mc/INSTALL

This file contains:

- Installation instructions and notes for the Midnight Commander
- Where to get more information on the Midnight Commander
- Common problems
- Information on porting the program
- Obtaining the missing pieces of the Midnight Commander


Installation instructions for the Midnight Commander
----------------------------------------------------

   The `configure' shell script attempts to guess correct values for
various system-dependent variables used during compilation, and creates
the makefiles.  It also creates a file `config.status' that you can run in
the future to recreate the current configuration.

NeXTStep users, make sure you read the "Compiling under NeXTStep" section.

To compile this package:

1.  Configure the package for your system.

   Normally, you just `cd' to the directory containing the package's
source code and type `./configure'.  If you're using `csh' on an old
version of SystemV, you might need to type `sh configure' instead to
prevent `csh' from trying to execute `configure' itself.  Under AIX, you
may need to use ksh instead of sh.

   Running `configure' takes a while.  While it is running, it
prints some messages that tell what it is doing.  If you don't want to
see any messages, run `configure' with the `--quiet' option.

   To compile the package in a different directory than the one containing
the source code, you must use a version of `make' supporting the `VPATH'
variable, such as GNU `make'.  `cd' to the directory where you want the
object files and executables to go and run the `configure' script with the
path to it.  If for some reason `configure' is not in the source code
directory that you are configuring, then it will report that it can't find
the source code.  In that case, run `configure' with the option
`--srcdir=DIR', where DIR is the directory that contains the source code.

   By default, `make install' will install the package's files in
`/usr/local/bin', `/usr/local/man', etc.  You can specify an installation
prefix other than `/usr/local' by giving `configure' the option
`--prefix=PATH'.  Alternately, you can do so by consistently giving a
value for the `prefix' variable when you run `make', e.g.,

     make prefix=/usr/gnu
     make prefix=/usr/gnu install

   You can specify separate installation prefixes for architecture
specific files and architecture-independent files.  If you give
`configure' the option `--exec-prefix=PATH' or set the `make' variable
`exec_prefix' to PATH, the package will use PATH as the prefix for
installing programs and libraries.  Data files and documentation will
still use the regular prefix.  Normally, all files are installed using the
same prefix.

   If run on GNU/Linux, Midnight Commander detects if you have the gpm
library installed.  If you installed the gpm mouse library in a
non-standard place, you will need to use the --with-gpm-mouse flag with
the directory base where you installed the gpm package.

   `configure' also recognizes the following options:

`--help'
     Print a summary of the options to `configure', and exit.

`--quiet'
`--silent'
     Do not print messages saying which checks are being made.

`--verbose'
     Print the results of the checks.

`--version'
     Print the version of Autoconf used to generate the `configure'
     script, and exit.

`--with-mad'
     Enables the built-in memory allocation debugger.  This option is only
     intended for the developers.

`--without-edit'
     Configures the program to be compiled without the built-in file
     editor.  The built-in editor is compiled in by default.

`--with-ext2undel[=PATH]'
     On systems that use the Extended 2 file system and have the
     libext2fs.a library available, this compiles into the Midnight
     Commander the support code for recovering deleted files (the
     undel virtual file system). 
     Use =PATH if libext2fs.a is installed in a non-standard place. 
     The configure will append `lib' and `include' to find the ext2fs 
     libraries and include files respectively.

`--with-gpm-mouse[=PATH]'
     Use this flag if your gpm mouse package cannot be detected by the
     configure. Use =PATH if it is installed in a non-standard place.
     The configure will append `lib' and `include' to find the libgpm.a
     and gpm.h files respectively.

`--without-gpm-mouse'
     Use this flag to disable gpm mouse support (e.g. if you want to
     use mouse only on X terminals).

`--with-hsc'
     Compiles support for HSC firewall into the ftp virtual file system.

`--with-mmap'
     Needed when compiling under AIX if you want the fast viewer.

`--with-subshell[=optional]', `--without-subshell' 
     The subshell support is by default turned on, you can disable
     this by using the --without-subshell option.  If you pass the
     =optional parameter, then the subshell support is turned off by
     default.  To turn it on, specify the `-U' option to the program.

`--with-termnet'
     Enables the network support with the Term package.

`--with-tm-x-support'
     This option enables minimal X Window support in the text edition. It 
     enables MC to query the status of the modifiers CONTROL and SHIFT 
     when invoked in a terminal emulator under X11. That's necessary 
     to recognize some optional but handy key combinations like Ctrl-Home 
     and Shift-Cursor key.

`--without-vfs'
     This option disables the Virtual File System switch code in the
     Midnight Commander and uses the standard file system calls for
     file access.  If you specify this option you will not get the
     transparent tar File system manipulation as well nor the
     networked Midnight Commander file system.

`--enable-largefile'
     This option enables support for large files (2 gigabytes and more)
     on the systems where file operation use 32-bit offsets by default,
     but support for 64-bit file operations is available.

You may also tell configure which display library you want to use with the
Midnight Commander.  The configure script will use S-Lang as default, but
you can override this by using any of the following flags (please note
that S-Lang is included as part of the distribution and is tested much 
better than everything else),

`--with-slang' (default)
     This is used to configure the program to use the S-Lang screen
     library.  This is included as part of the Midnight Commander,
     you don't need it installed on your system.  If S-Lang is installed
     on your system it will be used if possible.  You can force usage of
     the included S-Lang with the `--with-included-slang' option.

     This option will usually try to use the terminfo database if it
     is available, otherwise it will use the termcap database.  At
     compile time, you may force the use the terminal database with
     the `--with-termcap' and `--with-terminfo' options (both options
     automaticaly turn `--with-included-slang' on).

`--with-ncurses[=directory]'
     Use this flag (either with or without the =directory part), if
     you want to compile with ncurses instead of the default S-Lang.

     Use the =directory part if your ncurses is not installed in any of the
     places configure will check (/usr/include, /usr/include/ncurses,
     /usr/local/include and /usr/local/include/ncurses).
     The argument to this flag is the base directory where the ncurses
     files are located.  The configure will append lib and include to
     find the libncurses.a and ncurses.h file respectively.  For
     example, if you have installed ncurses under /gnu/lib and
     /gnu/include, you specify: --with-ncurses=/gnu

Support for traditional UNIX curses (not ncurses) is obsolete and will be 
removed.

   Run `configure --help' to see the full list of options.

   On systems that require unusual options for compilation or linking
that the package's `configure' script does not know about, you can give
`configure' initial values for variables by setting them in the
environment.  In Bourne-compatible shells, you can do that on the
command line like this:

     CC='gcc -traditional' LIBS=-lposix ./configure

On systems that have the `env' program, you can do it like this:

     env CC='gcc -traditional' LIBS=-lposix ./configure

   Here are the `make' variables that you might want to override with
environment variables when running `configure'.

   For these variables, any value given in the environment overrides the
value that `configure' would choose:

 - Variable: CC
     C compiler program.  The default is `cc'.

 - Variable: CFLAGS
     The default flags used to build the program.

 - Variable: INSTALL
     Program to use to install files.  The default is `install' if you
     have it, `cp' otherwise.

   For these variables, any value given in the environment is added to
the value that `configure' desides to use:

 - Variable: LIBS
     Libraries to link with, in the form `-lfoo -lbar...'.

   If you need to do unusual things to compile the package, we encourage
you to figure out how `configure' could check whether to do them, and mail
diffs or instructions to the address given in the README so we can include
them in the next release.

2.  Type `make' to compile the package.

3.  If the package comes with self-tests and you want to run them,
type `make check'.  If you're not sure whether there are any, try it;
if `make' responds with something like
	make: *** No way to make target `check'.  Stop.
then the package does not come with self-tests.

4.  Type `make install' to install programs, data files, and the
documentation.  On GNU/Linux the console screen saver is installed as
well.

5.  You can remove the program binaries and object files from the source
directory by typing `make clean'.  If you want to clean the source tree
completely, so that it contains only those files that should be packaged
in the archive, issue `make distclean'.  If you've run configure in a
different directory than the source tree, distclean won't remove your *.o
and linked programs in that directory.

6.  The Midnight Commander allows you to stay in the last current
directory after exiting MC.  This is done with a shell function, the man
page has more information about this.  If you want to let the install
program make the change to your /etc/profile or your ~/.profile or
~/.bashrc, then type: `make mcfninstall'.

   The file `configure.in' is used to create `configure' by a program
called `autoconf'.  You only need it if you want to regenerate
`configure' using a newer version of `autoconf'.

Compiling under NeXTStep 
------------------------

These instructions were provided by Gregor Hoffleit
<flight@mathi.uni-heidelberg.DE>, he recommends configuring the
program like this:

export CC="cc -posix"
configure --without-subshell --with-termcap


Where to get more information on the Midnight Commander
-------------------------------------------------------

There are two mailing lists for the program:

mc:         Discussion on the Midnight Commander file manager.
mc-devel:   For discussion between the developers of the program.

to subscribe to the mailing lists, visit their respective pages:

http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc/
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc-devel/


Notes about the Midnight Commander installation
------------------------------------------------

The Midnight Commander has been run in the following configurations:

i386-*-linux
sparc-*-linux
alpha-*-linux
powerpc-*-linux
mips-dec-ultrix4.3
mips-dec-{open,net}bsd1.0
mips-sgi-irix5.2
mips-sgi-irix5.3
rs6000-ibm-aix3.2.5
sparc-sun-sunos4.1
sparc-sun-netbsd1.0
sparc-sun-solaris2.3
hppa-hp-hpux9
hppa-hp-hpux7
m68k-apple-aux
mc88110-aviion-dgux5.4
i386-*-bsdi2
i386-*-freebsd4.3
i386-*-openbsd2.9

Midnight Commander is written in a portable manner and uses GNU Autoconf
for configuration, so it is expected to compile without changes on many
other operating systems.

You will need GNU C (or an ANSI C Compiler) and glib library to compile
the source.  The Midnight Commander now comes with the S-Lang screen
manager, a fast screen manager, so don't need to worry about screen
libraries.

If you insist on using ncurses, it's recommended to use ncurses 4.1 and
above, since the older versions don't support resizing of the xterm
window.

GNU Midnight Commander comes with the mouse support on xterms and in the
Linux console.  In order to take advantage of the mouse support on the
Linux console you will need the gpm mouse server (see the section
"Obtaining the missing pieces of the Midnight Commander" in this file).

Once you get the Mouse Server, compile it and install it, then you
will have to specify the `--with-gpm-mouse' flag to the configure
program if you installed it in a non-standard directory.  If you
installed the gpm package under /usr or /usr/local, you don't need to
specify this flag; configure will find gpm for you.  The support for
mice on xterms is always compiled in.

We are working on further enhancements to the program, but we're not sure
which ones must go first.  If you would like to point us in the Right
Direction we will be glad to hear from you (you could check the file TODO
included with this distribution for the current projects).

If you happen to find an undocumented feature that doesn't do what you
expected, please write to mc@gnome.org telling as much as you can about
the problem you're experiencing.  Please don't send personal messages to
the maintainers.


Porting the program
-------------------

Random notes on porting to other architectures.  

The Midnight Commander uses now by default the S-Lang library for handling
the display.  You may want to download the latest version of S-Lang or use
a slightly modified S-Lang version 0.99.38 included with the Midnight
Commander.  The later is very stable and has been used for years without
problems.  You shouldn't expect any problems porting S-Lang to your
platform.

Another possibility is to download and install ncurses on your OS. The
Midnight Commander can use ncurses as well as the display engine. However,
you may encounter minor differences, for instance, you will be unable to
force the color mode by giving the "-c" switch to the Midnight Commander.

As the last resort, you may try to use the curses library supplied with
your OS. Beware that some systems, e.g. SystemV Release 4, include the
curses library with bugs critical to the Midnight Commander. You may try
to recompile all your source code with the symbol BUGGY_CURSES defined,
i.e.

make clean; make CFLAGS="-g -O -DBUGGY_CURSES"


Obtaining the missing pieces of the Midnight Commander
------------------------------------------------------

The Midnight Commander will build without requiring you to get any other
software packages, however, you may be interested in enhancing the
Midnight Commander environment with some of these:

o Terminal database
 
  There are many incomplete terminal databases out there, however, a
  complete terminfo is bundled with ncurses.  (It is simple to generate
  the termcap database using the infocmp utility in ncurses).

  Some terminfo data are included with the mc distribution (lib/*.ti).
  Particularly linux, xterm and vt100. Use e.g. ''tic linux.ti'' to
  use them.

  If you want to run mc on xterm/color_xterm/ansi_xterm (not rxvt), then
  you might read lib/README.xterm for further information.

o GLib

  Midnight Commander requires GLib.  You can get GLib from

  ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/

o In the past the Midnight Commander required the ncurses library to
  build, now it's optional.  You can get ncurses from

  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/
  ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses/

o The general purpose mouse (gpm) daemon is available at:

  ftp://ftp.systemy.it/pub/develop/

And the GNU Compiler Collection may be obtained from the following sites:

ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/releases/
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/
http://gcc.gnu.org/mirrors.html

Unsupported, deprecated and possibly broken options to configure:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
`--with-vcurses[=directory]'
     Use this flag to force the Midnight Commander to use a SystemV
     type curses, the optional directory specifies where the compiler 
     should look for the include files.

`--with-sunos-curses'
     You use this flag on SunOS machines if you want to force using
     SunOS 4.x curses.

`--with-bsd-curses'
     If you don't want to use ncurses and are using an Ultrix box, you
     can use this switch.  Be aware that ncurses is a better option
     than the curses included in Ultrix.