Determining GZIP_PATH, etc. automatically

I have to compile lynx 2.7.1 on five different variants of Unix. I decided that it would be tedious to manually set the absolute paths of the various commands at the end of userdefs.h, so I set up a system to do so automatically.

I used autoconf. I realize there was some discussion about autoconf in April '96, in which Fote expressed his desire to let the libwww take care of the platform-specific things that autoconf is generally used for. So I want to point out that my use of autoconf does not involve changing any of the files in the distribution. I only added files to automate what is currently done by hand.

You can download the files as follows:

After downloading, cd to your top-level lynx directory and untar them.

To use it, simply type ./configure and then make whatever target you usually make. If you're using a platform I've compiled on, you can let autoconf determine the correct target for you by typing make guess

I realize this is unnecessary for people who only compile on one platform, but if these files went into the distribution, it might help others like me who have to compile on several. It's all new files...no files already in the distribution are changed. Nobody has to use it who doesn't want to, so it would hurt nothing to make these files part of the official distribution.

I don't always keep up with the latest lynx release, and people who distribute lynx releases do not seem inclined to incorporate my changes, so you may have to do it yoursef. It takes 5-10 minutes. Here's how:

  1. make -f Makefile.in Makefile.in
  2. make -f Makefile.in userdefs.h.in
  3. If either of the previous commands fail, look at the .rej files and apply the changes by hand to Makefile.in or userdefs.h.in.
  4. Go ahead and use them with ./configure && make guess
  5. To make your job easier the next time there's a new release, type make -f Makefile.in *.patch
Bruce Lewis <brlewis@mit.edu>
Last modified: Wed May 14 13:25:09 EDT 1997