Re: [COMP] Compiling Programs for Linux

> >From what I understand, configure adjusts the program to you system by
> reading the system's environment variables.  Make compiles the program, and
> make install put the program where it's supposed to go.  (Someone correct me
> if I'm wrong here).

That's pretty much it, but it does other stuff too.  It'll check for
certain necessary libraries (often getting them from env variables), make
sure you have X if it's an X program, etc., and store it all in config.h,
then create the Makefile appropriately.  

> When a program is installed in Windows, it copies many different files to
> the system.  Some are *.dll's (supposed to check versions here) that go into
> the system directory and then there are the program files.   With Linux,
> when you compile and install a program, does it generate a group of files
> also?  Certain programs require specific libraries.  I think they are
> usually referring to the dynamic libraries and not the *.h files (someone
> please clarify this for me).  From what I understand, when you compile a
> program for Linux, it only generates a binary for execution.  Then, you can
> add or modify ASCII configuration files.

Actually, it varies with the program that you're installing.  The more
complex programs have a lot of stuff like binaries, scripts, images,
config files, and man files.  Man pages always go in a standard location
(/usr/man?), binaries always go in your standard bin directories (Star
Office and a couple others are exceptions), libraries always in the
standard lib directories.  

> Can someone please clarify the install process for me and correct where I've
> gone wrong?
> 
> If I want to uninstall a program, do I just have to delete the binary and
> the configuration files, or are there other things that get put on the
> system?

Yeah, that's pretty much it.  If you're compiling it yourself, you've
gotta remove it manually.  That's the advantage of tgz, rpm, and deb- it's
all taken care of for you (and it's actually a lot easier than "Add/Remove
Programs." :)  Realistically, the need to uninstall most stuff is pretty
nominal: you've usually got one binary, and it's like 100K or something.
If you format/reinstall every 4 or 5 years, you should be ok. :)

> When you install a program, does it generate more environment variables that
> need to be edited before you uninstall?

Uhm.. in general, no... When you install a library package (like Qt or
GTK, some are set, but you don't even really need to remove those).

> Are environment variables similar to the function of the registry in
> Windows?

Nope, environment vars are just like the things DOS had- stuff like 

SET BLASTER I5....... and SET PATH .....

Have a look at your vars: 'set | less'


John


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