About compiling programs

[frangoitia]

Guys, I got some questions about compiling programs. I always follow this procedure:
- Download the source
- cd xxx
- ./configure
- make

But when i get to configure step i obtain always the message that there wasn't found any file or directory.
And I can't go on. Thats what happens for example when i try to compile banshee.

I installed build-essential and I have Hardy.

Cheers !

[unixeducation]

What are you trying to compile? Sometimes developers don't always follow the standard routine for installing software. Try reading any documentation that came with the software, too.

[donkyhotay]

Not all programs use make to compile, it just happens to be the most common. A good example of a program that doesn't use make is globulation2 which uses scons for compilation instead. Attempting to do a

./configure
make
sudo make install
will fail simply because they don't use make. Instead for globulation2 you just

sudo scons install
which basically does the same thing. It will help if we knew what program you are attempting to compile but generally most programs will have a readme or install file that will tell you what system they use for compiling and instructions on how to use it. It's always a good idea to read the instructions when compiling to confirm what system is being used (rather then assuming make) as well as confirm what dependencies are needed.

[frangoitia]

I'm trying to compile banshee, the version i download from the trunk. When i put ./configure, i get an error.

[oldos2er]

I'm trying to compile banshee, the version i download from the trunk. When i put ./configure, i get an error.

And the error is ...?

[frangoitia]

And the error is ...?
It says that the file or directory doesnt exist.

[snova]

Not that error, the one from ./configure. Copy and paste it, and not just the individual line- a bit of context would be useful.

[frangoitia]

Not that error, the one from ./configure. Copy and paste it, and not just the individual line- a bit of context would be useful.
That is the error. It says that there is no file and it dont configure anything.

[snova]

Ah. Apologies, I didn't read everything.

What does this folder contain? It might use a different build system, or it might only contain binaries.

Quick terminal command to get a directory listing:


ls

[frangoitia]

This is what i get:

admin Banshee.sln COPYING gstreamer Makefile.am src
AUTHORS build data HACKING NEWS tests
autogen.osx.sh ChangeLog docs libbanshee po
autogen.sh configure.ac extras MAINTAINERS README

[oldos2er]

Start by reading README, then run 'sh ./autogen.sh'