1 GNU Emacs Installation Guide
2 Copyright (C) 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
3 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
4 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
5 See the end of the file for license conditions.
8 This file contains general information on building GNU Emacs.
9 For more information specific to the MS-Windows, GNUstep/Mac OS X, and
10 MS-DOS ports, also read the files nt/INSTALL, nextstep/INSTALL, and
11 msdos/INSTALL. For information about building from a Bazaar checkout
12 (rather than a release), also read the file INSTALL.BZR.
17 On most Unix systems, you build Emacs by first running the `configure'
18 shell script. This attempts to deduce the correct values for
19 various system-dependent variables and features, and find the
20 directories where certain system headers and libraries are kept.
21 In a few cases, you may need to explicitly tell configure where to
22 find some things, or what options to use.
24 `configure' creates a `Makefile' in several subdirectories, and a
25 `src/config.h' file containing system-dependent definitions.
26 Running the `make' utility then builds the package for your system.
28 Here's the procedure to build Emacs using `configure' on systems which
29 are supported by it. In some cases, if the simplified procedure fails,
30 you might need to use various non-default options, and maybe perform
31 some of the steps manually. The more detailed description in the other
32 sections of this guide will help you do that, so please refer to those
33 sections if you need to.
35 1. Unpacking the Emacs 23.2 release requires about 170 MB of free
36 disk space. Building Emacs uses about another 60 MB of space.
37 The final installed Emacs uses about 120 MB of disk space.
38 This includes the space-saving that comes from automatically
39 compressing the Lisp source files on installation.
41 2a. `cd' to the directory where you unpacked Emacs and invoke the
46 2b. Alternatively, create a separate directory, outside the source
47 directory, where you want to build Emacs, and invoke `configure'
52 where SOURCE-DIR is the top-level Emacs source directory.
53 This may not work unless you use GNU make.
55 3. When `configure' finishes, it prints several lines of details
56 about the system configuration. Read those details carefully
57 looking for anything suspicious, such as wrong CPU and operating
58 system names, wrong places for headers or libraries, missing
59 libraries that you know are installed on your system, etc.
61 If you find anything wrong, you may have to pass to `configure'
62 one or more options specifying the explicit machine configuration
63 name, where to find various headers and libraries, etc.
64 Refer to the section DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION below.
66 If `configure' didn't find some (optional) image support libraries,
67 such as Xpm, jpeg, etc., and you want to use them, refer to the
68 subsection "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. If you need to run the `configure' script more than once (e.g.,
75 with some non-default options), always clean the source
76 directories before running `configure' again:
81 5. Invoke the `make' program:
85 6. If `make' succeeds, it will build an executable program `emacs'
86 in the `src' directory. You can try this program, to make sure
91 7. Assuming that the program `src/emacs' starts and displays its
92 opening screen, you can install the program and its auxiliary
93 files into their installation directories:
97 You are now ready to use Emacs. If you wish to conserve disk space,
98 you may remove the program binaries and object files from the
99 directory where you built Emacs:
103 You can delete the entire build directory if you do not plan to
104 build Emacs again, but it can be useful to keep for debugging.
106 Note that the install automatically saves space by compressing
107 (provided you have the `gzip' program) those installed Lisp source (.el)
108 files that have corresponding .elc versions, as well as the Info files.
111 ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES
113 * Complex Text Layout support libraries
115 Emacs needs the optional libraries "m17n-db", "libm17n-flt", "libotf"
116 to correctly display such complex scripts as Indic and Khmer.
117 On some systems, particularly GNU/Linux, these libraries may be
118 already present or available as additional packages. Note that if
119 there is a separate `dev' or `devel' package, for use at compilation
120 time rather than run time, you will need that as well as the
121 corresponding run time package; typically the dev package will contain
122 header files and a library archive. Otherwise, you can download and
123 build libraries from sources.
125 The sources of these libraries are available by anonymous CVS from
128 % cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.m17n.org:/cvs/m17n login
129 % cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.m17n.org:/cvs/m17n co m17n-db
130 % cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.m17n.org:/cvs/m17n co m17n-lib
131 % cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.m17n.org:/cvs/m17n co libotf
133 For m17n-lib, if you have problems with making the whole package
134 because you lack some other packages on which m17n-lib depends, try to
135 configure it with the option "--without-gui".
137 * intlfonts-VERSION.tar.gz
139 The intlfonts distribution contains X11 fonts in various encodings
140 that Emacs can use to display international characters. If you see a
141 non-ASCII character appear as a hollow box, that means you don't have
142 a font for it. You might find one in the intlfonts distribution. If
143 you do have a font for a non-ASCII character, but some characters
144 don't look right, or appear improperly aligned, a font from the
145 intlfonts distribution might look better.
147 The fonts in the intlfonts distribution are also used by the ps-print
148 package for printing international characters. The file
149 lisp/ps-mule.el defines the *.bdf font files required for printing
152 The intlfonts distribution contains its own installation instructions,
153 in the intlfonts/README file.
155 * Image support libraries
157 Emacs needs optional libraries to be able to display images (with the
158 exception of PBM and XBM images whose support is built-in).
160 On some systems, particularly on GNU/Linux, these libraries may
161 already be present or available as additional packages. Note that if
162 there is a separate `dev' or `devel' package, for use at compilation
163 time rather than run time, you will need that as well as the
164 corresponding run time package; typically the dev package will
165 contain header files and a library archive. Otherwise, you can
166 download and build libraries from sources. None of them are vital for
167 running Emacs; however, note that Emacs will not be able to use
168 colored icons in the toolbar if XPM support is not compiled in.
170 Here's the list of some of these optional libraries, and the URLs
171 where they can be found (in the unlikely event that your distribution
172 does not provide them):
174 . libXaw3d http://directory.fsf.org/project/xaw3d/
175 . libxpm for XPM: http://www.x.org/releases/current/src/lib/
176 . libpng for PNG: http://www.libpng.org/
177 . libz (for PNG): http://www.zlib.net/
178 . libjpeg for JPEG: http://www.ijg.org/
179 . libtiff for TIFF: http://www.libtiff.org/
180 . libgif for GIF: http://sourceforge.net/projects/giflib/
182 Emacs will configure itself to build with these libraries if the
183 `configure' script finds them on your system, unless you supply the
184 appropriate --without-LIB option. In some cases, older versions of
185 these libraries won't work because some routines are missing, and
186 configure should avoid such old versions. If that happens, use the
187 --without-LIB options to `configure', if you need to.
191 The Emacs distribution does not include fonts and does not install
194 On the GNU system, Emacs supports both X fonts and local fonts
195 (i.e. fonts managed by the fontconfig library). If you need more
196 fonts than your distribution normally provides, you must install them
197 yourself. See <URL:http://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/> for a large
198 number of free Unicode fonts.
200 * GNU/Linux development packages
202 Many GNU/Linux systems do not come with development packages by default;
203 they include the files that you need to run Emacs, but not those you
204 need to compile it. For example, to compile Emacs with support for X
205 and graphics libraries, you may need to install the `X development'
206 package(s), and development versions of the jpeg, png, etc. packages.
208 The names of the packages that you need varies according to the
209 GNU/Linux distribution that you use, and the options that you want to
210 configure Emacs with. On Debian-based systems, you can install all the
211 packages needed to build the installed version of Emacs with a command
212 like `apt-get build-dep emacs23'.
215 DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION:
217 (This is for a Unix or Unix-like system. For MS-DOS and MS Windows 3.X,
218 see msdos/INSTALL. For later versions of MS Windows, see the file
219 nt/INSTALL. For GNUstep and Mac OS X, see nextstep/INSTALL.)
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 2.8 MB and can reach 100 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. (This should not be an issue
227 on any recent system.)
229 Building Emacs requires about 230 MB of disk space (including the
230 Emacs sources). Once installed, Emacs occupies about 120 MB in the file
231 system where it is installed; this includes the executable files, Lisp
232 libraries, miscellaneous data files, and on-line documentation. If
233 the building and installation take place in different directories,
234 then the installation procedure momentarily requires 230+120 MB.
236 2) In the unlikely event that `configure' does not detect your system
237 type correctly, consult `./etc/MACHINES' to see what --host, --build
238 options you should pass to `configure'. That file also offers hints
239 for getting around some possible installation problems.
241 3) You can build Emacs in the top-level Emacs source directory
242 or in a separate directory.
244 3a) To build in the top-level Emacs source directory, go to that
245 directory and run the program `configure' as follows:
247 ./configure [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
249 If `configure' cannot determine your system type, try again
250 specifying the proper --build, --host options explicitly.
252 If you don't want X support, specify `--with-x=no'. If you omit this
253 option, `configure' will try to figure out for itself whether your
254 system has X, and arrange to use it if present.
256 The `--x-includes=DIR' and `--x-libraries=DIR' options tell the build
257 process where the compiler should look for the include files and
258 object libraries used with the X Window System. Normally, `configure'
259 is able to find them; these options are necessary if you have your X
260 Window System files installed in unusual places. These options also
261 accept a list of directories, separated with colons.
263 To get more attractive menus, you can specify an X toolkit when you
264 configure Emacs; use the option `--with-x-toolkit=TOOLKIT', where
265 TOOLKIT is `gtk' (the default), `athena', or `motif' (`yes' and
266 `lucid' are synonyms for `athena'). On some systems, it does not work
267 to use a toolkit with shared libraries. A free implementation of
268 Motif, called LessTif, is available from <http://www.lesstif.org>.
269 Compiling with LessTif or Motif causes a standard File Selection
270 Dialog to pop up when you invoke file commands with the mouse. You
271 can get fancy 3D-style scroll bars, even without Gtk or LessTif/Motif,
272 if you have the Xaw3d library installed (see "Image support libraries"
273 above for Xaw3d availability).
275 You can tell configure where to search for GTK by specifying
276 `--with-pkg-config-prog=PATH' where PATH is the pathname to
277 pkg-config. Note that GTK version 2.6 or newer is required for Emacs.
279 The Emacs mail reader RMAIL is configured to be able to read mail from
280 a POP3 server by default. Versions of the POP protocol older than
281 POP3 are not supported. For Kerberos-authenticated POP add
282 `--with-kerberos', for Hesiod support add `--with-hesiod'. While POP3
283 is always enabled, whether Emacs actually uses POP is controlled by
284 individual users--see the Rmail chapter of the Emacs manual.
286 For image support you may have to download, build, and install the
287 appropriate image support libraries for image types other than XBM and
288 PBM, see the list of URLs in "ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES" above.
289 (Note that PNG support requires libz in addition to libpng.)
291 To disable individual types of image support in Emacs for some reason,
292 even though configure finds the libraries, you can configure with one
293 or more of these options:
295 --without-xpm for XPM image support
296 --without-jpeg for JPEG image support
297 --without-tiff for TIFF image support
298 --without-gif for GIF image support
299 --without-png for PNG image support
301 Use --without-toolkit-scroll-bars to disable LessTif/Motif or Xaw3d
304 Use --without-xim to inhibit the default use of X Input Methods.
305 In this case, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn on use of XIM.
307 Use --disable-largefile to omit support for files larger than 2GB on
308 systems which support that.
310 Use --without-sound to disable sound support.
312 The `--prefix=PREFIXDIR' option specifies where the installation process
313 should put emacs and its data files. This defaults to `/usr/local'.
314 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in PREFIXDIR/bin
315 (unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise).
316 - The architecture-independent files go in PREFIXDIR/share/emacs/VERSION
317 (where VERSION is the version number of Emacs, like `23.2').
318 - The architecture-dependent files go in
319 PREFIXDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION
320 (where CONFIGURATION is the configuration name, like
321 i686-pc-linux-gnu), unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise.
323 The `--exec-prefix=EXECDIR' option allows you to specify a separate
324 portion of the directory tree for installing architecture-specific
325 files, like executables and utility programs. If specified,
326 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in EXECDIR/bin, and
327 - The architecture-dependent files go in
328 EXECDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION.
329 EXECDIR/bin should be a directory that is normally in users' PATHs.
331 For example, the command
333 ./configure --build=i386-linux-gnu --without-sound
335 configures Emacs to build for a 32-bit GNU/Linux distribution,
336 without sound support.
338 `configure' doesn't do any compilation or installation itself.
339 It just creates the files that influence those things:
340 `./Makefile' in the top-level directory and several subdirectories;
341 and `./src/config.h'. For details on exactly what it does, see the
342 section called `CONFIGURATION BY HAND', below.
344 When it is done, `configure' prints a description of what it did and
345 creates a shell script `config.status' which, when run, recreates the
346 same configuration. If `configure' exits with an error after
347 disturbing the status quo, it removes `config.status'. `configure'
348 also creates a file `config.cache' that saves the results of its tests
349 to make reconfiguring faster, and a file `config.log' containing compiler
350 output (useful mainly for debugging `configure'). You can give
351 `configure' the option `--cache-file=FILE' to use the results of the
352 tests in FILE instead of `config.cache'. Set FILE to `/dev/null' to
353 disable caching, for debugging `configure'.
355 If the description of the system configuration printed by `configure'
356 is not right, or if it claims some of the features or libraries are not
357 available when you know they are, look at the `config.log' file for
358 the trace of the failed tests performed by `configure' to check
359 whether these features are supported. Typically, some test fails
360 because the compiler cannot find some function in the system
361 libraries, or some macro-processor definition in the system headers.
363 Some tests might fail because the compiler should look in special
364 directories for some header files, or link against optional
365 libraries, or use special compilation options. You can force
366 `configure' and the build process which follows it to do that by
367 setting the variables CPPFLAGS, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, LIBS, CPP and CC
368 before running `configure'. CPP is the command which invokes the
369 preprocessor, CPPFLAGS lists the options passed to it, CFLAGS are
370 compilation options, LDFLAGS are options used when linking, LIBS are
371 libraries to link against, and CC is the command which invokes the
372 compiler. By default, gcc is used if available.
374 Here's an example of a `configure' invocation, assuming a Bourne-like
375 shell such as Bash, which uses these variables:
377 CPPFLAGS='-I/foo/myinclude' LDFLAGS='-L/bar/mylib' \
378 CFLAGS='-O3' LIBS='-lfoo -lbar' ./configure
380 (this is all one long line). This tells `configure' to instruct the
381 preprocessor to look in the `/foo/myinclude' directory for header
382 files (in addition to the standard directories), instruct the linker
383 to look in `/bar/mylib' for libraries, pass the -O3 optimization
384 switch to the compiler, and link against libfoo and libbar
385 libraries in addition to the standard ones.
387 For some libraries, like Gtk+, fontconfig and ALSA, `configure' uses
388 pkg-config to find where those libraries are installed.
389 If you want pkg-config to look in special directories, you have to set
390 the environment variable PKG_CONFIG_PATH to point to the directories
391 where the .pc-files for those libraries are.
394 PKG_CONFIG_PATH='/usr/local/alsa/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/gtk+-2.8/lib/pkgconfig' \
397 The work of `configure' can be done by editing various files in the
398 distribution, but using `configure' is easier. See the section called
399 "CONFIGURATION BY HAND" below if you want to do the configuration
402 3b) To build in a separate directory, go to that directory
403 and run the program `configure' as follows:
405 SOURCE-DIR/configure CONFIGURATION-NAME [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
407 SOURCE-DIR refers to the top-level Emacs source directory which is
408 where Emacs's configure script is located. `configure' looks for the
409 Emacs source code in the directory that `configure' is in.
411 To build in a separate directory, you must use a version of `make'
412 that supports the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'.
414 (Do not try to build in a separate directory by creating many links
415 to the real source directory--there is no need, and installation will
418 4) Look at `./lisp/paths.el'; if some of those values are not right
419 for your system, set up the file `./lisp/site-init.el' with Emacs
420 Lisp code to override them; it is not a good idea to edit paths.el
421 itself. YOU MUST USE THE LISP FUNCTION `setq' TO ASSIGN VALUES,
422 rather than `defvar', as used by `./lisp/paths.el'. For example,
424 (setq news-inews-program "/usr/bin/inews")
426 is how you would override the default value of the variable
429 Before you override a variable this way, *look at the value* that the
430 variable gets by default! Make sure you know what kind of value the
431 variable should have. If you don't pay attention to what you are
432 doing, you'll make a mistake.
434 5) Put into `./lisp/site-init.el' or `./lisp/site-load.el' any Emacs
435 Lisp code you want Emacs to load before it is dumped out. Use
436 site-load.el for additional libraries if you arrange for their
437 documentation strings to be in the etc/DOC file (see
438 src/Makefile.in if you wish to figure out how to do that). For all
439 else, use site-init.el. Do not load byte-compiled code which
440 was built with a non-nil value of `byte-compile-dynamic'.
442 If you set load-path to a different value in site-init.el or
443 site-load.el, Emacs will use *precisely* that value when it starts up
444 again. If you do this, you are on your own!
446 The `site-*.el' files are nonexistent in the distribution. You do not
447 need to create them if you have nothing to put in them.
449 6) Refer to the file `./etc/TERMS' for information on fields you may
450 wish to add to various termcap entries. (This is unlikely to be necessary.)
452 7) Run `make' in the top directory of the Emacs distribution to finish
453 building Emacs in the standard way. The final executable file is
454 named `src/emacs'. You can execute this file "in place" without
455 copying it, if you wish; then it automatically uses the sibling
456 directories ../lisp, ../lib-src, ../info.
458 Or you can "install" the executable and the other files into their
459 installed locations, with `make install'. By default, Emacs's files
460 are installed in the following directories:
462 `/usr/local/bin' holds the executable programs users normally run -
463 `emacs', `etags', `ctags', `emacsclient',
464 `grep-changelog', and `rcs-checkin'.
466 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp' holds the Emacs Lisp library;
467 `VERSION' stands for the number of the Emacs version
468 you are installing, like `23.1' or `23.2'. Since the
469 Lisp library changes from one version of Emacs to
470 another, including the version number in the path
471 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed
472 at the same time; in particular, you don't have to
473 make Emacs unavailable while installing a new version.
475 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/etc' holds the Emacs tutorial, the DOC
476 file, and other architecture-independent files Emacs
477 might need while running.
479 `/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME' contains executable
480 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to
482 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are
483 installing, and `CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the value
484 deduced by the `configure' program to identify the
485 architecture and operating system of your machine,
486 like `i686-pc-linux-gnu' or `sparc-sun-sunos'. Since
487 these files are specific to the version of Emacs,
488 operating system, and architecture in use, including
489 the configuration name in the path allows you to have
490 several versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and
491 operating systems installed at the same time; this is
492 useful for sites at which different kinds of machines
493 share the file system Emacs is installed on.
495 `/usr/local/share/info' holds the on-line documentation for Emacs,
496 known as "info files". Many other GNU programs are
497 documented using info files as well, so this directory
498 stands apart from the other, Emacs-specific directories.
500 `/usr/local/share/man/man1' holds the man pages for the programs installed
503 Any version of Emacs, whether installed or not, also looks for Lisp
504 files in these directories.
506 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
507 files installed for Emacs version VERSION only.
509 `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
510 files installed for all Emacs versions.
512 When Emacs is installed, it searches for its Lisp files
513 in `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp', then in
514 `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp', and finally in
515 `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp'.
517 If these directories are not what you want, you can specify where to
518 install Emacs's libraries and data files or where Emacs should search
519 for its Lisp files by giving values for `make' variables as part of
520 the command. See the section below called `MAKE VARIABLES' for more
523 8) Check the file `dir' in your site's info directory (usually
524 /usr/local/share/info) to make sure that it has a menu entry for the
527 9) If your system uses lock files to interlock access to mailer inbox files,
528 then you might need to make the movemail program setuid or setgid
529 to enable it to write the lock files. We believe this is safe.
531 10) You are done! You can remove executables and object files from
532 the build directory by typing `make clean'. To also remove the files
533 that `configure' created (so you can compile Emacs for a different
534 configuration), type `make distclean'. If you don't need some, or all
535 of the input methods from the Leim package, you can remove the
536 unneeded files in the leim subdirectories of your site's lisp
537 directory (usually /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/).
543 You can change where the build process installs Emacs and its data
544 files by specifying values for `make' variables as part of the `make'
545 command line. For example, if you type
547 make install bindir=/usr/local/gnubin
549 the `bindir=/usr/local/gnubin' argument indicates that the Emacs
550 executable files should go in `/usr/local/gnubin', not
553 Here is a complete list of the variables you may want to set.
555 `bindir' indicates where to put executable programs that users can
556 run. This defaults to /usr/local/bin.
558 `datadir' indicates where to put the architecture-independent
559 read-only data files that Emacs refers to while it runs; it
560 defaults to /usr/local/share. We create the following
561 subdirectories under `datadir':
562 - `emacs/VERSION/lisp', containing the Emacs Lisp library, and
563 - `emacs/VERSION/etc', containing the tutorials, DOC file, etc.
564 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
565 like `23.1' or `23.2'. Since these files vary from one version
566 of Emacs to another, including the version number in the path
567 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed at the
568 same time; this means that you don't have to make Emacs
569 unavailable while installing a new version.
571 `libexecdir' indicates where to put architecture-specific data files that
572 Emacs refers to as it runs; it defaults to `/usr/local/libexec'.
573 We create the following subdirectories under `libexecdir':
574 - `emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME', containing executable
575 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to run
577 `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
578 and `CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the value deduced by the
579 `configure' program to identify the architecture and operating
580 system of your machine, like `i686-pc-linux-gnu' or `sparc-sun-sunos'.
581 Since these files are specific to the version of Emacs,
582 operating system, and architecture in use, including the
583 configuration name in the path allows you to have several
584 versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and operating
585 systems installed at the same time; this is useful for sites
586 at which different kinds of machines share the file system
587 Emacs is installed on.
589 `infodir' indicates where to put the info files distributed with
590 Emacs; it defaults to `/usr/local/share/info'.
592 `mandir' indicates where to put the man pages for Emacs and its
593 utilities (like `etags'); it defaults to
594 `/usr/local/share/man/man1'.
596 `prefix' doesn't give a path for any specific part of Emacs; instead,
597 its value is used to determine the defaults for all the
598 architecture-independent path variables - `datadir',
599 `sharedstatedir', `infodir', and `mandir'. Its default value is
600 `/usr/local'; the other variables add on `lib' or `man' to it
603 For example, suppose your site generally places GNU software
604 under `/usr/users/software/gnusoft' instead of `/usr/local'.
606 `prefix=/usr/users/software/gnusoft'
607 in the arguments to `make', you can instruct the build process
608 to place all of the Emacs data files in the appropriate
609 directories under that path.
611 `exec_prefix' serves the same purpose as `prefix', but instead
612 determines the default values for the architecture-dependent
613 path variables - `bindir' and `libexecdir'.
615 The above variables serve analogous purposes in the makefiles for all
616 GNU software; the following variable is specific to Emacs.
618 `archlibdir' indicates where Emacs installs and expects the executable
619 files and other architecture-dependent data it uses while
620 running. Its default value, based on `libexecdir' (which
621 see), is `/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME'
622 (where VERSION and CONFIGURATION-NAME are as described above).
624 Remember that you must specify any variable values you need each time
625 you run `make' in the top directory. If you run `make' once to build
626 emacs, test it, and then run `make' again to install the files, you
627 must provide the same variable settings each time. To make the
628 settings persist, you can edit them into the `Makefile' in the top
629 directory, but be aware that running the `configure' program erases
630 `Makefile' and rebuilds it from `Makefile.in'.
632 The path for finding Lisp files is specified in src/epaths.h,
633 a file which is generated by running configure. To change the path,
634 you can edit the definition of PATH_LOADSEARCH in that file
635 before you run `make'.
637 The top-level Makefile stores the variable settings it used in the
638 Makefiles for the subdirectories, so you don't have to specify them
639 when running make in the subdirectories.
642 CONFIGURATION BY HAND
644 This should not be necessary and is not recommended. Instead of
645 running the `configure' program, you have to perform the following steps.
647 1) Copy `./src/config.in' to `./src/config.h'.
649 2) Consult `./etc/MACHINES' to see what configuration name you should
650 use for your system. Look at the code of the `configure' script to
651 see which operating system and architecture description files from
652 `src/s' and `src/m' should be used for that configuration name. Edit
653 `src/config.h', and change the two `#include' directives to include
654 the appropriate system and architecture description files.
656 2) Edit `./src/config.h' to set the right options for your system. If
657 you need to override any of the definitions in the s/*.h and m/*.h
658 files for your system and machine, do so by editing config.h, not by
659 changing the s/*.h and m/*.h files.
661 3) Create `Makefile' files in various directories from the
662 corresponding `Makefile.in' files. This isn't so hard, just a matter
663 of editing in appropriate substitutions for the @...@ constructs.
665 The `configure' script is built from `configure.in' by the `autoconf'
666 program. You need at least the version of autoconf specified in the
667 AC_PREREQ(...) command to rebuild `configure' from `configure.in'.
669 BUILDING GNU EMACS BY HAND
671 Once Emacs is configured, running `make' in the top directory performs
674 1) Run `make epaths-force' in the top directory. This produces
675 `./src/epaths.h' from the template file `./src/epaths.in', changing
676 the paths to the values specified in `./Makefile'.
678 2) Go to directory `./lib-src' and run `make'. This creates
679 executables named `etags', `make-docfile', 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 version.
698 The steps below are done by running `make install' in the main
699 directory of the Emacs distribution.
701 1) Copy `./lisp' and its subdirectories, `./etc', and the executables
702 in `./lib-src' to their final destinations, as selected in `./src/epaths.h'.
704 Strictly speaking, not all of the executables in `./lib-src' need be copied.
705 - The programs `fakemail', `hexl', `movemail', `profile', `rcs2log',
706 and `vcdiff' are used by Emacs; they do need to be copied.
707 - The programs `etags', `ctags', `emacsclient', and `rcs-checkin'
708 are intended to be run by users; they are handled below.
709 - The programs `make-docfile' and `test-distrib' were
710 used in building Emacs, and are not needed any more.
712 2) Copy the files in `./info' to the place specified in
713 `./lisp/site-init.el' or `./lisp/paths.el'. Note that if the
714 destination directory already contains a file named `dir', you
715 probably don't want to replace it with the `dir' file in the Emacs
716 distribution. Instead, you should make sure that the existing `dir'
717 file contains an appropriate menu entry for the Emacs info.
719 3) Copy `./src/emacs' to `/usr/local/bin', or to some other directory
720 in users' search paths. `./src/emacs' has an alternate name
721 `./src/emacs-EMACSVERSION'; you may wish to make a symbolic link named
722 `/usr/local/bin/emacs' pointing to that alternate name, as an easy way
723 of installing different versions.
725 You can delete `./src/temacs'.
727 4) Copy the programs `emacsclient', `ctags', `etags', and `rcs-checkin'
728 from `./lib-src' to `/usr/local/bin'. These programs are intended for
731 5) Copy the man pages in `./doc/man' into the appropriate man directory.
733 6) The files in the `./src' subdirectory, except for `emacs', are not
734 used by Emacs once it is built. However, it is very desirable to keep
735 the source on line for debugging.
740 See the file `./etc/PROBLEMS' for a list of various problems sometimes
741 encountered, and what to do about them.
743 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
745 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
746 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
747 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
748 (at your option) any later version.
750 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
751 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
752 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
753 GNU General Public License for more details.
755 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
756 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.