Building XFree86 from a Source Distribution David Dawes, Matthieu Herrb 27 May 2001 Abstract This document describes how to build XFree86 from the source dis- tribution. It is designed to be used in conjunction with the OS- specific README files. NOTE: Refer to the appropriate OS-specific README file before attempting to build XFree86. These files contain additional infor- mation that you may need to successfully build under your OS. We highly recommend using gcc to build XFree86, but it generally also builds with the native compiler for each platform; 1. How to get the XFree86 4.2.1 source There are a few starting points for getting the XFree86 source. One option is to start directly with the XFree86 4.2.0 source distribution and updating it to 4.2.1 with a source patch. In this case, the procedure is as follows: o The XFree86 source is contained in files X420src-1.tgz, X420src-2.tgz and X420src-3.tgz. These can be found at ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.0/source/ and similar locations on XFree86 mirror sites. X420src-2.tgz contains the fonts and documenta- tion source. X420src-3.tgz contains the hardcopy documentation. X420src-1.tgz contains everything else. If you don't need the docs or fonts you can get by with only X420src-1.tgz. o Extract each of these files by running the following from a directory on a filesystem containing enough space (the full source requires around 270MB, and a similar amount is required in addition to this for the com- piled binaries): gzip -d < X420src-1.tgz | tar vxf - gzip -d < X420src-2.tgz | tar vxf - gzip -d < X420src-3.tgz | tar vxf - o A patch relative to 4.2.0 is available at ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.1/patches/. The patch file is 4.2.0-4.2.1.diff.gz. The patch can be applied by running: cd the directory containing the xc directory gzip -d < 4.2.0-4.2.1.diff.gz | patch -s -p0 -E Look for special patching instructions in the Release Notes. Another option is to get the source by anonymous CVS or CVSup. See http://www.xfree86.org/cvs/ for details on the different procedure available. All methods will produce one main source directory called xc. 2. Configuring the source before building It is recommended that you start the configuration process by going to the xc/config/cf directory, and copying the file xf86site.def to host.def. Then read through the host.def file (which is heavily commented), and set any parameters that you want for your configuration. You can usually find out what the default settings are by checking the .cf file(s) relevant to your OS. Unlike previous versions, imake can now automatically detect and set the var- ious OS*Version parameters, so you shouldn't need to enter those settings explicitly. If you are using just the X421src-1.tgz part of the source dist, you will need to define BuildFonts to NO. 3. Using a shadow directory of symbolic links for the build A recommended practice is to use a shadow directory of symbolic links to do the build of XFree86. This permits to keep the source directory unmodified during the build, which has the following benefits: o In the case where CVS is used to maintain the source tree up to date, the update process is not disturbed by foreign files not under the con- trol of CVS. o It is possible to build XFree86 for several different Operating System or architectures from the same sources, shared by NFS. o It is possible to build XFree86 with different configuration options, just by putting a real copyhost.def in each build tree and by customiz- ing it separately in each build tree. To make a shadow directory of symbolic links, use the following steps: o create the directory at the top of the build tree. It is often created at the same level that the xc directory, but this is not mandatory. cd the directory containing the xcdirectory mkdir build o use the lndircommand to make the shadow tree: lndir ../xc Note that you can refer to the xc directory with an absolute path if needed. See the lndir(1) manual page for details. If lndir is not already installed on your system, you can build it manually from the XFree86 sources by running the following commands: cd xc/config/util make -f Makefile.ini lndir cp lndir some directory in your PATH 4. Building and installing the distribution Before building the distribution, read through the OS-specific README file in xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc that is relevant to you. Once those OS- specific details have been taken care of, go your build directory (either the xc directory or the shadow tree created before) and run ``make World'' with the BOOTSTRAPCFLAGS set as described in the OS-specific README (if necessary, but most systems supported by XFree86 don't need BOOTSTRAPCFLAGS). It is advisable to redirect stdout and stderr to World.Log so that you can track down problems that might occur during the build. With Bourne-like shells (Bash, the Korn shell, zsh, etc.) use a command like: make World > World.log 2>&1 Witch C-shell variants (csh, tcsh, etc), use: make World >& World.log You can follow the progress of the build by running: tail -f World.log in a terminal. When the build is finished, you should check World.Log to see if there were any problems. If there weren't any then you can install the binaries. To do the install, run ``make install'' and ``make install.man''. Make sure you have enough space in /usr/X11R6 for the install to succeed. If you want to install on a filesystem other than /usr, make a symbolic link to /usr/X11R6 before installing. 5. Reconfiguring the server (source distribution) To build a different set of servers or servers with a different set of drivers installed: 1. Make sure the source for any new drivers is in the correct place (e.g., driver source should be in a subdirectory of xc/pro- grams/Xserver/hw/xfree86/drivers). 2. Change the settings of the server defines in host.def to specify which servers you wish to build. Also, change the driver lists to suit your needs. 3. From xc/programs/Xserver, run: make Makefile make Makefiles make includes make depend make 6. Other useful make targets There are some other useful targets defined in the top level Makefileof XFree86: o Everything after a make World, make Everythingdoes everything a make World does, except the cleaning of the tree. It is a way to quickly rebuild the tree after a source patch, but it is not 100% bullet proof. There are cases were it is better to force a full build by using make World. o clean does a partial cleaning of the source tree. Removes object files and generated manual pages, but leaves the Makefiles and the generated dependencies files in place. After a make clean you need to re-run make includes make depend make to rebuild the XFree86. o distclean does a full cleaning of the source tree, removing all gener- ated files. After a make distclean, make World is the only option to rebuild XFree86. o includes generates all generated header files and in-tree symbolic links needed by the build. These files are removed by a make clean. o depend recomputes the dependencies for the various targets in all Make- files. Depending on the operating system, the dependencies are stored in the Makefile, or as a separate file, called .depend. This target needs the generated include files produced by make includes. o VerifyOS displays the detected operating system version. If the numbers shown do not match your system, you probably need to set them manually in host.def and report the problem to XFree86@XFree86.org. Generated from XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/BUILD.sgml,v 3.6.4.1 2002/09/04 03:33:11 dawes Exp $