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