3 - Installation instructions and notes for GNU Midnight Commander
4 - Where to get more information on GNU Midnight Commander
6 - Information on porting the program
7 - Obtaining the missing pieces of GNU Midnight Commander
10 Installation instructions for GNU Midnight Commander
11 ----------------------------------------------------
13 The `configure' shell script attempts to guess correct values for
14 various system-dependent variables used during compilation, and creates
15 the makefiles. It also creates a file `config.status' that you can run in
16 the future to recreate the current configuration.
18 NeXTStep users, make sure you read the "Compiling under NeXTStep" section.
20 To compile this package:
22 1. Configure the package for your system.
24 Normally, you just `cd' to the directory containing the package's
25 source code and type `./configure'. If you're using `csh' on an old
26 version of SystemV, you might need to type `sh configure' instead to
27 prevent `csh' from trying to execute `configure' itself. Under AIX, you
28 may need to use ksh instead of sh.
30 Running `configure' takes a while. While it is running, it
31 prints some messages that tell what it is doing. If you don't want to
32 see any messages, run `configure' with the `--quiet' option.
34 To compile the package in a different directory than the one containing
35 the source code, you must use a version of `make' supporting the `VPATH'
36 variable, such as GNU `make'. `cd' to the directory where you want the
37 object files and executables to go and run the `configure' script with the
38 path to it. If for some reason `configure' is not in the source code
39 directory that you are configuring, then it will report that it can't find
40 the source code. In that case, run `configure' with the option
41 `--srcdir=DIR', where DIR is the directory that contains the source code.
43 By default, `make install' will install the package's files in
44 `/usr/local/bin', `/usr/local/man', etc. You can specify an installation
45 prefix other than `/usr/local' by giving `configure' the option
46 `--prefix=PATH'. Alternately, you can do so by consistently giving a
47 value for the `prefix' variable when you run `make', e.g.,
50 make prefix=/usr/gnu install
52 You can specify separate installation prefixes for architecture
53 specific files and architecture-independent files. If you give
54 `configure' the option `--exec-prefix=PATH' or set the `make' variable
55 `exec_prefix' to PATH, the package will use PATH as the prefix for
56 installing programs and libraries. Data files and documentation will
57 still use the regular prefix. Normally, all files are installed using the
60 If run on GNU/Linux, Midnight Commander detects if you have the gpm
61 library installed. If you installed the gpm mouse library in a
62 non-standard place, you will need to use the --with-gpm-mouse flag with
63 the directory base where you installed the gpm package.
65 `configure' also recognizes the following options:
68 Print a summary of the options to `configure', and exit.
72 Do not print messages saying which checks are being made.
75 Print the results of the checks.
78 Print the version of Autoconf used to generate the `configure'
82 Configures the program to be compiled without the built-in file
83 editor. The built-in editor is compiled in by default.
85 `--with-ext2undel[=PATH]'
86 On systems that use the Extended 2 file system and have the
87 libext2fs.a library available, this compiles into the Midnight
88 Commander the support code for recovering deleted files (the
89 undel virtual file system).
90 Use =PATH if libext2fs.a is installed in a non-standard place.
91 The configure will append `lib' and `include' to find the ext2fs
92 libraries and include files respectively.
94 `--with-gpm-mouse[=PATH]'
95 Use this flag if your gpm mouse package cannot be detected by the
96 configure. Use =PATH if it is installed in a non-standard place.
97 The configure will append `lib' and `include' to find the libgpm.a
98 and gpm.h files respectively.
100 `--without-gpm-mouse'
101 Use this flag to disable gpm mouse support (e.g. if you want to
102 use mouse only on X terminals).
105 Compiles support for HSC firewall into the ftp virtual file system.
107 `--with-mmap', `--without-mmap'
108 Force using or not using the mmap function. It is currently used
109 in the internal viewer. `--with-mmap' may be useful on some
110 versions of AIX where the `configure' script decides that mmap is
111 broken, but it's actually suitable for the internal viewer.
113 `--with-subshell[=optional]', `--without-subshell'
114 The subshell support is by default turned on, you can disable
115 this by using the --without-subshell option. If you pass the
116 =optional parameter, then the subshell support is turned off by
117 default. To turn it on, specify the `-U' option to the program.
119 `--with-tm-x-support'
120 This option enables minimal X Window support in the text edition. It
121 enables MC to query the status of the modifiers CONTROL and SHIFT
122 when invoked in a terminal emulator under X11. That's necessary
123 to recognize some optional but handy key combinations like Ctrl-Home
124 and Shift-Cursor key.
127 This option disables the Virtual File System switch code in the
128 Midnight Commander and uses the standard file system calls for
129 file access. If you specify this option you will not get the
130 transparent tar File system manipulation as well nor the
131 networked Midnight Commander file system.
133 `--disable-largefile'
134 This option disables support for large files (2 gigabytes and more)
135 on the systems where file operations use 32-bit offsets by default,
136 but support for 64-bit offsets is available. May be useful for
137 slow processors and embedded systems.
139 You may also tell configure which display library you want to use with the
140 Midnight Commander. The configure script will use S-Lang as default, but
141 you can override this by using any of the following flags (please note
142 that S-Lang is included as part of the distribution and is tested much
143 better than everything else),
145 `--with-slang' (default)
146 This is used to configure the program to use the S-Lang screen
147 library. This is included as part of GNU Midnight Commander,
148 you don't need it installed on your system. If S-Lang is installed
149 on your system it will be used if possible. You can force usage of
150 the included S-Lang with the `--with-included-slang' option.
152 S-Lang tries to use the terminfo database if it's available,
153 otherwise it uses the termcap database. At the compile time, you
154 may force using the termcap database by using the option
155 `--with-termcap', which also enables `--with-included-slang'.
157 `--with-ncurses[=directory]'
158 Use this flag (either with or without the =directory part), if
159 you want to compile with ncurses instead of the default S-Lang.
161 Use the =directory part if your ncurses is not installed in any of the
162 places configure will check (/usr/include, /usr/include/ncurses,
163 /usr/local/include and /usr/local/include/ncurses).
164 The argument to this flag is the base directory where the ncurses
165 files are located. The configure will append lib and include to
166 find the libncurses.a and ncurses.h file respectively. For
167 example, if you have installed ncurses under /gnu/lib and
168 /gnu/include, you specify: --with-ncurses=/gnu
170 Run `configure --help' to see the full list of options.
172 On systems that require unusual options for compilation or linking
173 that the package's `configure' script does not know about, you can give
174 `configure' initial values for variables by setting them in the
175 environment. In Bourne-compatible shells, you can do that on the
176 command line like this:
178 CC='gcc -traditional' LIBS=-lposix ./configure
180 On systems that have the `env' program, you can do it like this:
182 env CC='gcc -traditional' LIBS=-lposix ./configure
184 Here are the `make' variables that you might want to override with
185 environment variables when running `configure'.
187 For these variables, any value given in the environment overrides the
188 value that `configure' would choose:
191 C compiler program. The default is `cc'.
194 The default flags used to build the program.
197 Program to use to install files. The default is `install' if you
198 have it, `cp' otherwise.
200 For these variables, any value given in the environment is added to
201 the value that `configure' decides to use:
204 Libraries to link with, in the form `-lfoo -lbar...'.
206 If you need to do unusual things to compile the package, we encourage
207 you to figure out how `configure' could check whether to do them, and mail
208 diffs or instructions to the address given in the README so we can include
209 them in the next release.
211 2. Type `make' to compile the package.
213 3. If the package comes with self-tests and you want to run them,
214 type `make check'. If you're not sure whether there are any, try it;
215 if `make' responds with something like
216 make: *** No way to make target `check'. Stop.
217 then the package does not come with self-tests.
219 4. Type `make install' to install programs, data files, and the
220 documentation. On GNU/Linux the console screen saver is installed as
223 5. You can remove the program binaries and object files from the source
224 directory by typing `make clean'. If you want to clean the source tree
225 completely, so that it contains only those files that should be packaged
226 in the archive, issue `make distclean'. If you've run configure in a
227 different directory than the source tree, distclean won't remove your *.o
228 and linked programs in that directory.
230 6. GNU Midnight Commander allows you to stay in the last current
231 directory after exiting MC. This is done with a shell function, the man
232 page has more information about this.
234 The file `configure.in' is used to create `configure' by a program
235 called `autoconf'. You only need it if you want to regenerate
236 `configure' using a newer version of `autoconf'.
238 Compiling under NeXTStep
239 ------------------------
241 These instructions were provided by Gregor Hoffleit
242 <flight@mathi.uni-heidelberg.DE>, he recommends configuring the
245 export CC="cc -posix"
246 configure --without-subshell --with-termcap
249 Where to get more information on GNU Midnight Commander
250 -------------------------------------------------------
252 There are two mailing lists for the program:
254 mc: Discussion on GNU Midnight Commander file manager.
255 mc-devel: For discussion between the developers of the program.
257 to subscribe to the mailing lists, visit their respective pages:
259 http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc/
260 http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc-devel/
263 Notes about GNU Midnight Commander installation
264 ------------------------------------------------
266 GNU Midnight Commander has been run in the following configurations:
273 mips-dec-{open,net}bsd1.0
283 mc88110-aviion-dgux5.4
288 Midnight Commander is written in a portable manner and uses GNU Autoconf
289 for configuration, so it is expected to compile without changes on many
290 other operating systems.
292 You will need GNU C (or an ANSI C Compiler) and glib library version
293 1.2.x to compile the source. GNU Midnight Commander now comes with the
294 S-Lang screen manager, a fast screen manager, so don't need to worry
295 about screen libraries.
297 If you insist on using ncurses, it's recommended to use ncurses 4.1 and
298 above, since the older versions don't support resizing of the xterm
301 GNU Midnight Commander comes with the mouse support on xterms and in the
302 Linux console. In order to take advantage of the mouse support on the
303 Linux console you will need the gpm mouse server (see the section
304 "Obtaining the missing pieces of GNU Midnight Commander" in this file).
306 Once you get the Mouse Server, compile it and install it, then you
307 will have to specify the `--with-gpm-mouse' flag to the configure
308 program if you installed it in a non-standard directory. If you
309 installed the gpm package under /usr or /usr/local, you don't need to
310 specify this flag; configure will find gpm for you. The support for
311 mice on xterms is always compiled in.
313 We are working on further enhancements to the program, but we're not sure
314 which ones must go first. If you would like to point us in the Right
315 Direction we will be glad to hear from you (you could check the file TODO
316 included with this distribution for the current projects).
318 If you happen to find an undocumented feature that doesn't do what you
319 expected, please write to mc@gnome.org telling as much as you can about
320 the problem you're experiencing. Please don't send personal messages to
327 Random notes on porting to other architectures.
329 GNU Midnight Commander uses by default the S-Lang library for handling
330 the display. You may want to download the latest version of S-Lang
331 or use a slightly modified S-Lang version 0.99.38 included with the
332 Midnight Commander. The included library is very stable and has been
333 used for years without problems. You shouldn't expect any problems
334 porting S-Lang to your platform.
336 Another possibility is to download and install ncurses on your OS.
337 GNU Midnight Commander can use ncurses as well as the display engine.
338 However, you may encounter minor differences, for instance, you will
339 be unable to force the color mode by giving the "-c" switch to GNU
343 Obtaining the missing pieces of GNU Midnight Commander
344 ------------------------------------------------------
346 GNU Midnight Commander will build without requiring you to get any other
347 software packages, however, you may be interested in enhancing the
348 Midnight Commander environment with some of these:
352 There are many incomplete terminal databases out there, however, a
353 complete terminfo is bundled with ncurses. (It is simple to generate
354 the termcap database using the infocmp utility in ncurses).
356 Some terminfo data are included with the mc distribution (lib/*.ti).
357 Particularly linux, xterm and vt100. Use e.g. ''tic linux.ti'' to
360 If you want to run mc on xterm/color_xterm/ansi_xterm (not rxvt), then
361 you might read lib/README.xterm for further information.
365 Midnight Commander requires GLib. You can get GLib from
367 ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/
369 Note that only versions 1.2.x are supported. Older versions won't
370 even be detected. Newer versions won't be detected either - they use a
371 new package system that is not supported yet by GNU Midnight Commander.
373 o In the past GNU Midnight Commander required the ncurses library to
374 build, now it's optional. You can get ncurses from
376 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/
377 ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses/
379 o The general purpose mouse (gpm) daemon is available at:
381 ftp://ftp.systemy.it/pub/develop/
383 And the GNU Compiler Collection may be obtained from the following sites:
385 ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/releases/
386 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/
387 http://gcc.gnu.org/mirrors.html