EXE, you
838 should be able to find them in your djdevNNN.zip archive (where NNN is
839 the DJGPP version number).
841 On Windows NT or Windows 2000, running "config msdos" might print an
842 error message like "VDM has been already loaded". This is because
843 those systems have a program called `redir.exe' which is incompatible
844 with a program by the same name supplied with DJGPP, which is used by
845 config.bat. To resolve this, move the DJGPP's `bin' subdirectory to
846 the front of your PATH environment variable.
848 To install the international fonts, chdir to the intlfonts-X.Y
849 directory created when you unpacked the intlfonts distribution (X.Y is
850 the version number of the fonts' distribution), and type the following
853 make bdf INSTALLDIR=..
855 After Make finishes, you may remove the directory intlfonts-X.Y; the
856 fonts are installed into the fonts/bdf subdirectory of the top-level
857 Emacs directory, and that is where Emacs will look for them by
860 Building Emacs creates executable files in the src and lib-src
861 directories. Installing Emacs on MSDOS moves these executables to a
862 sibling directory called bin. For example, if you build in directory
863 /emacs, installing moves the executables from /emacs/src and
864 /emacs/lib-src to the directory /emacs/bin, so you can then delete the
865 subdirectories /emacs/src and /emacs/lib-src if you wish. The only
866 subdirectories you need to keep are bin, lisp, etc and info. (If you
867 installed Leim, keep the leim subdirectory, and if you installed
868 intlfonts, keep the fonts directory and all its subdirectories as well.)
869 The bin subdirectory should be added to your PATH. The msdos
870 subdirectory includes a PIF and an icon file for Emacs which you might
871 find useful if you run Emacs under MS Windows.
873 Emacs on MSDOS finds the lisp, etc and info directories by looking in
874 ../lisp, ../etc and ../info, starting from the directory where the
875 Emacs executable was run from. You can override this by setting the
876 environment variables EMACSDATA (for the location of `etc' directory),
877 EMACSLOADPATH (for the location of `lisp' directory) and INFOPATH (for
878 the location of the `info' directory).
880 MSDOG is a not a multitasking operating system, so Emacs features such
881 as asynchronous subprocesses that depend on multitasking will not
882 work. Synchronous subprocesses do work.
884 Version 2.0 of djgpp has two bugs that affect Emacs. We've included
885 corrected versions of two files from djgpp in the msdos subdirectory:
886 is_exec.c and sigaction.c. To work around the bugs, compile these
887 files and link them into temacs. Djgpp versions 2.01 and later have
888 these bugs fixed, so upgrade if you can before building Emacs.
892 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
893 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
894 copyright notice and permission notice are preserved,
895 and that the distributor grants the recipient permission
896 for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
898 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
899 of this document, or of portions of it,
900 under the above conditions, provided also that they
901 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them,
902 and that any new or changed statements about the activities
903 of the Free Software Foundation are approved by the Foundation.