1 GNU Emacs Installation Guide
2 Copyright (C) 1992, 1994, 1996-1997, 2000-2017 Free Software Foundation,
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
7 This file contains general information on building GNU Emacs.
8 For more information specific to the MS-Windows, GNUstep/macOS, and
9 MS-DOS ports, also read the files nt/INSTALL, nextstep/INSTALL, and
10 msdos/INSTALL. For information about building from a repository checkout
11 (rather than a release), also read the file INSTALL.REPO.
16 On most Unix systems, you build Emacs by first running the 'configure'
17 shell script. This attempts to deduce the correct values for
18 various system-dependent variables and features, and find the
19 directories where certain system headers and libraries are kept.
20 In a few cases, you may need to explicitly tell configure where to
21 find some things, or what options to use.
23 'configure' creates a 'Makefile' in several subdirectories, and a
24 'src/config.h' file containing system-dependent definitions.
25 Running the 'make' utility then builds the package for your system.
27 Building Emacs requires GNU make, <https://www.gnu.org/software/make/>.
28 On most systems that Emacs supports, this is the default 'make' program.
30 Here's the procedure to build Emacs using 'configure' on systems which
31 are supported by it. In some cases, if the simplified procedure fails,
32 you might need to use various non-default options, and maybe perform
33 some of the steps manually. The more detailed description in the other
34 sections of this guide will help you do that, so please refer to those
35 sections if you need to.
37 1. Unpacking the Emacs 25 release requires about 200 MB of free
38 disk space. Building Emacs uses about another 200 MB of space.
39 The final installed Emacs uses about 150 MB of disk space.
40 This includes the space-saving that comes from automatically
41 compressing the Lisp source files on installation.
43 2a. 'cd' to the directory where you unpacked Emacs and invoke the
48 2b. Alternatively, create a separate directory, outside the source
49 directory, where you want to build Emacs, and invoke 'configure'
54 where SOURCE-DIR is the top-level Emacs source directory.
56 3. When 'configure' finishes, it prints several lines of details
57 about the system configuration. Read those details carefully
58 looking for anything suspicious, such as wrong CPU and operating
59 system names, wrong places for headers or libraries, missing
60 libraries that you know are installed on your system, etc.
62 If you find anything wrong, you may have to pass to 'configure'
63 one or more options specifying the explicit machine configuration
64 name, where to find various headers and libraries, etc.
65 Refer to the section DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION below.
67 If 'configure' didn't find some image support libraries, such as
68 Xpm and jpeg, refer to "Image support libraries" below.
70 If the details printed by 'configure' don't make any sense to
71 you, but there are no obvious errors, assume that 'configure' did
74 4. Invoke the 'make' program:
78 5. If 'make' succeeds, it will build an executable program 'emacs'
79 in the 'src' directory. You can try this program, to make sure
84 6. Assuming that the program 'src/emacs' starts and displays its
85 opening screen, you can install the program and its auxiliary
86 files into their installation directories:
90 You are now ready to use Emacs. If you wish to conserve disk space,
91 you may remove the program binaries and object files from the
92 directory where you built Emacs:
96 You can delete the entire build directory if you do not plan to
97 build Emacs again, but it can be useful to keep for debugging.
98 If you want to build Emacs again with different configure options,
99 first clean the source directories:
103 Note that the install automatically saves space by compressing
104 (provided you have the 'gzip' program) those installed Lisp source (.el)
105 files that have corresponding .elc versions, as well as the Info files.
108 ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES
110 * Complex Text Layout support libraries
112 On GNU and Unix systems, Emacs needs the optional libraries "m17n-db",
113 "libm17n-flt", "libotf" to correctly display such complex scripts as
114 Indic and Khmer, and also for scripts that require Arabic shaping
115 support (Arabic and Farsi). On some systems, particularly GNU/Linux,
116 these libraries may be already present or available as additional
117 packages. Note that if there is a separate 'dev' or 'devel' package,
118 for use at compilation time rather than run time, you will need that
119 as well as the corresponding run time package; typically the dev
120 package will contain header files and a library archive. Otherwise,
121 you can download the libraries from <http://www.nongnu.org/m17n/>.
123 Note that Emacs cannot support complex scripts on a TTY, unless the
124 terminal includes such a support.
126 * intlfonts-VERSION.tar.gz
128 The intlfonts distribution contains X11 fonts in various encodings
129 that Emacs can use to display international characters. If you see a
130 non-ASCII character appear as a hollow box, that means you don't have
131 a font for it. You might find one in the intlfonts distribution. If
132 you do have a font for a non-ASCII character, but some characters
133 don't look right, or appear improperly aligned, a font from the
134 intlfonts distribution might look better.
136 The fonts in the intlfonts distribution are also used by the ps-print
137 package for printing international characters. The file
138 lisp/ps-mule.el defines the *.bdf font files required for printing
141 The intlfonts distribution contains its own installation instructions,
142 in the intlfonts/README file.
144 * Image support libraries
146 Emacs needs libraries to display images, with the exception of PBM and
147 XBM images whose support is built-in.
149 On some systems, particularly on GNU/Linux, these libraries may
150 already be present or available as additional packages. If
151 there is a separate 'dev' or 'devel' package, for use at compilation
152 time rather than run time, you will need that as well as the
153 corresponding run time package; typically the dev package will
154 contain header files and a library archive. Otherwise, you can
155 download and build libraries from sources. Although none of them are
156 essential for running Emacs, some are important enough that
157 'configure' will report an error if they are absent from a system that
158 has X11 support, unless 'configure' is specifically told to omit them.
160 Here's a list of some of these libraries, and the URLs where they
161 can be found (in the unlikely event that your distribution does not
162 provide them). By default, libraries marked with an X are required if
165 libXaw3d https://directory.fsf.org/project/xaw3d/
166 X libxpm for XPM: http://www.x.org/releases/current/src/lib/
167 X libpng for PNG: http://www.libpng.org/
168 libz (for PNG): http://www.zlib.net/
169 X libjpeg for JPEG: http://www.ijg.org/
170 X libtiff for TIFF: http://www.remotesensing.org/libtiff/
171 X libgif for GIF: http://sourceforge.net/projects/giflib/
172 librsvg2 for SVG: http://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Projects/LibRsvg
174 If you supply the appropriate --without-LIB option, 'configure' will
175 omit the corresponding library from Emacs, even if that makes for a
176 less-pleasant user interface. Otherwise, Emacs will configure itself
177 to build with these libraries if 'configure' finds them on your
178 system, and 'configure' will complain and exit if a library marked 'X'
179 is not found on a system that uses X11. Use --without-LIB if your
180 version of a library won't work because some routines are missing.
184 The Emacs distribution does not include fonts and does not install
187 On the GNU system, Emacs supports both X fonts and local fonts
188 (i.e. fonts managed by the fontconfig library). If you need more
189 fonts than your distribution normally provides, you must install them
190 yourself. See <https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/> for a large
191 number of free Unicode fonts.
193 * GNU/Linux development packages
195 Many GNU/Linux systems do not come with development packages by default;
196 they include the files that you need to run Emacs, but not those you
197 need to compile it. For example, to compile Emacs with support for X
198 and graphics libraries, you may need to install the X development
199 package(s), and development versions of the jpeg, png, etc. packages.
201 The names of the packages that you need varies according to the
202 GNU/Linux distribution that you use, and the options that you want to
203 configure Emacs with. On Debian-based systems, you can install all the
204 packages needed to build the installed version of Emacs with a command
205 like 'apt-get build-dep emacs24'. On Red Hat systems, the
206 corresponding command is 'yum-builddep emacs'.
209 DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION:
211 (This is for a Unix or Unix-like system. For GNUstep and macOS,
212 see nextstep/INSTALL. For non-ancient versions of MS Windows, see
213 the file nt/INSTALL. For MS-DOS and MS Windows 3.X, see msdos/INSTALL.)
215 1) See the basic installation summary above for the disk space requirements.
217 2) In the unlikely event that 'configure' does not detect your system
218 type correctly, consult './etc/MACHINES' to see what --host, --build
219 options you should pass to 'configure'. That file also offers hints
220 for getting around some possible installation problems.
222 3) You can build Emacs in the top-level Emacs source directory
223 or in a separate directory.
225 3a) To build in the top-level Emacs source directory, go to that
226 directory and run the program 'configure' as follows:
228 ./configure [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
230 If 'configure' cannot determine your system type, try again
231 specifying the proper --build, --host options explicitly.
233 If you don't want X support, specify '--with-x=no'. If you omit this
234 option, 'configure' will try to figure out for itself whether your
235 system has X, and arrange to use it if present.
237 The '--x-includes=DIR' and '--x-libraries=DIR' options tell the build
238 process where the compiler should look for the include files and
239 object libraries used with the X Window System. Normally, 'configure'
240 is able to find them; these options are necessary if you have your X
241 Window System files installed in unusual places. These options also
242 accept a list of directories, separated with colons.
244 To get more attractive menus, you can specify an X toolkit when you
245 configure Emacs; use the option '--with-x-toolkit=TOOLKIT', where
246 TOOLKIT is 'gtk' (the default), 'athena', or 'motif' ('yes' and
247 'lucid' are synonyms for 'athena'). Compiling with Motif causes a
248 standard File Selection Dialog to pop up when you invoke file commands
249 with the mouse. You can get fancy 3D-style scroll bars, even without
250 Gtk or Motif, if you have the Xaw3d library installed (see
251 "Image support libraries" above for Xaw3d availability).
253 You can tell configure where to search for GTK by giving it the
254 argument PKG_CONFIG='/full/name/of/pkg-config'.
256 Emacs will autolaunch a D-Bus session bus, when the environment
257 variable DISPLAY is set, but no session bus is running. This might be
258 inconvenient for Emacs when running as daemon or running via a remote
259 ssh connection. In order to completely prevent the use of D-Bus, configure
260 Emacs with the options '--without-dbus --without-gconf --without-gsettings'.
262 To read email via a network protocol like IMAP or POP, you can
263 configure Emacs with the option '--with-mailutils', so that it always
264 uses the GNU Mailutils 'movemail' program to retrieve mail; this is
265 the default if GNU Mailutils is installed. Otherwise the Emacs build
266 procedure builds and installs an auxiliary 'movemail' program, a
267 limited and insecure substitute; when this happens, there are several
268 configure options such as --without-pop that provide fine-grained
269 control over Emacs 'movemail' construction.
271 The Emacs mail reader RMAIL is configured to be able to read mail from
272 a POP3 server by default. Versions of the POP protocol older than
273 POP3 are not supported. While POP3 support is typically enabled,
274 whether Emacs actually uses POP3 is controlled by individual users;
275 see the Rmail chapter of the Emacs manual. Unless --with-mailutils is
276 in effect, it is a good idea to configure without POP3 support so that
277 users are less likely to inadvertently read email via insecure
278 channels. On native MS-Windows, --with-pop is the default; on other
279 platforms, --without-pop is the default.
281 For image support you may have to download, build, and install the
282 appropriate image support libraries for image types other than XBM and
283 PBM, see the list of URLs in "Image support libraries" above.
284 (Note that PNG support requires libz in addition to libpng.)
286 To disable individual types of image support in Emacs for some reason,
287 even though configure finds the libraries, you can configure with one
288 or more of these options:
290 --without-xpm for XPM image support
291 --without-jpeg for JPEG image support
292 --without-tiff for TIFF image support
293 --without-gif for GIF image support
294 --without-png for PNG image support
295 --without-rsvg for SVG image support
296 --without-imagemagick for Imagemagick support
298 Use --without-toolkit-scroll-bars to disable Motif or Xaw3d scroll bars.
300 Use --without-xim to inhibit the default use of X Input Methods.
301 In this case, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn on use of XIM.
303 Use --disable-largefile to omit support for files larger than 2GB on
304 systems which support that.
306 Use --without-sound to disable sound support.
308 Use --without-all for a smaller executable with fewer dependencies on
309 external libraries, at the cost of disabling many features. Although
310 --without-all disables libraries not needed for ordinary Emacs
311 operation, it does enable X support, and using the GTK2 or GTK3
312 toolkit creates a lot of library dependencies. So if you want to
313 build a small executable with very basic X support, use --without-all
314 --with-x-toolkit=no. For the smallest possible executable without X,
315 use --without-all --without-x. If you want to build with just a few
316 features enabled, you can combine --without-all with --with-FEATURE.
317 For example, you can use --without-all --without-x --with-dbus to
318 build with D-Bus support and nothing more.
320 Use --with-wide-int to implement Emacs values with the type 'long long',
321 even on hosts where a narrower type would do. With this option, on a
322 typical 32-bit host, Emacs integers have 62 bits instead of 30.
324 Use --with-cairo to compile Emacs with Cairo drawing.
326 Use --with-modules to build Emacs with support for dynamic modules.
327 This needs a C compiler that supports '__attribute__ ((cleanup (...)))',
328 as in GCC 3.4 and later.
330 Use --enable-gcc-warnings to enable compile-time checks that warn
331 about possibly-questionable C code. This is intended for developers
332 and is useful with GNU-compatible compilers. On a recent GNU system
333 there should be no warnings; on older and on non-GNU systems the
334 generated warnings may still be useful, though you may prefer
335 configuring with --enable-gcc-warnings=warn-only so they are not
336 treated as errors. The default is --enable-gcc-warnings=warn-only if
337 it appears to be a developer build, and is --disable-gcc-warnings
340 Use --disable-silent-rules to cause 'make' to give more details about
341 the commands it executes. This can be helpful when debugging a build
342 that goes awry. 'make V=1' also enables the extra chatter.
344 Use --enable-link-time-optimization to enable link-time optimization.
345 With GCC, you need GCC 4.5.0 and later, and 'configure' arranges for
346 linking to be parallelized if possible. With Clang, you need GNU
347 binutils with the gold linker and plugin support, along with the LLVM
348 gold plugin <http://llvm.org/docs/GoldPlugin.html>. Link time
349 optimization is not the default as it tends to cause crashes and to
352 The '--prefix=PREFIXDIR' option specifies where the installation process
353 should put emacs and its data files. This defaults to '/usr/local'.
354 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in PREFIXDIR/bin
355 (unless the '--exec-prefix' option says otherwise).
356 - The architecture-independent files go in PREFIXDIR/share/emacs/VERSION
357 (where VERSION is the version number of Emacs, like '23.2').
358 - The architecture-dependent files go in
359 PREFIXDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION
360 (where CONFIGURATION is the configuration name, like
361 i686-pc-linux-gnu), unless the '--exec-prefix' option says otherwise.
363 The '--exec-prefix=EXECDIR' option allows you to specify a separate
364 portion of the directory tree for installing architecture-specific
365 files, like executables and utility programs. If specified,
366 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in EXECDIR/bin, and
367 - The architecture-dependent files go in
368 EXECDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION.
369 EXECDIR/bin should be a directory that is normally in users' PATHs.
371 For example, the command
373 ./configure --build=i386-linux-gnu --without-sound
375 configures Emacs to build for a 32-bit GNU/Linux distribution,
376 without sound support.
378 'configure' doesn't do any compilation or installation itself.
379 It just creates the files that influence those things:
380 './Makefile' in the top-level directory and several subdirectories;
381 and './src/config.h'.
383 When it is done, 'configure' prints a description of what it did and
384 creates a shell script 'config.status' which, when run, recreates the
385 same configuration. If 'configure' exits with an error after
386 disturbing the status quo, it removes 'config.status'. 'configure'
387 also creates a file 'config.cache' that saves the results of its tests
388 to make reconfiguring faster, and a file 'config.log' containing compiler
389 output (useful mainly for debugging 'configure'). You can give
390 'configure' the option '--cache-file=FILE' to use the results of the
391 tests in FILE instead of 'config.cache'. Set FILE to '/dev/null' to
392 disable caching, for debugging 'configure'.
394 If the description of the system configuration printed by 'configure'
395 is not right, or if it claims some of the features or libraries are not
396 available when you know they are, look at the 'config.log' file for
397 the trace of the failed tests performed by 'configure' to check
398 whether these features are supported. Typically, some test fails
399 because the compiler cannot find some function in the system
400 libraries, or some macro-processor definition in the system headers.
402 Some tests might fail because the compiler should look in special
403 directories for some header files, or link against optional
404 libraries, or use special compilation options. You can force
405 'configure' and the build process which follows it to do that by
406 setting the variables CPPFLAGS, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, LIBS, CPP and CC
407 before running 'configure'. CPP is the command which invokes the
408 preprocessor, CPPFLAGS lists the options passed to it, CFLAGS are
409 compilation options, LDFLAGS are options used when linking, LIBS are
410 libraries to link against, and CC is the command which invokes the
411 compiler. By default, gcc is used if available.
413 Here's an example of a 'configure' invocation, assuming a Bourne-like
414 shell such as Bash, which uses these variables:
417 CPPFLAGS='-I/foo/myinclude' LDFLAGS='-L/bar/mylib' \
418 CFLAGS='-O3' LIBS='-lfoo -lbar'
420 (this is all one shell command). This tells 'configure' to instruct the
421 preprocessor to look in the '/foo/myinclude' directory for header
422 files (in addition to the standard directories), instruct the linker
423 to look in '/bar/mylib' for libraries, pass the -O3 optimization
424 switch to the compiler, and link against libfoo and libbar
425 libraries in addition to the standard ones.
427 For some libraries, like Gtk+, fontconfig and ALSA, 'configure' uses
428 pkg-config to find where those libraries are installed.
429 If you want pkg-config to look in special directories, you have to set
430 PKG_CONFIG_PATH to point to the directories where the .pc-files for
431 those libraries are. For example:
434 PKG_CONFIG_PATH='/usr/local/alsa/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/gtk+-2.8/lib/pkgconfig'
436 3b) To build in a separate directory, go to that directory
437 and run the program 'configure' as follows:
439 SOURCE-DIR/configure CONFIGURATION-NAME [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
441 SOURCE-DIR refers to the top-level Emacs source directory which is
442 where Emacs's configure script is located. 'configure' looks for the
443 Emacs source code in the directory that 'configure' is in.
445 4) Put into './lisp/site-init.el' or './lisp/site-load.el' any Emacs
446 Lisp code you want Emacs to load before it is dumped out. Use
447 site-load.el for additional libraries if you arrange for their
448 documentation strings to be in the etc/DOC file (see
449 src/Makefile.in if you wish to figure out how to do that). For all
450 else, use site-init.el. Do not load byte-compiled code which
451 was built with a non-nil value of 'byte-compile-dynamic'.
453 It is not a good idea to edit the normal .el files that come with Emacs.
454 Instead, use a file like site-init.el to change settings.
456 To change the value of a variable that is already defined in Emacs,
457 you should use the Lisp function 'setq', not 'defvar'. For example,
459 (setq news-inews-program "/usr/bin/inews")
461 is how you would override the default value of the variable
464 Before you override a variable this way, *look at the value* that the
465 variable gets by default! Make sure you know what kind of value the
466 variable should have. If you don't pay attention to what you are
467 doing, you'll make a mistake.
469 The 'site-*.el' files are nonexistent in the distribution. You do not
470 need to create them if you have nothing to put in them.
472 5) Refer to the file './etc/TERMS' for information on fields you may
473 wish to add to various termcap entries. (This is unlikely to be necessary.)
475 6) Run 'make' in the top directory of the Emacs distribution to finish
476 building Emacs in the standard way. The final executable file is
477 named 'src/emacs'. You can execute this file "in place" without
478 copying it, if you wish; then it automatically uses the sibling
479 directories ../lisp, ../lib-src, ../info.
481 Or you can "install" the executable and the other files into their
482 installed locations, with 'make install'. By default, Emacs's files
483 are installed in the following directories:
485 '/usr/local/bin' holds the executable programs users normally run -
486 'emacs', 'etags', 'ctags', 'emacsclient'.
488 '/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp' holds the Emacs Lisp library;
489 'VERSION' stands for the number of the Emacs version
490 you are installing, like '23.1' or '23.2'. Since the
491 Lisp library changes from one version of Emacs to
492 another, including the version number in the path
493 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed
494 at the same time; in particular, you don't have to
495 make Emacs unavailable while installing a new version.
497 '/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/etc' holds the Emacs tutorial, the DOC
498 file, and other architecture-independent files Emacs
499 might need while running.
501 '/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME' contains executable
502 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to
504 'VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are
505 installing, and 'CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the value
506 deduced by the 'configure' program to identify the
507 architecture and operating system of your machine,
508 like 'i686-pc-linux-gnu' or 'sparc-sun-sunos'. Since
509 these files are specific to the version of Emacs,
510 operating system, and architecture in use, including
511 the configuration name in the path allows you to have
512 several versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and
513 operating systems installed at the same time; this is
514 useful for sites at which different kinds of machines
515 share the file system Emacs is installed on.
517 '/usr/local/share/info' holds the on-line documentation for Emacs,
518 known as "info files". Many other GNU programs are
519 documented using info files as well, so this directory
520 stands apart from the other, Emacs-specific directories.
522 '/usr/local/share/man/man1' holds the man pages for the programs installed
525 Any version of Emacs, whether installed or not, also looks for Lisp
526 files in these directories.
528 '/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
529 files installed for Emacs version VERSION only.
531 '/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
532 files installed for all Emacs versions.
534 When Emacs is installed, it searches for its Lisp files
535 in '/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp', then in
536 '/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp', and finally in
537 '/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp'.
539 If these directories are not what you want, you can specify where to
540 install Emacs's libraries and data files or where Emacs should search
541 for its Lisp files by giving values for 'make' variables as part of
542 the command. See the section below called 'MAKE VARIABLES' for more
545 7) Check the file 'dir' in your site's info directory (usually
546 /usr/local/share/info) to make sure that it has a menu entry for the
549 8) If your system uses lock files to interlock access to mailer inbox files,
550 and if --with-mailutils is not in effect, then you might need to
551 make the Emacs-specific 'movemail' program setuid or setgid in order
552 to enable it to write the lock files. We believe this is safe.
554 9) You are done! You can remove executables and object files from
555 the build directory by typing 'make clean'. To also remove the files
556 that 'configure' created (so you can compile Emacs for a different
557 configuration), type 'make distclean'.
562 You can change where the build process installs Emacs and its data
563 files by specifying values for 'make' variables as part of the 'make'
564 command line. For example, if you type
566 make install bindir=/usr/local/gnubin
568 the 'bindir=/usr/local/gnubin' argument indicates that the Emacs
569 executable files should go in '/usr/local/gnubin', not
572 Here is a complete list of the variables you may want to set.
574 'bindir' indicates where to put executable programs that users can
575 run. This defaults to /usr/local/bin.
577 'datadir' indicates where to put the architecture-independent
578 read-only data files that Emacs refers to while it runs; it
579 defaults to /usr/local/share. We create the following
580 subdirectories under 'datadir':
581 - 'emacs/VERSION/lisp', containing the Emacs Lisp library, and
582 - 'emacs/VERSION/etc', containing the tutorials, DOC file, etc.
583 'VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
584 like '23.1' or '23.2'. Since these files vary from one version
585 of Emacs to another, including the version number in the path
586 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed at the
587 same time; this means that you don't have to make Emacs
588 unavailable while installing a new version.
590 'libexecdir' indicates where to put architecture-specific data files that
591 Emacs refers to as it runs; it defaults to '/usr/local/libexec'.
592 We create the following subdirectories under 'libexecdir':
593 - 'emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME', containing executable
594 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to run
596 'VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
597 and 'CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the value deduced by the
598 'configure' program to identify the architecture and operating
599 system of your machine, like 'i686-pc-linux-gnu' or 'sparc-sun-sunos'.
600 Since these files are specific to the version of Emacs,
601 operating system, and architecture in use, including the
602 configuration name in the path allows you to have several
603 versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and operating
604 systems installed at the same time; this is useful for sites
605 at which different kinds of machines share the file system
606 Emacs is installed on.
608 'infodir' indicates where to put the info files distributed with
609 Emacs; it defaults to '/usr/local/share/info'.
611 'mandir' indicates where to put the man pages for Emacs and its
612 utilities (like 'etags'); it defaults to
613 '/usr/local/share/man/man1'.
615 'prefix' doesn't give a path for any specific part of Emacs; instead,
616 its value is used to determine the defaults for all the
617 architecture-independent path variables - 'datadir',
618 'sharedstatedir', 'infodir', and 'mandir'. Its default value is
619 '/usr/local'; the other variables add on 'lib' or 'man' to it
622 For example, suppose your site generally places GNU software
623 under '/usr/users/software/gnusoft' instead of '/usr/local'.
625 'prefix=/usr/users/software/gnusoft'
626 in the arguments to 'make', you can instruct the build process
627 to place all of the Emacs data files in the appropriate
628 directories under that path.
630 'exec_prefix' serves the same purpose as 'prefix', but instead
631 determines the default values for the architecture-dependent
632 path variables - 'bindir' and 'libexecdir'.
634 The above variables serve analogous purposes in the makefiles for all
635 GNU software; the following variables are specific to Emacs.
637 'archlibdir' indicates where Emacs installs and expects the executable
638 files and other architecture-dependent data it uses while
639 running. Its default value, based on 'libexecdir' (which
640 see), is '/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME'
641 (where VERSION and CONFIGURATION-NAME are as described above).
643 'GZIP_PROG' is the name of the executable that compresses installed info,
644 manual, and .el files. It defaults to gzip. Setting it to
645 the empty string suppresses compression.
647 Remember that you must specify any variable values you need each time
648 you run 'make' in the top directory. If you run 'make' once to build
649 emacs, test it, and then run 'make' again to install the files, you
650 must provide the same variable settings each time. To make the
651 settings persist, you can edit them into the 'Makefile' in the top
652 directory, but be aware that running the 'configure' program erases
653 'Makefile' and rebuilds it from 'Makefile.in'.
655 The path for finding Lisp files is specified in src/epaths.h,
656 a file which is generated by running configure. To change the path,
657 you can edit the definition of PATH_LOADSEARCH in that file
658 before you run 'make'.
660 The top-level Makefile stores the variable settings it used in the
661 Makefiles for the subdirectories, so you don't have to specify them
662 when running make in the subdirectories.
667 See the file './etc/PROBLEMS' for a list of various problems sometimes
668 encountered, and what to do about them.
670 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
672 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
673 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
674 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
675 (at your option) any later version.
677 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
678 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
679 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
680 GNU General Public License for more details.
682 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
683 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.