And to even take it a little further, it's not so much an issue of the ./configure
command,
but more of the ./ command.
If you go through the steps that Paul pointed out, and untar a program to install,
then do
a ls -la configure you will see that it's an executable script. For example, here's a
app
I installed recently. After I cd'd to the directory, I ran the ls -la.
[timh@r2d2 enlightenment-conf-0.15]$ ls -la configure
-rwxr-xr-x 1 2133 2133 174858 Mar 11 1999 configure*
As you can see from the "-rwxr-xr-x," the x's mean that it's executable. As does the
* at
the end of the file.
Running the ./ command lets the system know that the file you want to execute is in
your
present working directory. (pwd)
Some installs don't even use a configure script. Some have an install script, some are
already "configured" and have the needed make files so there's no need for the
./configure.
Other times it's even named config, so you would be using ./config instead.
So basically you're running the configuration script that most apps come with when you
download the source.
tdh
--
T. Holmes
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| > what is this "./configure" i see people talking about? i have tried typing
| > this in be bore i make something and it comes back a command not found? how
| > do i use this command?
|
| Joe,
| This is a command usually used when you want to compile a program from the
| sources.
| You untar the file (tar xfvz file.tar.gz), cd to the created directory,
| and there the configure command is located. This will check the requirements
| for the compile to succeed (if the linux headers are there, if there is a
| compiler, if the needed libraries like GTK or TCL are installed etc.).
| If things are good, then configure will create the so called "Make" files.
| These direct the compiler to compile the sources in a certain way.
|
| And you type ./configure because the dir that you are in is not in the path.
| So you tell the computer that it has to look in the current dir (./) for
| configure.
|
| Hope this is clear now.
| Paul
|
|
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