Building XFree86 from a Source Distribution
David Dawes, Matthieu Herrb
23 February 2004
Abstract
This document describes how to build XFree86 from the source dis-
tribution and is designed to be used in conjunction with the oper-
ating system (OS) specific README files.
NOTE: Refer to the appropriate OS-specific README file before
attempting to build XFree86. These files often contain additional
information that you need to successfully build for your OS.
We highly recommend using gcc to build XFree86, but XFree86 also generally
builds with the native compiler for each OS platform;
1. How to get the XFree86 4.4.0 source
The recommended way of getting the XFree86 4.4.0 source is to obtain it
directly from the XFree86 CVS repository. There are several ways of doing
that, and they are described at our CVS web page
<URL:http://www.xfree86.org/cvs/> The CVS tag for this release is
"xf-4_4_0". The tag for the maintenance branch for this release is
"xf-4_4-branch".
Another method of getting the XFree86 4.4.0 source is to either download the
4.4.0 source tarballs from the XFree86 ftp site. The procedure for this is
as follows:
o The XFree86 4.4.0 source is contained in the files:
XFree86-4.4.0-src-1.tgz
XFree86-4.4.0-src-2.tgz
XFree86-4.4.0-src-3.tgz
XFree86-4.4.0-src-4.tgz
XFree86-4.4.0-src-5.tgz
XFree86-4.4.0-src-6.tgz
XFree86-4.4.0-src-7.tgz
These can be found at ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.4.0/source/
and similar locations on XFree86 mirror sites. XFree86-4.4.0-src-4.tgz
and XFree86-4.4.0-src-5.tgz contains the fonts. XFree86-4.4.0-src-6.tgz
contains the documentation source. XFree86-4.4.0-src-7.tgz contains the
hardcopy documentation. XFree86-4.4.0-src-1.tgz,
XFree86-4.4.0-src-2.tgz and XFree86-4.4.0-src-3.tgz contains everything
else. If you don't need the docs or fonts you can get by with only
XFree86-4.4.0-src-1.tgz, XFree86-4.4.0-src-2.tgz and
XFree86-4.4.0-src-3.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
305MB, and a similar amount is required in addition to this for the com-
piled binaries):
gzip -d < XFree86-4.4.0-src-1.tgz | tar vxf -
gzip -d < XFree86-4.4.0-src-2.tgz | tar vxf -
gzip -d < XFree86-4.4.0-src-3.tgz | tar vxf -
gzip -d < XFree86-4.4.0-src-4.tgz | tar vxf -
gzip -d < XFree86-4.4.0-src-5.tgz | tar vxf -
gzip -d < XFree86-4.4.0-src-6.tgz | tar vxf -
gzip -d < XFree86-4.4.0-src-7.tgz | tar vxf -
Alternatively, if you already have a pristine copy of the XFree86 4.3.0
source, you can download patches from
ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.4.0/patches/ that will allow you to con-
vert it to 4.4.0. Information about which patch files to download and how to
apply them can be found in the "How to get XFree86" section of the README for
this release.
All methods will produce one main source directory called xc.
2. Configuring the source before building
In most cases it shouldn't be necessary to configure anything before build-
ing.
If you do want to make configuration changes, it is recommended that you
start 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 your configuration parameters. Usually you can
find the default settings by checking the .cf file(s) relevant to your OS.
A good rule to follow is only to change things that you understand as it's
easy to create build problems by changing the default configuration. Check
the configuration parameters specified in the xc/config/cf/README.
If you are using just the XFree86-4.4.0-src-1.tgz, XFree86-4.4.0-src-2.tgz
and XFree86-4.4.0-src-3.tgz parts 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 as this allows you to keep the source directory unmodi-
fied during the build. It has the following benefits:
o When you are using CVS to maintain your source tree, the update process
is not disturbed by foreign files not under CVS's control.
o It is possible to build XFree86 for several different Operating System
or architectures from the same sources, shared by read-only NFS mounts.
o It is possible to build XFree86 with different configuration options, by
putting a real copy of the host.def file in each build tree and by cus-
tomizing 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 "lndir" command 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
Occasionally there may be stale links in the build tree, like when files in
the source tree are removed or renamed. These can be cleaned up by running
the "cleanlinks" script from the build directory (see the cleanlinks(1) man-
ual page). Rarely there will be changes that will require the build tree to
be re-created from scratch. A symptom of this can be mysterious build prob-
lems. The best solution for this is to remove the build tree, and then re-
create it using the steps outlined above.
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 you have
addressed the OS-specific details, 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 advis-
able 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 the World.Log file to see if
there were any problems. If there weren't any then you can install the bina-
ries. By default the "make World" process will ignore errors and build as
much as possible. If there were problems and they are not corrected at this
stage, the installation process will fail. To restart the build process
after correcting the problems, just run 'make'. If Imakefiles or part of the
build configuration was changed as part of correcting the problem, either re-
run "make World", or run "make Everything".
If you would prefer "make World" to exit at the first error, run it in the
following way instead of the way described above:
for Bourne-like shells:
make WORLDOPTS= World > World.log 2>&1
for C-shell variants:
make WORLDOPTS= World >& World.log
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 Makefile of
XFree86:
o Everything after a make World, make Everything does 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 3.14 dawes Exp $
$XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/BUILD,v 3.25 2004/02/24 03:49:40 dawes Exp $