(automake-1.16.info)Basic Installation

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2.2.1 Basic Installation
------------------------

The most common installation procedure looks as follows.

     ~ % tar zxf amhello-1.0.tar.gz
     ~ % cd amhello-1.0
     ~/amhello-1.0 % ./configure
     ...
     config.status: creating Makefile
     config.status: creating src/Makefile
     ...
     ~/amhello-1.0 % make
     ...
     ~/amhello-1.0 % make check
     ...
     ~/amhello-1.0 % su
     Password:
     /home/adl/amhello-1.0 # make install
     ...
     /home/adl/amhello-1.0 # exit
     ~/amhello-1.0 % make installcheck
     ...

   The user first unpacks the package.  Here, and in the following
examples, we will use the non-portable ‘tar zxf’ command for simplicity.
On a system without GNU ‘tar’ installed, this command should read
‘gunzip -c amhello-1.0.tar.gz | tar xf -’.

   The user then enters the newly created directory to run the
‘configure’ script.  This script probes the system for various features,
and finally creates the ‘Makefile’s.  In this toy example there are only
two ‘Makefile’s, but in real-world projects, there may be many more,
usually one ‘Makefile’ per directory.

   It is now possible to run ‘make’.  This will construct all the
programs, libraries, and scripts that need to be constructed for the
package.  In our example, this compiles the ‘hello’ program.  All files
are constructed in place, in the source tree; we will see later how this
can be changed.

   ‘make check’ causes the package’s tests to be run.  This step is not
mandatory, but it is often good to make sure the programs that have been
built behave as they should, before you decide to install them.  Our
example does not contain any tests, so running ‘make check’ is a no-op.

   After everything has been built, and maybe tested, it is time to
install it on the system.  That means copying the programs, libraries,
header files, scripts, and other data files from the source directory to
their final destination on the system.  The command ‘make install’ will
do that.  However, by default everything will be installed in
subdirectories of ‘/usr/local’: binaries will go into ‘/usr/local/bin’,
libraries will end up in ‘/usr/local/lib’, etc.  This destination is
usually not writable by any user, so we assume that we have to become
root before we can run ‘make install’.  In our example, running ‘make
install’ will copy the program ‘hello’ into ‘/usr/local/bin’ and
‘README’ into ‘/usr/local/share/doc/amhello’.

   A last and optional step is to run ‘make installcheck’.  This command
may run tests on the installed files.  ‘make check’ tests the files in
the source tree, while ‘make installcheck’ tests their installed copies.
The tests run by the latter can be different from those run by the
former.  For instance, there are tests that cannot be run in the source
tree.  Conversely, some packages are set up so that ‘make installcheck’
will run the very same tests as ‘make check’, only on different files
(non-installed vs. installed).  It can make a difference, for instance
when the source tree’s layout is different from that of the
installation.  Furthermore it may help to diagnose an incomplete
installation.

   Presently most packages do not have any ‘installcheck’ tests because
the existence of ‘installcheck’ is little known, and its usefulness is
neglected.  Our little toy package is no better: ‘make installcheck’
does nothing.