This file contains: - Installation instructions and notes for GNU Midnight Commander - Where to get more information on GNU Midnight Commander - Common problems - Information on porting the program - Obtaining the missing pieces of GNU Midnight Commander Installation instructions for GNU 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. `--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', `--without-mmap' Force using or not using the mmap function. It is currently used in the internal viewer. `--with-mmap' may be useful on some versions of AIX where the `configure' script decides that mmap is broken, but it's actually suitable for the internal 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-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. `--disable-largefile' This option disables support for large files (2 gigabytes and more) on the systems where file operations use 32-bit offsets by default, but support for 64-bit offsets is available. May be useful for slow processors and embedded systems. 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 GNU 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. S-Lang tries to use the terminfo database if it's available, otherwise it uses the termcap database. At the compile time, you may force using the termcap database by using the option `--with-termcap', which also enables `--with-included-slang'. `--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 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' decides 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. GNU 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. 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 , he recommends configuring the program like this: export CC="cc -posix" configure --without-subshell --with-termcap Where to get more information on GNU Midnight Commander ------------------------------------------------------- There are two mailing lists for the program: mc: Discussion on GNU 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 GNU Midnight Commander installation ------------------------------------------------ GNU 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 version 1.2.x to compile the source. GNU 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 GNU 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. GNU Midnight Commander uses 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 included library 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. GNU 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 GNU Midnight Commander. Obtaining the missing pieces of GNU Midnight Commander ------------------------------------------------------ GNU 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/ Note that only versions 1.2.x are supported. Older versions won't even be detected. Newer versions won't be detected either - they use a new package system that is not supported yet by GNU Midnight Commander. o In the past GNU 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