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1 GNU Emacs Installation Guide
2 Copyright (C) 1992, 1994, 1996-1997, 2000-2016 Free Software Foundation,
3 Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6
7 This file contains general information on building GNU Emacs.
8 For more information specific to the MS-Windows, GNUstep/Mac OS X, and
9 MS-DOS ports, also read the files nt/INSTALL, nextstep/INSTALL, and
10 msdos/INSTALL. For information about building from a repository checkout
11 (rather than a release), also read the file INSTALL.REPO.
12
13
14 BASIC INSTALLATION
15
16 On most Unix systems, you build Emacs by first running the 'configure'
17 shell script. This attempts to deduce the correct values for
18 various system-dependent variables and features, and find the
19 directories where certain system headers and libraries are kept.
20 In a few cases, you may need to explicitly tell configure where to
21 find some things, or what options to use.
22
23 'configure' creates a 'Makefile' in several subdirectories, and a
24 'src/config.h' file containing system-dependent definitions.
25 Running the 'make' utility then builds the package for your system.
26
27 Building Emacs requires GNU make, <http://www.gnu.org/software/make/>.
28 On most systems that Emacs supports, this is the default 'make' program.
29
30 Here's the procedure to build Emacs using 'configure' on systems which
31 are supported by it. In some cases, if the simplified procedure fails,
32 you might need to use various non-default options, and maybe perform
33 some of the steps manually. The more detailed description in the other
34 sections of this guide will help you do that, so please refer to those
35 sections if you need to.
36
37 1. Unpacking the Emacs 24 release requires about 200 MB of free
38 disk space. Building Emacs uses about another 200 MB of space.
39 The final installed Emacs uses about 150 MB of disk space.
40 This includes the space-saving that comes from automatically
41 compressing the Lisp source files on installation.
42
43 2a. 'cd' to the directory where you unpacked Emacs and invoke the
44 'configure' script:
45
46 ./configure
47
48 2b. Alternatively, create a separate directory, outside the source
49 directory, where you want to build Emacs, and invoke 'configure'
50 from there:
51
52 SOURCE-DIR/configure
53
54 where SOURCE-DIR is the top-level Emacs source directory.
55
56 3. When 'configure' finishes, it prints several lines of details
57 about the system configuration. Read those details carefully
58 looking for anything suspicious, such as wrong CPU and operating
59 system names, wrong places for headers or libraries, missing
60 libraries that you know are installed on your system, etc.
61
62 If you find anything wrong, you may have to pass to 'configure'
63 one or more options specifying the explicit machine configuration
64 name, where to find various headers and libraries, etc.
65 Refer to the section DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION below.
66
67 If 'configure' didn't find some image support libraries, such as
68 Xpm and jpeg, refer to "Image support libraries" below.
69
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
72 its job and proceed.
73
74 4. Invoke the 'make' program:
75
76 make
77
78 5. If 'make' succeeds, it will build an executable program 'emacs'
79 in the 'src' directory. You can try this program, to make sure
80 it works:
81
82 src/emacs -Q
83
84 6. Assuming that the program 'src/emacs' starts and displays its
85 opening screen, you can install the program and its auxiliary
86 files into their installation directories:
87
88 make install
89
90 You are now ready to use Emacs. If you wish to conserve disk space,
91 you may remove the program binaries and object files from the
92 directory where you built Emacs:
93
94 make clean
95
96 You can delete the entire build directory if you do not plan to
97 build Emacs again, but it can be useful to keep for debugging.
98 If you want to build Emacs again with different configure options,
99 first clean the source directories:
100
101 make distclean
102
103 Note that the install automatically saves space by compressing
104 (provided you have the 'gzip' program) those installed Lisp source (.el)
105 files that have corresponding .elc versions, as well as the Info files.
106
107
108 ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES
109
110 * Complex Text Layout support libraries
111
112 On GNU and Unix systems, Emacs needs the optional libraries "m17n-db",
113 "libm17n-flt", "libotf" to correctly display such complex scripts as
114 Indic and Khmer, and also for scripts that require Arabic shaping
115 support (Arabic and Farsi). On some systems, particularly GNU/Linux,
116 these libraries may be already present or available as additional
117 packages. Note that if there is a separate 'dev' or 'devel' package,
118 for use at compilation time rather than run time, you will need that
119 as well as the corresponding run time package; typically the dev
120 package will contain header files and a library archive. Otherwise,
121 you can download the libraries from <http://www.nongnu.org/m17n/>.
122
123 Note that Emacs cannot support complex scripts on a TTY, unless the
124 terminal includes such a support.
125
126 * intlfonts-VERSION.tar.gz
127
128 The intlfonts distribution contains X11 fonts in various encodings
129 that Emacs can use to display international characters. If you see a
130 non-ASCII character appear as a hollow box, that means you don't have
131 a font for it. You might find one in the intlfonts distribution. If
132 you do have a font for a non-ASCII character, but some characters
133 don't look right, or appear improperly aligned, a font from the
134 intlfonts distribution might look better.
135
136 The fonts in the intlfonts distribution are also used by the ps-print
137 package for printing international characters. The file
138 lisp/ps-mule.el defines the *.bdf font files required for printing
139 each character set.
140
141 The intlfonts distribution contains its own installation instructions,
142 in the intlfonts/README file.
143
144 * Image support libraries
145
146 Emacs needs libraries to display images, with the exception of PBM and
147 XBM images whose support is built-in.
148
149 On some systems, particularly on GNU/Linux, these libraries may
150 already be present or available as additional packages. If
151 there is a separate 'dev' or 'devel' package, for use at compilation
152 time rather than run time, you will need that as well as the
153 corresponding run time package; typically the dev package will
154 contain header files and a library archive. Otherwise, you can
155 download and build libraries from sources. Although none of them are
156 essential for running Emacs, some are important enough that
157 'configure' will report an error if they are absent from a system that
158 has X11 support, unless 'configure' is specifically told to omit them.
159
160 Here's a list of some of these libraries, and the URLs where they
161 can be found (in the unlikely event that your distribution does not
162 provide them). By default, libraries marked with an X are required if
163 X11 is being used.
164
165 libXaw3d http://directory.fsf.org/project/xaw3d/
166 X libxpm for XPM: http://www.x.org/releases/current/src/lib/
167 X libpng for PNG: http://www.libpng.org/
168 libz (for PNG): http://www.zlib.net/
169 X libjpeg for JPEG: http://www.ijg.org/
170 X libtiff for TIFF: http://www.remotesensing.org/libtiff/
171 X libgif for GIF: http://sourceforge.net/projects/giflib/
172 librsvg2 for SVG: http://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Projects/LibRsvg
173
174 If you supply the appropriate --without-LIB option, 'configure' will
175 omit the corresponding library from Emacs, even if that makes for a
176 less-pleasant user interface. Otherwise, Emacs will configure itself
177 to build with these libraries if 'configure' finds them on your
178 system, and 'configure' will complain and exit if a library marked 'X'
179 is not found on a system that uses X11. Use --without-LIB if your
180 version of a library won't work because some routines are missing.
181
182 * Extra fonts
183
184 The Emacs distribution does not include fonts and does not install
185 them.
186
187 On the GNU system, Emacs supports both X fonts and local fonts
188 (i.e. fonts managed by the fontconfig library). If you need more
189 fonts than your distribution normally provides, you must install them
190 yourself. See <URL:http://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/> for a large
191 number of free Unicode fonts.
192
193 * GNU/Linux development packages
194
195 Many GNU/Linux systems do not come with development packages by default;
196 they include the files that you need to run Emacs, but not those you
197 need to compile it. For example, to compile Emacs with support for X
198 and graphics libraries, you may need to install the X development
199 package(s), and development versions of the jpeg, png, etc. packages.
200
201 The names of the packages that you need varies according to the
202 GNU/Linux distribution that you use, and the options that you want to
203 configure Emacs with. On Debian-based systems, you can install all the
204 packages needed to build the installed version of Emacs with a command
205 like 'apt-get build-dep emacs24'. On Red Hat systems, the
206 corresponding command is 'yum-builddep emacs'.
207
208
209 DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION:
210
211 (This is for a Unix or Unix-like system. For GNUstep and Mac OS X,
212 see nextstep/INSTALL. For non-ancient versions of MS Windows, see
213 the file nt/INSTALL. For MS-DOS and MS Windows 3.X, see msdos/INSTALL.)
214
215 1) See the basic installation summary above for the disk space requirements.
216
217 2) In the unlikely event that 'configure' does not detect your system
218 type correctly, consult './etc/MACHINES' to see what --host, --build
219 options you should pass to 'configure'. That file also offers hints
220 for getting around some possible installation problems.
221
222 3) You can build Emacs in the top-level Emacs source directory
223 or in a separate directory.
224
225 3a) To build in the top-level Emacs source directory, go to that
226 directory and run the program 'configure' as follows:
227
228 ./configure [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
229
230 If 'configure' cannot determine your system type, try again
231 specifying the proper --build, --host options explicitly.
232
233 If you don't want X support, specify '--with-x=no'. If you omit this
234 option, 'configure' will try to figure out for itself whether your
235 system has X, and arrange to use it if present.
236
237 The '--x-includes=DIR' and '--x-libraries=DIR' options tell the build
238 process where the compiler should look for the include files and
239 object libraries used with the X Window System. Normally, 'configure'
240 is able to find them; these options are necessary if you have your X
241 Window System files installed in unusual places. These options also
242 accept a list of directories, separated with colons.
243
244 To get more attractive menus, you can specify an X toolkit when you
245 configure Emacs; use the option '--with-x-toolkit=TOOLKIT', where
246 TOOLKIT is 'gtk' (the default), 'athena', or 'motif' ('yes' and
247 'lucid' are synonyms for 'athena'). Compiling with Motif causes a
248 standard File Selection Dialog to pop up when you invoke file commands
249 with the mouse. You can get fancy 3D-style scroll bars, even without
250 Gtk or Motif, if you have the Xaw3d library installed (see
251 "Image support libraries" above for Xaw3d availability).
252
253 You can tell configure where to search for GTK by giving it the
254 argument PKG_CONFIG='/full/name/of/pkg-config'.
255
256 Emacs will autolaunch a D-Bus session bus, when the environment
257 variable DISPLAY is set, but no session bus is running. This might be
258 inconvenient for Emacs when running as daemon or running via a remote
259 ssh connection. In order to completely prevent the use of D-Bus, configure
260 Emacs with the options '--without-dbus --without-gconf --without-gsettings'.
261
262 The Emacs mail reader RMAIL is configured to be able to read mail from
263 a POP3 server by default. Versions of the POP protocol older than
264 POP3 are not supported. For Kerberos-authenticated POP add
265 '--with-kerberos', for Hesiod support add '--with-hesiod'. While POP3
266 is always enabled, whether Emacs actually uses POP is controlled by
267 individual users--see the Rmail chapter of the Emacs manual.
268
269 For image support you may have to download, build, and install the
270 appropriate image support libraries for image types other than XBM and
271 PBM, see the list of URLs in "Image support libraries" above.
272 (Note that PNG support requires libz in addition to libpng.)
273
274 To disable individual types of image support in Emacs for some reason,
275 even though configure finds the libraries, you can configure with one
276 or more of these options:
277
278 --without-xpm for XPM image support
279 --without-jpeg for JPEG image support
280 --without-tiff for TIFF image support
281 --without-gif for GIF image support
282 --without-png for PNG image support
283 --without-rsvg for SVG image support
284 --without-imagemagick for Imagemagick support
285
286 Use --without-toolkit-scroll-bars to disable Motif or Xaw3d scroll bars.
287
288 Use --without-xim to inhibit the default use of X Input Methods.
289 In this case, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn on use of XIM.
290
291 Use --disable-largefile to omit support for files larger than 2GB on
292 systems which support that.
293
294 Use --without-sound to disable sound support.
295
296 Use --without-all for a smaller executable with fewer dependencies on
297 external libraries, at the cost of disabling many features. Although
298 --without-all disables libraries not needed for ordinary Emacs
299 operation, it does enable X support, and using the GTK2 or GTK3
300 toolkit creates a lot of library dependencies. So if you want to
301 build a small executable with very basic X support, use --without-all
302 --with-x-toolkit=no. For the smallest possible executable without X,
303 use --without-all --without-x. If you want to build with just a few
304 features enabled, you can combine --without-all with --with-FEATURE.
305 For example, you can use --without-all --without-x --with-dbus to
306 build with DBus support and nothing more.
307
308 Use --with-wide-int to implement Emacs values with the type 'long long',
309 even on hosts where a narrower type would do. With this option, on a
310 typical 32-bit host, Emacs integers have 62 bits instead of 30.
311
312 Use --with-cairo to compile Emacs with Cairo drawing.
313
314 Use --enable-gcc-warnings to enable compile-time checks that warn
315 about possibly-questionable C code. This is intended for developers
316 and is useful with GNU-compatible compilers. On a recent GNU system
317 there should be no warnings; on older and on non-GNU systems the
318 generated warnings may still be useful, though you may prefer building
319 with 'make WERROR_CFLAGS=' so that the warnings are not treated as
320 errors.
321
322 Use --disable-silent-rules to cause 'make' to give more details about
323 the commands it executes. This can be helpful when debugging a build
324 that goes awry. 'make V=1' also enables the extra chatter.
325
326 Use --enable-link-time-optimization to enable link-time optimizer. If
327 you're using GNU compiler, this feature is supported since version 4.5.0.
328 If 'configure' can determine number of online CPUS on your system, final
329 link-time optimization and code generation is executed in parallel using
330 one job per each available online CPU.
331
332 This option is also supported for clang. You should have GNU binutils
333 with 'gold' linker and plugin support, and clang with LLVMgold.so plugin.
334 Read http://llvm.org/docs/GoldPlugin.html for details. Also note that
335 this feature is still experimental, so prepare to build binutils and
336 clang from the corresponding source code repositories.
337
338 The '--prefix=PREFIXDIR' option specifies where the installation process
339 should put emacs and its data files. This defaults to '/usr/local'.
340 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in PREFIXDIR/bin
341 (unless the '--exec-prefix' option says otherwise).
342 - The architecture-independent files go in PREFIXDIR/share/emacs/VERSION
343 (where VERSION is the version number of Emacs, like '23.2').
344 - The architecture-dependent files go in
345 PREFIXDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION
346 (where CONFIGURATION is the configuration name, like
347 i686-pc-linux-gnu), unless the '--exec-prefix' option says otherwise.
348
349 The '--exec-prefix=EXECDIR' option allows you to specify a separate
350 portion of the directory tree for installing architecture-specific
351 files, like executables and utility programs. If specified,
352 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in EXECDIR/bin, and
353 - The architecture-dependent files go in
354 EXECDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION.
355 EXECDIR/bin should be a directory that is normally in users' PATHs.
356
357 For example, the command
358
359 ./configure --build=i386-linux-gnu --without-sound
360
361 configures Emacs to build for a 32-bit GNU/Linux distribution,
362 without sound support.
363
364 'configure' doesn't do any compilation or installation itself.
365 It just creates the files that influence those things:
366 './Makefile' in the top-level directory and several subdirectories;
367 and './src/config.h'.
368
369 When it is done, 'configure' prints a description of what it did and
370 creates a shell script 'config.status' which, when run, recreates the
371 same configuration. If 'configure' exits with an error after
372 disturbing the status quo, it removes 'config.status'. 'configure'
373 also creates a file 'config.cache' that saves the results of its tests
374 to make reconfiguring faster, and a file 'config.log' containing compiler
375 output (useful mainly for debugging 'configure'). You can give
376 'configure' the option '--cache-file=FILE' to use the results of the
377 tests in FILE instead of 'config.cache'. Set FILE to '/dev/null' to
378 disable caching, for debugging 'configure'.
379
380 If the description of the system configuration printed by 'configure'
381 is not right, or if it claims some of the features or libraries are not
382 available when you know they are, look at the 'config.log' file for
383 the trace of the failed tests performed by 'configure' to check
384 whether these features are supported. Typically, some test fails
385 because the compiler cannot find some function in the system
386 libraries, or some macro-processor definition in the system headers.
387
388 Some tests might fail because the compiler should look in special
389 directories for some header files, or link against optional
390 libraries, or use special compilation options. You can force
391 'configure' and the build process which follows it to do that by
392 setting the variables CPPFLAGS, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, LIBS, CPP and CC
393 before running 'configure'. CPP is the command which invokes the
394 preprocessor, CPPFLAGS lists the options passed to it, CFLAGS are
395 compilation options, LDFLAGS are options used when linking, LIBS are
396 libraries to link against, and CC is the command which invokes the
397 compiler. By default, gcc is used if available.
398
399 Here's an example of a 'configure' invocation, assuming a Bourne-like
400 shell such as Bash, which uses these variables:
401
402 ./configure \
403 CPPFLAGS='-I/foo/myinclude' LDFLAGS='-L/bar/mylib' \
404 CFLAGS='-O3' LIBS='-lfoo -lbar'
405
406 (this is all one shell command). This tells 'configure' to instruct the
407 preprocessor to look in the '/foo/myinclude' directory for header
408 files (in addition to the standard directories), instruct the linker
409 to look in '/bar/mylib' for libraries, pass the -O3 optimization
410 switch to the compiler, and link against libfoo and libbar
411 libraries in addition to the standard ones.
412
413 For some libraries, like Gtk+, fontconfig and ALSA, 'configure' uses
414 pkg-config to find where those libraries are installed.
415 If you want pkg-config to look in special directories, you have to set
416 PKG_CONFIG_PATH to point to the directories where the .pc-files for
417 those libraries are. For example:
418
419 ./configure \
420 PKG_CONFIG_PATH='/usr/local/alsa/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/gtk+-2.8/lib/pkgconfig'
421
422 3b) To build in a separate directory, go to that directory
423 and run the program 'configure' as follows:
424
425 SOURCE-DIR/configure CONFIGURATION-NAME [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ...
426
427 SOURCE-DIR refers to the top-level Emacs source directory which is
428 where Emacs's configure script is located. 'configure' looks for the
429 Emacs source code in the directory that 'configure' is in.
430
431 4) 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 built with a non-nil value of 'byte-compile-dynamic'.
438
439 It is not a good idea to edit the normal .el files that come with Emacs.
440 Instead, use a file like site-init.el to change settings.
441
442 To change the value of a variable that is already defined in Emacs,
443 you should use the Lisp function 'setq', not 'defvar'. For example,
444
445 (setq news-inews-program "/usr/bin/inews")
446
447 is how you would override the default value of the variable
448 news-inews-program.
449
450 Before you override a variable this way, *look at the value* that the
451 variable gets by default! Make sure you know what kind of value the
452 variable should have. If you don't pay attention to what you are
453 doing, you'll make a mistake.
454
455 The 'site-*.el' files are nonexistent in the distribution. You do not
456 need to create them if you have nothing to put in them.
457
458 5) Refer to the file './etc/TERMS' for information on fields you may
459 wish to add to various termcap entries. (This is unlikely to be necessary.)
460
461 6) Run 'make' in the top directory of the Emacs distribution to finish
462 building Emacs in the standard way. The final executable file is
463 named 'src/emacs'. You can execute this file "in place" without
464 copying it, if you wish; then it automatically uses the sibling
465 directories ../lisp, ../lib-src, ../info.
466
467 Or you can "install" the executable and the other files into their
468 installed locations, with 'make install'. By default, Emacs's files
469 are installed in the following directories:
470
471 '/usr/local/bin' holds the executable programs users normally run -
472 'emacs', 'etags', 'ctags', 'emacsclient'.
473
474 '/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp' holds the Emacs Lisp library;
475 'VERSION' stands for the number of the Emacs version
476 you are installing, like '23.1' or '23.2'. Since the
477 Lisp library changes from one version of Emacs to
478 another, including the version number in the path
479 allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed
480 at the same time; in particular, you don't have to
481 make Emacs unavailable while installing a new version.
482
483 '/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/etc' holds the Emacs tutorial, the DOC
484 file, and other architecture-independent files Emacs
485 might need while running.
486
487 '/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME' contains executable
488 programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to
489 run themselves.
490 'VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are
491 installing, and 'CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the value
492 deduced by the 'configure' program to identify the
493 architecture and operating system of your machine,
494 like 'i686-pc-linux-gnu' or 'sparc-sun-sunos'. Since
495 these files are specific to the version of Emacs,
496 operating system, and architecture in use, including
497 the configuration name in the path allows you to have
498 several versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and
499 operating systems installed at the same time; this is
500 useful for sites at which different kinds of machines
501 share the file system Emacs is installed on.
502
503 '/usr/local/share/info' holds the on-line documentation for Emacs,
504 known as "info files". Many other GNU programs are
505 documented using info files as well, so this directory
506 stands apart from the other, Emacs-specific directories.
507
508 '/usr/local/share/man/man1' holds the man pages for the programs installed
509 in '/usr/local/bin'.
510
511 Any version of Emacs, whether installed or not, also looks for Lisp
512 files in these directories.
513
514 '/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
515 files installed for Emacs version VERSION only.
516
517 '/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp
518 files installed for all Emacs versions.
519
520 When Emacs is installed, it searches for its Lisp files
521 in '/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp', then in
522 '/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp', and finally in
523 '/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp'.
524
525 If these directories are not what you want, you can specify where to
526 install Emacs's libraries and data files or where Emacs should search
527 for its Lisp files by giving values for 'make' variables as part of
528 the command. See the section below called 'MAKE VARIABLES' for more
529 information on this.
530
531 7) Check the file 'dir' in your site's info directory (usually
532 /usr/local/share/info) to make sure that it has a menu entry for the
533 Emacs info files.
534
535 8) If your system uses lock files to interlock access to mailer inbox files,
536 then you might need to make the movemail program setuid or setgid
537 to enable it to write the lock files. We believe this is safe.
538
539 9) You are done! You can remove executables and object files from
540 the build directory by typing 'make clean'. To also remove the files
541 that 'configure' created (so you can compile Emacs for a different
542 configuration), type 'make distclean'.
543
544
545 MAKE VARIABLES
546
547 You can change where the build process installs Emacs and its data
548 files by specifying values for 'make' variables as part of the 'make'
549 command line. For example, if you type
550
551 make install bindir=/usr/local/gnubin
552
553 the 'bindir=/usr/local/gnubin' argument indicates that the Emacs
554 executable files should go in '/usr/local/gnubin', not
555 '/usr/local/bin'.
556
557 Here is a complete list of the variables you may want to set.
558
559 'bindir' indicates where to put executable programs that users can
560 run. This defaults to /usr/local/bin.
561
562 'datadir' indicates where to put the architecture-independent
563 read-only data files that Emacs refers to while it runs; it
564 defaults to /usr/local/share. We create the following
565 subdirectories under 'datadir':
566 - 'emacs/VERSION/lisp', containing the Emacs Lisp library, and
567 - 'emacs/VERSION/etc', containing the tutorials, DOC file, etc.
568 'VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
569 like '23.1' or '23.2'. 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.
574
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
580 themselves.
581 'VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing,
582 and 'CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the value deduced by the
583 'configure' program to identify the architecture and operating
584 system of your machine, like 'i686-pc-linux-gnu' or 'sparc-sun-sunos'.
585 Since these files are specific to the version of Emacs,
586 operating system, and architecture in use, including the
587 configuration name in the path allows you to have several
588 versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and operating
589 systems installed at the same time; this is useful for sites
590 at which different kinds of machines share the file system
591 Emacs is installed on.
592
593 'infodir' indicates where to put the info files distributed with
594 Emacs; it defaults to '/usr/local/share/info'.
595
596 'mandir' indicates where to put the man pages for Emacs and its
597 utilities (like 'etags'); it defaults to
598 '/usr/local/share/man/man1'.
599
600 'prefix' doesn't give a path for any specific part of Emacs; instead,
601 its value is used to determine the defaults for all the
602 architecture-independent path variables - 'datadir',
603 'sharedstatedir', 'infodir', and 'mandir'. Its default value is
604 '/usr/local'; the other variables add on 'lib' or 'man' to it
605 by default.
606
607 For example, suppose your site generally places GNU software
608 under '/usr/users/software/gnusoft' instead of '/usr/local'.
609 By including
610 'prefix=/usr/users/software/gnusoft'
611 in the arguments to 'make', you can instruct the build process
612 to place all of the Emacs data files in the appropriate
613 directories under that path.
614
615 'exec_prefix' serves the same purpose as 'prefix', but instead
616 determines the default values for the architecture-dependent
617 path variables - 'bindir' and 'libexecdir'.
618
619 The above variables serve analogous purposes in the makefiles for all
620 GNU software; the following variables are specific to Emacs.
621
622 'archlibdir' indicates where Emacs installs and expects the executable
623 files and other architecture-dependent data it uses while
624 running. Its default value, based on 'libexecdir' (which
625 see), is '/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME'
626 (where VERSION and CONFIGURATION-NAME are as described above).
627
628 'GZIP_PROG' is the name of the executable that compresses installed info,
629 manual, and .el files. It defaults to gzip. Setting it to
630 the empty string suppresses compression.
631
632 Remember that you must specify any variable values you need each time
633 you run 'make' in the top directory. If you run 'make' once to build
634 emacs, test it, and then run 'make' again to install the files, you
635 must provide the same variable settings each time. To make the
636 settings persist, you can edit them into the 'Makefile' in the top
637 directory, but be aware that running the 'configure' program erases
638 'Makefile' and rebuilds it from 'Makefile.in'.
639
640 The path for finding Lisp files is specified in src/epaths.h,
641 a file which is generated by running configure. To change the path,
642 you can edit the definition of PATH_LOADSEARCH in that file
643 before you run 'make'.
644
645 The top-level Makefile stores the variable settings it used in the
646 Makefiles for the subdirectories, so you don't have to specify them
647 when running make in the subdirectories.
648
649
650 PROBLEMS
651
652 See the file './etc/PROBLEMS' for a list of various problems sometimes
653 encountered, and what to do about them.
654 \f
655 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
656
657 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
658 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
659 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
660 (at your option) any later version.
661
662 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
663 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
664 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
665 GNU General Public License for more details.
666
667 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
668 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.