Info Catalog efaq: Compiling and installing Emacs efaq: Problems building Emacs

efaq: Installing Emacs

 
 7.1 How do I install Emacs?
 ===========================
 
 This answer is meant for users of Unix and Unix-like systems.  Users of
 other operating systems should see the series of questions beginning
 with Emacs for MS-DOS, which describe where to get non-Unix
 source and binaries, and how to install Emacs on those systems.
 
    Most GNU/Linux distributions provide pre-built Emacs packages.  If
 Emacs is not installed already, you can install it by running (as root)
 a command such as ‘yum install emacs’ (Red Hat and derivatives) or
 ‘apt-get install emacs’ (Debian and derivatives).
 
    If you want to compile Emacs yourself, read the file ‘INSTALL’ in the
 source distribution.  In brief:
 
    • First download the Emacs sources.  Current GNU
      distributions, for a list of ftp sites that make them available.
      On ‘ftp.gnu.org’, the main GNU distribution site, sources are
      available as
 
      <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/emacs-VERSION.tar.gz>
 
      (Replace ‘VERSION’ with the relevant version number, e.g., ‘23.1’.)
 
    • Next uncompress and extract the source files.  This requires the
      ‘gzip’ and ‘tar’ programs, which are standard utilities.  If your
      system does not have them, these can also be downloaded from
      ‘ftp.gnu.org’.
 
      GNU ‘tar’ can uncompress and extract in a single-step:
 
           tar -zxvf emacs-VERSION.tar.gz
 
    • At this point, the Emacs sources should be sitting in a directory
      called ‘emacs-VERSION’.  On most common Unix and Unix-like systems,
      you should be able to compile Emacs with the following commands:
 
           cd emacs-VERSION
           ./configure         # configure Emacs for your particular system
           make                # use Makefile to build components, then Emacs
 
      If the ‘make’ completes successfully, the odds are fairly good that
      the build has gone well.  (Problems building Emacs, if you
      weren’t successful.)
 
    • By default, Emacs is installed in ‘/usr/local’.  To actually
      install files, become the superuser and type
 
           make install
 
      Note that ‘make install’ will overwrite ‘/usr/local/bin/emacs’ and
      any Emacs Info files that might be in ‘/usr/local/share/info/’.
 

Info Catalog efaq: Compiling and installing Emacs efaq: Problems building Emacs