GNU Emacs Installation Guide Copyright (C) 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. See the end of the file for license conditions. This file contains general information. For more specific information for the Windows, GNUstep/Mac OS X, and MS-DOS ports, also see the files nt/INSTALL nextstep/INSTALL, and msdos/INSTALL. For information specific to building from a CVS checkout (rather than a release), see the file INSTALL.CVS. BASIC INSTALLATION The simplest way to build Emacs is to use the `configure' shell script which attempts to guess correct values for various system-dependent variables and features and find the directories where various system headers and libraries are kept. It then creates a `Makefile' in each subdirectory and a `config.h' file containing system-dependent definitions. Running the `make' utility then builds the package for your system. Here's the procedure to build Emacs using `configure' on systems which are supported by it. If this simplified procedure fails, or if you are using a platform such as MS-Windows, where `configure' script doesn't work, you might need to use various non-default options, and maybe perform some of the steps manually. The more detailed description in the rest of the sections of this guide will help you do that, so please refer to them if the simple procedure does not work. 1. Make sure your system has at least 120 MB of free disk space. 2a. `cd' to the directory where you unpacked Emacs and invoke the `configure' script: ./configure 2b. Alternatively, create a separate directory, outside the source directory, where you want to build Emacs, and invoke `configure' from there: SOURCE-DIR/configure where SOURCE-DIR is the top-level Emacs source directory. This may not work unless you use GNU make. 3. When `configure' finishes, it prints several lines of details about the system configuration. Read those details carefully looking for anything suspicious, such as wrong CPU and operating system names, wrong places for headers or libraries, missing libraries that you know are installed on your system, etc. If you find anything wrong, you will have to pass to `configure' explicit machine configuration name, and one or more options which tell it where to find various headers and libraries; refer to DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION section below. If `configure' didn't find some image support libraries, such as Xpm, jpeg, etc., and you want to use them refer to the subsection "Image support libraries", below. If the details printed by `configure' don't make any sense to you, assume that `configure' did its job and proceed. 4. If you need to run the `configure' script more than once (e.g., with some non-default options), always clean the source directories before running `configure' again: make distclean ./configure 5. Invoke the `make' program: make 6. If `make' succeeds, it will build an executable program `emacs' in the `src' directory. You can try this program, to make sure it works: src/emacs -q 7. Assuming that the program `src/emacs' starts and displays its opening screen, you can install the program and its auxiliary files into their installation directories: make install You are now ready to use Emacs. If you wish to conserve disk space, you may remove the program binaries and object files from the directory where you built Emacs: make clean You can also save some space by compressing (with `gzip') Info files and installed Lisp source (.el) files which have corresponding .elc versions. ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES * Complex Text Layout support libraries Emacs needs the optional libraries "m17n-db", "libm17n-flt", "libotf" to correctly display such complex scripts as Indic and Khmer. On some systems, particularly GNU/Linux, these libraries may be already present or available as additional packages. Note that if there is a separate `dev' or `devel' package, for use at compilation time rather than run time, you will need that as well as the corresponding run time package; typically the dev package will contain header files and a library archive. Otherwise, you can download and build libraries from sources. The sources of these libraries are available by anonymous CVS from cvs.m17n.org. % cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.m17n.org:/cvs/m17n login % cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.m17n.org:/cvs/m17n co m17n-db % cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.m17n.org:/cvs/m17n co m17n-lib % cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.m17n.org:/cvs/m17n co libotf For m17n-lib, if you have problems with making the whole package because you lack some other packages on which m17n-lib depends, try to configure it with the option "--without-gui". * intlfonts-VERSION.tar.gz The intlfonts distribution contains X11 fonts in various encodings that Emacs can use to display international characters. If you see a non-ASCII character appear as a hollow box, that means you don't have a font for it. You might find one in the intlfonts distribution. If you do have a font for a non-ASCII character, but some characters don't look right, or appear improperly aligned, a font from the intlfonts distribution might look better. The fonts in the intlfonts distribution are also used by the ps-print package for printing international characters. The file lisp/ps-mule.el defines the *.bdf font files required for printing each character set. The intlfonts distribution contains its own installation instructions, in the intlfonts/README file. * Image support libraries Emacs needs optional libraries to be able to display images (with the exception of PBM and XBM images whose support is built-in). On some systems, particularly on GNU/Linux, these libraries may already be present or available as additional packages. Note that if there is a separate `dev' or `devel' package, for use at compilation time rather than run time, you will need that as well as the corresponding run time package; typically the dev package will contain header files and a library archive. Otherwise, you can download and build libraries from sources. None of them are vital for running Emacs; however, note that Emacs will not be able to use colored icons in the toolbar if XPM support is not compiled in. Here's the list of these optional libraries, and the URLs where they can be found: . libXaw3d for fancy 3D-style scroll bars: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/widgets/Xaw3d/ . libxpm for XPM: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/libraries/ Get version 3.4k or later, which lets Emacs use its own color allocation functions. . libpng for PNG: ftp://ftp.simplesystems.org/pub/libpng/png/ . libz (for PNG): http://www.zlib.net/ . libjpeg for JPEG: ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/ Get version 6b -- 6a is reported to fail in Emacs. . libtiff for TIFF: http://www.libtiff.org/ . libgif for GIF: http://sourceforge.net/projects/giflib/ Emacs will configure itself to build with these libraries if the `configure' script finds them on your system, unless you supply the appropriate --without-LIB option. In some cases, older versions of these libraries won't work because some routines are missing, and configure should avoid such old versions. If that happens, use the --without-LIB options to `configure'. See below for more details. * Extra fonts The Emacs distribution does not include fonts and does not install them. You must do that yourself. Emacs running on the GNU system supports both X fonts and local fonts (i.e. the fonts managed by the fontconfig library). For `Unicode' (ISO 10646) X fonts, see (packaged in Debian), (packaged in Debian). (In recent Debian versions, there is an extensive `misc-fixed' iso10646-1 in the default X installation.) Perhaps also see . has basic fonts for Emacs's ISO-8859 charsets. XFree86 release 4 (from and mirrors) contains font support for most, if not all, of the charsets that Emacs currently supports, including iso10646-1 encoded fonts for use with the mule-unicode charsets. The font files should also be usable with older X releases. Note that XFree 4 contains many iso10646-1 fonts with minimal character repertoires, which can cause problems -- see etc/PROBLEMS. BDF Unicode fonts etl-unicode.tar.gz are available from and . These fonts can also be used by ps-print and ps-mule to print Unicode characters. Finally, the Web pages and list a large number of free Unicode fonts. * GNU/Linux development packages Many GNU/Linux systems do not come with development packages by default; they just include the files that you need to run Emacs, but not those you need to compile it. For example, to compile Emacs with X11 support, you may need to install the special `X11 development' package. For example, in April 2003, the package names to install were `XFree86-devel' and `Xaw3d-devel' on Red Hat. On Debian, the packages necessary to build the installed version should be sufficient; they can be installed using `apt-get build-dep emacs21' in Debian 3 and above. DETAILED BUILDING AND INSTALLATION: (This is for a Unix or Unix-like system. For MS-DOS and Windows 3.X, see msdos/INSTALL. For Windows 9X, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP/2003, and Windows Vista/2008, see the file nt/INSTALL. For GNUstep and Mac OS X, see nextstep/INSTALL.) 1) Make sure your system has enough swapping space allocated to handle a program whose pure code is 1.5 MB and whose data area is at least 2.8 MB and can reach 100 MB or more. If the swapping space is insufficient, you will get an error in the command `temacs -batch -l loadup dump', found in `./src/Makefile.in', or possibly when running the final dumped Emacs. Building Emacs requires about 140 MB of disk space (including the Emacs sources) Once installed, Emacs occupies about 77 MB in the file system where it is installed; this includes the executable files, Lisp libraries, miscellaneous data files, and on-line documentation. If the building and installation take place in different directories, then the installation procedure momentarily requires 140+77 MB. 2) Consult `./etc/MACHINES' to see what configuration name you should give to the `configure' program. That file offers hints for getting around some possible installation problems. The file lists many different configurations, but only the part for your machine and operating system is relevant. (The list is arranged in alphabetical order by the vendor name.) 3) You can build Emacs in the top-level Emacs source directory or in a separate directory. 3a) To build in the top-level Emacs source directory, go to that directory and run the program `configure' as follows: ./configure [CONFIGURATION-NAME] [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ... The CONFIGURATION-NAME argument should be a configuration name given in `./etc/MACHINES', with the system version number added at the end. You should try first omitting CONFIGURATION-NAME. This way, `configure' will try to guess your system type. If it cannot guess, or if something goes wrong in building or installing Emacs this way, try again specifying the proper CONFIGURATION-NAME explicitly. If you don't want X support, specify `--with-x=no'. If you omit this option, `configure' will try to figure out for itself whether your system has X, and arrange to use it if present. The `--x-includes=DIR' and `--x-libraries=DIR' options tell the build process where the compiler should look for the include files and object libraries used with the X Window System. Normally, `configure' is able to find them; these options are necessary if you have your X Window System files installed in unusual places. These options also accept a list of directories, separated with colons. To get more attractive menus, you can specify an X toolkit when you configure Emacs; use the option `--with-x-toolkit=TOOLKIT', where TOOLKIT is `athena', `motif' or `gtk' (`yes' and `lucid' are synonyms for `athena'). On some systems, it does not work to use a toolkit with shared libraries. A free implementation of Motif, called LessTif, is available from . Compiling with LessTif or Motif causes a standard File Selection Dialog to pop up when you invoke file commands with the mouse. You can get fancy 3D-style scroll bars, even without LessTif/Motif, if you have the Xaw3d library installed (see "Image support libraries" above for Xaw3d availability). If `--with-x-toolkit=gtk' is specified, you can tell configure where to search for GTK by specifying `--with-pkg-config-prog=PATH' where PATH is the pathname to pkg-config. Note that GTK version 2.4 or newer is required for Emacs. The Emacs mail reader RMAIL is configured to be able to read mail from a POP3 server by default. Versions of the POP protocol older than POP3 are not supported. For Kerberos-authenticated POP add `--with-kerberos', for Hesiod support add `--with-hesiod'. While POP3 is always enabled, whether Emacs actually uses POP is controlled by individual users--see the Rmail chapter of the Emacs manual. For image support you may have to download, build, and install the appropriate image support libraries for image types other than XBM and PBM, see the list of URLs in "ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION FILES" above. (Note that PNG support requires libz in addition to libpng.) To disable individual types of image support in Emacs for some reason, even though configure finds the libraries, you can configure with one or more of these options: --without-xpm for XPM image support --without-jpeg for JPEG image support --without-tiff for TIFF image support --without-gif for GIF image support --without-png for PNG image support Use --without-toolkit-scroll-bars to disable LessTif/Motif or Xaw3d scroll bars. Use --without-xim to inhibit the default use of X Input Methods. In this case, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn on use of XIM. Use --disable-largefile omits support for files larger than 2GB on systems which support that. Use --without-sound to disable sound support. The `--prefix=PREFIXDIR' option specifies where the installation process should put emacs and its data files. This defaults to `/usr/local'. - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in PREFIXDIR/bin (unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise). - The architecture-independent files go in PREFIXDIR/share/emacs/VERSION (where VERSION is the version number of Emacs, like `19.27'). - The architecture-dependent files go in PREFIXDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION (where CONFIGURATION is the configuration name, like mips-dec-ultrix4.2), unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise. The `--exec-prefix=EXECDIR' option allows you to specify a separate portion of the directory tree for installing architecture-specific files, like executables and utility programs. If specified, - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in EXECDIR/bin, and - The architecture-dependent files go in EXECDIR/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION. EXECDIR/bin should be a directory that is normally in users' PATHs. For example, the command ./configure mips-dec-ultrix --with-x11 configures Emacs to build for a DECstation running Ultrix, with support for the X11 window system. `configure' doesn't do any compilation or installation itself. It just creates the files that influence those things: `./Makefile', `lib-src/Makefile', `oldXMenu/Makefile', `lwlib/Makefile', `src/Makefile', and `./src/config.h'. For details on exactly what it does, see the section called `CONFIGURATION BY HAND', below. When it is done, `configure' prints a description of what it did and creates a shell script `config.status' which, when run, recreates the same configuration. If `configure' exits with an error after disturbing the status quo, it removes `config.status'. `configure' also creates a file `config.cache' that saves the results of its tests to make reconfiguring faster, and a file `config.log' containing compiler output (useful mainly for debugging `configure'). You can give `configure' the option `--cache-file=FILE' to use the results of the tests in FILE instead of `config.cache'. Set FILE to `/dev/null' to disable caching, for debugging `configure'. If the description of the system configuration printed by `configure' is not right, or if it claims some of the features or libraries are not available when you know they are, look at the `config.log' file for the trace of the failed tests performed by `configure' to check whether these features are supported. Typically, some test fails because the compiler cannot find some function in the system libraries, or some macro-processor definition in the system headers. Some tests might fail because the compiler should look in special directories for some header files, or link against optional libraries, or use special compilation options. You can force `configure' and the build process which follows it to do that by setting the variables CPPFLAGS, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, LIBS, CPP and CC before running `configure'. CPP is the command which invokes the preprocessor, CPPFLAGS lists the options passed to it, CFLAGS are compilation options, LDFLAGS are options used when linking, LIBS are libraries to link against, and CC is the command which invokes the compiler. By default, gcc is used if available. Here's an example of a `configure' invocation, assuming a Bourne-like shell such as Bash, which uses these variables: CPPFLAGS='-I/foo/myinclude' LDFLAGS='-L/bar/mylib' \ CFLAGS='-O3' LIBS='-lfoo -lbar' ./configure (this is all one long line). This tells `configure' to instruct the preprocessor to look in the `/foo/myinclude' directory for header files (in addition to the standard directories), instruct the linker to look in `/bar/mylib' for libraries, pass the -O3 optimization switch to the compiler, and link against libfoo.a and libbar.a libraries in addition to the standard ones. For some libraries, like Gtk+, fontconfig and ALSA, `configure' use pkg-config to find where those libraries are installed. If you want pkg-config to look in special directories, you have to set the environment variable PKG_CONFIG_PATH to point to the directories where the .pc-files for those libraries are. For example: PKG_CONFIG_PATH='/usr/local/alsa/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/gtk+-2.8/lib/pkgconfig' \ ./configure The work of `configure' can be done by editing various files in the distribution, but using `configure' is easier. See the section called "CONFIGURATION BY HAND" below if you want to do the configuration yourself. 3b) To build in a separate directory, go to that directory and run the program `configure' as follows: SOURCE-DIR/configure CONFIGURATION-NAME [--OPTION[=VALUE]] ... SOURCE-DIR refers to the top-level Emacs source directory which is where Emacs's configure script is located. `configure' looks for the Emacs source code in the directory that `configure' is in. To build in a separate directory, you must use a version of `make' that supports the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'. 3c) Some people try to build in a separate directory by filling it full of symlinks to the files in the real source directory. If you do that, `make all' does work, but `make install' fails: it copies the symbolic links rather than the actual files. As far as is known, there is no particular reason to use a directory full of links rather than use the standard GNU facilities to build in a separate directory (see 3b above). 4) Look at `./lisp/paths.el'; if some of those values are not right for your system, set up the file `./lisp/site-init.el' with Emacs Lisp code to override them; it is not a good idea to edit paths.el itself. YOU MUST USE THE LISP FUNCTION `setq' TO ASSIGN VALUES, rather than `defvar', as used by `./lisp/paths.el'. For example, (setq news-inews-program "/usr/bin/inews") is how you would override the default value of the variable news-inews-program (which is "/usr/local/inews"). Before you override a variable this way, *look at the value* that the variable gets by default! Make sure you know what kind of value the variable should have. If you don't pay attention to what you are doing, you'll make a mistake. 5) Put into `./lisp/site-init.el' or `./lisp/site-load.el' any Emacs Lisp code you want Emacs to load before it is dumped out. Use site-load.el for additional libraries if you arrange for their documentation strings to be in the etc/DOC file (see src/Makefile.in if you wish to figure out how to do that). For all else, use site-init.el. Do not load byte-compiled code which was build with a non-nil value of `byte-compile-dynamic'. If you set load-path to a different value in site-init.el or site-load.el, Emacs will use *precisely* that value when it starts up again. If you do this, you are on your own! Note that, on some systems, the code you place in site-init.el must not use expand-file-name or any other function which may look something up in the system's password and user information database. See `./etc/PROBLEMS' for more details on which systems this affects. The `site-*.el' files are nonexistent in the distribution. You do not need to create them if you have nothing to put in them. 6) Refer to the file `./etc/TERMS' for information on fields you may wish to add to various termcap entries. The files `./etc/termcap.ucb' and `./etc/termcap.dat' may already contain appropriately-modified entries. 7) Run `make' in the top directory of the Emacs distribution to finish building Emacs in the standard way. The final executable file is named `src/emacs'. You can execute this file "in place" without copying it, if you wish; then it automatically uses the sibling directories ../lisp, ../lib-src, ../info. Or you can "install" the executable and the other Emacs into their installed locations, with `make install'. By default, Emacs's files are installed in the following directories: `/usr/local/bin' holds the executable programs users normally run - `emacs', `etags', `ctags', `b2m', `emacsclient', and `rcs-checkin'. `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp' holds the Emacs Lisp library; `VERSION' stands for the number of the Emacs version you are installing, like `18.59' or `19.27'. Since the Lisp library changes from one version of Emacs to another, including the version number in the path allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed at the same time; in particular, you don't have to make Emacs unavailable while installing a new version. `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/etc' holds the Emacs tutorial, the DOC file, the `yow' database, and other architecture-independent files Emacs might need while running. VERSION is as specified for `.../lisp'. `/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME' contains executable programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to run themselves. `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing, and `CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the argument you gave to the `configure' program to identify the architecture and operating system of your machine, like `mips-dec-ultrix' or `sparc-sun-sunos'. Since these files are specific to the version of Emacs, operating system, and architecture in use, including the configuration name in the path allows you to have several versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and operating systems installed at the same time; this is useful for sites at which different kinds of machines share the file system Emacs is installed on. `/usr/local/share/info' holds the on-line documentation for Emacs, known as "info files". Many other GNU programs are documented using info files as well, so this directory stands apart from the other, Emacs-specific directories. `/usr/local/man/man1' holds the man pages for the programs installed in `/usr/local/bin'. Any version of Emacs, whether installed or not, also looks for Lisp files in these directories. `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp files installed for Emacs version VERSION only. `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp' holds the local Emacs Lisp files installed for all Emacs versions. When Emacs is installed, it searches for its Lisp files in `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp', then in `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp', and finally in `/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/lisp'. If these directories are not what you want, you can specify where to install Emacs's libraries and data files or where Emacs should search for its Lisp files by giving values for `make' variables as part of the command. See the section below called `MAKE VARIABLES' for more information on this. 8) Check the file `dir' in your site's info directory (usually /usr/local/share/info) to make sure that it has a menu entry for the Emacs info files. 9) If your system uses lock files to interlock access to mailer inbox files, then you might need to make the movemail program setuid or setgid to enable it to write the lock files. We believe this is safe. 10) You are done! You can remove executables and object files from the build directory by typing `make clean'. To also remove the files that `configure' created (so you can compile Emacs for a different configuration), type `make distclean'. If you don't need some, or all of the input methods from the Leim package, you can remove the unneeded files in the leim subdirectories of your site's lisp directory (usually /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/). MAKE VARIABLES You can change where the build process installs Emacs and its data files by specifying values for `make' variables as part of the `make' command line. For example, if you type make install bindir=/usr/local/gnubin the `bindir=/usr/local/gnubin' argument indicates that the Emacs executable files should go in `/usr/local/gnubin', not `/usr/local/bin'. Here is a complete list of the variables you may want to set. `bindir' indicates where to put executable programs that users can run. This defaults to /usr/local/bin. `datadir' indicates where to put the architecture-independent read-only data files that Emacs refers to while it runs; it defaults to /usr/local/share. We create the following subdirectories under `datadir': - `emacs/VERSION/lisp', containing the Emacs Lisp library, and - `emacs/VERSION/etc', containing the Emacs tutorial, the DOC file, and the `yow' database. `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing, like `18.59' or `19.0'. Since these files vary from one version of Emacs to another, including the version number in the path allows you to have several versions of Emacs installed at the same time; this means that you don't have to make Emacs unavailable while installing a new version. `libexecdir' indicates where to put architecture-specific data files that Emacs refers to as it runs; it defaults to `/usr/local/libexec'. We create the following subdirectories under `libexecdir': - `emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME', containing executable programs used by Emacs that users are not expected to run themselves. `VERSION' is the number of the Emacs version you are installing, and `CONFIGURATION-NAME' is the argument you gave to the `configure' program to identify the architecture and operating system of your machine, like `mips-dec-ultrix' or `sparc-sun-sunos'. Since these files are specific to the version of Emacs, operating system, and architecture in use, including the configuration name in the path allows you to have several versions of Emacs for any mix of machines and operating systems installed at the same time; this is useful for sites at which different kinds of machines share the file system Emacs is installed on. `infodir' indicates where to put the info files distributed with Emacs; it defaults to `/usr/local/share/info'. `mandir' indicates where to put the man pages for Emacs and its utilities (like `etags'); it defaults to `/usr/local/man/man1'. `manext' gives the extension the man pages should be installed with. It should contain a period, followed by the appropriate digit. It defaults to `.1'. For example given the default values for `mandir' and `manext', the Emacs man page would be installed as `/usr/local/man/man1/emacs.1'. `prefix' doesn't give a path for any specific part of Emacs; instead, its value is used to determine the defaults for all the architecture-independent path variables - `datadir', `sharedstatedir', `infodir', and `mandir'. Its default value is `/usr/local'; the other variables add on `lib' or `man' to it by default. For example, suppose your site generally places GNU software under `/usr/users/software/gnusoft' instead of `/usr/local'. By including `prefix=/usr/users/software/gnusoft' in the arguments to `make', you can instruct the build process to place all of the Emacs data files in the appropriate directories under that path. `exec_prefix' serves the same purpose as `prefix', but instead determines the default values for the architecture-dependent path variables - `bindir' and `libexecdir'. The above variables serve analogous purposes in the makefiles for all GNU software; this variable is specific to Emacs. `archlibdir' indicates where Emacs installs and expects the executable files and other architecture-dependent data it uses while running. Its default value, based on `libexecdir' (which see), is `/usr/local/libexec/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION-NAME' (where VERSION and CONFIGURATION-NAME are as described above). Remember that you must specify any variable values you need each time you run `make' in the top directory. If you run `make' once to build emacs, test it, and then run `make' again to install the files, you must provide the same variable settings each time. To make the settings persist, you can edit them into the `Makefile' in the top directory, but be aware that running the `configure' program erases `Makefile' and rebuilds it from `Makefile.in'. The path for finding Lisp files is specified in src/paths.h, a file which is generated by running configure. To change the path, you can edit the definition of PATH_LOADSEARCH in that file before you run `make'. The top-level Makefile stores the variable settings it used in the Makefiles for the subdirectories, so you don't have to specify them when running make in the subdirectories. CONFIGURATION BY HAND Instead of running the `configure' program, you have to perform the following steps. 1) Copy `./src/config.in' to `./src/config.h'. 2) Consult `./etc/MACHINES' to see what configuration name you should use for your system. Look at the code of the `configure' script to see which operating system and architecture description files from `src/s' and `src/m' should be used for that configuration name. Edit `src/config.h', and change the two `#include' directives to include the appropriate system and architecture description files. 2) Edit `./src/config.h' to set the right options for your system. If you need to override any of the definitions in the s/*.h and m/*.h files for your system and machine, do so by editing config.h, not by changing the s/*.h and m/*.h files. Occasionally you may need to redefine parameters used in `./lib-src/movemail.c'. 3) Create src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile from the corresponding `Makefile.in' files. First copy `Makefile.in' to `Makefile.c', then edit in appropriate substitutions for the @...@ constructs, and then copy the shell commands near the end of `configure' that run cpp to construct `Makefile'. 4) Create `Makefile' files in various other directories from the corresponding `Makefile.in' files. This isn't so hard, just a matter of substitution. The `configure' script is built from `configure.in' by the `autoconf' program. You need version 2.51 or newer of `autoconf' to rebuild `configure'. BUILDING GNU EMACS BY HAND Once Emacs is configured, running `make' in the top directory performs the following steps. 1) Run `make src/paths.h' in the top directory. This produces `./src/paths.h' from the template file `./src/paths.in', changing the paths to the values specified in `./Makefile'. 2) Go to directory `./lib-src' and run `make'. This creates executables named `ctags' and `etags' and `make-docfile' and `digest-doc' and `test-distrib'. And others. 3) Go to directory `./src' and Run `make'. This refers to files in the `./lisp' and `./lib-src' subdirectories using names `../lisp' and `../lib-src'. This creates a file `./src/emacs' which is the runnable Emacs, which has another name that contains a version number. Each time you do this, that version number increments in the last place. It also creates a file in `./etc' whose name is `DOC' followed by the current Emacs version. This file contains documentation strings for all the functions in Emacs. Each time you run make to make a new emacs, a new DOC file with a new name is made. You must keep the DOC file for an Emacs version as long as you keep using that Emacs version. INSTALLATION BY HAND The steps below are done by running `make install' in the main directory of the Emacs distribution. 1) Copy `./lisp' and its subdirectories, `./etc', and the executables in `./lib-src' to their final destinations, as selected in `./src/paths.h'. Strictly speaking, not all of the executables in `./lib-src' need be copied. - The programs `cvtmail', `fakemail', `hexl', `movemail', `profile', `rcs2log', and `vcdiff' are used by Emacs; they do need to be copied. - The programs `etags', `ctags', `emacsclient', `b2m', and `rcs-checkin' are intended to be run by users; they are handled below. - The programs `make-docfile' and `test-distrib' were used in building Emacs, and are not needed any more. - The programs `digest-doc' and `sorted-doc' convert a `DOC' file into a file for users to read. There is no important reason to move them. 2) Copy the files in `./info' to the place specified in `./lisp/site-init.el' or `./lisp/paths.el'. Note that if the destination directory already contains a file named `dir', you probably don't want to replace it with the `dir' file in the Emacs distribution. Instead, you should make sure that the existing `dir' file contains an appropriate menu entry for the Emacs info. 3) Copy `./src/emacs' to `/usr/local/bin', or to some other directory in users' search paths. `./src/emacs' has an alternate name `./src/emacs-EMACSVERSION'; you may wish to make a symbolic link named `/usr/local/bin/emacs' pointing to that alternate name, as an easy way of installing different versions. You can delete `./src/temacs'. 4) Copy the programs `b2m', `emacsclient', `ctags', `etags', and `rcs-checkin' from `./lib-src' to `/usr/local/bin'. These programs are intended for users to run. 5) Copy the man pages in `./etc' for emacs, ctags, and etags into the appropriate man directories. 6) The files in the `./src' subdirectory, except for `emacs', are not used by Emacs once it is built. However, it is very desirable to keep the source on line for debugging. PROBLEMS See the file PROBLEMS in etc subdirectory for a list of various problems sometimes encountered, and what to do about them. This file is part of GNU Emacs. GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with GNU Emacs. If not, see .