Bash Reference Manual. Node: Basic Installation

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9.1: Basic Installation

These are installation instructions for Bash.

The configure shell script attempts to guess correct values for various system-dependent variables used during compilation. It uses those values to create a `Makefile' in each directory of the package (the top directory, the `builtins' and `doc' directories, and the each directory under `lib'). It also creates a `config.h' file containing system-dependent definitions. Finally, it creates a shell script named config.status that you can run in the future to recreate the current configuration, a file `config.cache' that saves the results of its tests to speed up reconfiguring, and a file `config.log' containing compiler output (useful mainly for debugging configure). If at some point `config.cache' contains results you don't want to keep, you may remove or edit it.

If you need to do unusual things to compile Bash, please try to figure out how configure could check whether or not to do them, and mail diffs or instructions to bash-maintainers@gnu.org so they can be considered for the next release.

The file `configure.in' is used to create configure by a program called Autoconf. You only need `configure.in' if you want to change it or regenerate configure using a newer version of Autoconf. If you do this, make sure you are using Autoconf version 2.10 or newer.

If you need to change `configure.in' or regenerate configure, you will need to create two files: `_distribution' and `_patchlevel'. `_distribution' should contain the major and minor version numbers of the Bash distribution, for example `2.01'. `_patchlevel' should contain the patch level of the Bash distribution, `0' for example. The script `support/mkconffiles' has been provided to automate the creation of these files.

The simplest way to compile Bash is:

  1. cd to the directory containing the source code and type `./configure' to configure Bash for your system. If you're using csh on an old version of System V, you might need to type `sh ./configure' instead to prevent csh from trying to execute configure itself.

    Running configure takes awhile. While running, it prints some messages telling which features it is checking for.

  2. Type `make' to compile Bash and build the bashbug bug reporting script.
  3. Optionally, type `make tests' to run the Bash test suite.
  4. Type `make install' to install bash and bashbug. This will also install the manual pages and Info file.

You can remove the program binaries and object files from the source code directory by typing `make clean'. To also remove the files that configure created (so you can compile Bash for a different kind of computer), type `make distclean'.

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