1 Compiling and installing LyX
2 ============================
4 Quick compilation guide
5 -----------------------
7 These four steps will compile, test and install LyX:
9 0) Linux users beware: You need qt4 and qt4-devel packages
10 of the same version to compile LyX.
13 configures LyX according to your system.
15 --with-qt4-dir=<path-to-your-qt4-installation>
16 if the environment variable QTDIR is not set (for example,
17 '--with-qt4-dir=/usr/share/qt4/'). Alternatively, you could
18 install pkgconfig (the name might vary depending on your
20 See Note below if ./configure script is not present.
26 runs the program so you can check it out.
29 will install it. You can use "make install-strip" instead
30 if you want a smaller binary.
33 Note for Subversion (SVN) checkouts
34 -----------------------------
36 If you have checked this out from Subversion, you need to have:
40 Then type "./autogen.sh" to build the needed configuration
41 files and proceed as stated below.
43 You will also probably need GNU m4 (perhaps installed as gm4).
49 First of all, you will also need a recent C++ compiler, where recent
50 means that the compilers are close to C++ standard conforming (gcc 4.x).
52 LyX makes great use of C++ Standard Template Library (STL).
53 This means that gcc users will have to install the relevant libstdc++
54 library to be able to compile this version of LyX.
56 For full LyX usability we suggest to use at least Qt 4.6 which has been
57 widely tested. For compilation you need to compile against at least
58 Qt 4.2.2. The only special point to make is that you must ensure that both
59 LyX and the Qt libraries are compiled with the same C++ compiler.
61 Note that if Qt is using Xft2/fontconfig, you may need to install the
62 latex-xft-fonts package (at ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/contrib/) to get
63 maths symbols displayed properly. To find out, type:
65 ldd `which lyx` | grep fontconfig
67 at the console. Most recent distributions are known to use fontconfig.
69 If, however, your version of Qt does not use fontconfig, then TeX
70 fonts should be added to the font path. 'man xset' is your friend.
72 To build LyX with spell checking capabilities included you have to
73 install at least one of the development packages of the spell checker
74 libraries. See the RELEASE-NOTES for details.
77 * Other things to note
79 If you make modifications to files in src/ (for example by applying a
80 patch), you will need to have the GNU gettext package installed, due
81 to some dependencies in the makefiles. You can get the latest version
83 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext/
85 The two following programs should be available at configuration time:
87 o LaTeX2e should be correctly setup for the user you are logged in
88 as. Otherwise, LyX will not be able to run a number of tests. Note
89 that users can run these tests manually with Tools>Reconfigure.
91 o Python 2.3 or newer installed to be able to import older LyX files
92 with the lyx2lyx script (this script is called automatically when
93 opening a file). Python 3.0 or later is not supported.
99 LyX can be configured using GNU autoconf utility which attempts to guess
100 the configuration needed to suit your system. The standard way to use it
101 is described in the file INSTALL.autoconf. In most cases you will be able
102 to create the Makefile by typing
106 For more complicated cases, LyX configure takes the following specific
109 o --enable-build-type=[rel(ease), dev(elopment), pre(release)]
110 allows to tweak the compiled code. The following table describes
111 the settings in terms of various options that are described later
113 release prerelease development
114 optimization -O2 -O2 -O
121 The default are as follows in terms of version number
122 release: stable release (1.x.y)
123 prerelease: version number contains alpha, beta, rc or pre.
124 development: version number contains svn.
126 o --with-extra-lib=DIRECTORY that specifies the path where LyX will
127 find extra libraries (qt4) it needs. Defaults to NONE
128 (i.e. search in standard places). You can specify several
129 directories, separated by colons.
131 o --with-extra-inc=DIRECTORY that gives the place where LyX will find
132 extra headers. Defaults to NONE (i.e. search in standard places).
133 You can specify several directories, separated by colons.
135 o --with-extra-prefix[=DIRECTORY] that is equivalent to
136 --with-extra-lib=DIRECTORY/lib --with-extra-inc=DIRECTORY/include
137 If DIRECTORY is not specified, the current prefix is used.
139 o --with-version-suffix[=SUFFIX] will install LyX as lyxSUFFIX. The
140 LyX data directory will be something like <whatever>/lyxSUFFIX/.
141 Additionally your user configuration files will be found in e.g.
142 $HOME/.lyxSUFFIX. The default for SUFFIX is "-<currentversion>",
145 You can use this feature to install more than one version of LyX
146 on the same system. You can optionally specify a "version" of your
147 own, by doing something like :
148 ./configure --with-version-suffix=-latestsvn
150 Note that the standard configure options --program-prefix,
151 --program-suffix and the others will not affect the shared LyX
152 directory etc. so it is recommended that you use --with-version-suffix
153 (or --prefix) instead.
155 There are also flags to control the internationalization support in
158 o --disable-nls suppresses all internationalization support,
159 yielding a somewhat smaller code.
161 o --with-included-gettext forces the use of the included GNU gettext
162 library, although you might have another one installed.
164 o --with-catgets allows to use the catget() functions which can
165 exist on your system. This can cause problems, though. Use with
168 o You can also set the environment variable LINGUAS to a list of
169 language in case you do not want to install all the translation
170 files. For example, if you are only interested in German and
171 Finnish, you can type (with sh or bash)
172 export LINGUAS='de fi'
173 before running configure.
175 Moreover, the following generic configure flags may be useful:
177 o --prefix=DIRECTORY specifies the root directory to use for
178 installation. [defaults to /usr/local]
180 o --datadir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where all extra LyX
181 files (documentation, templates and layout definitions)
183 [defaults to ${prefix}/share/lyx${program_suffix}]
185 o --bindir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where the lyx binary
186 will be installed. [defaults to ${prefix}/bin]
188 o --mandir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where the man pages will go.
189 [defaults to ${prefix}/man]
191 o --enable-maintainer-mode enables some code that automatically
192 rebuilds the configure script, makefiles templates and other useful
193 files when needed. This is off by default on releases, to avoid
196 Note that the --with-extra-* commands are not really robust when it
197 comes to use of relative paths. If you really want to use a relative path
198 here, you can prepend it with "`pwd`/".
200 If you do not like the default compile flags used (-g -O2 on gcc), you can
201 set CXXFLAGS variable to other values as follows:
203 o CXXFLAGS='-O2' (sh, bash)
204 o setenv CXXFLAGS '-O2' (csh, tcsh)
206 Similarly, if you want to force the use of some specific compiler, you can
207 give a value to the CXX variable.
209 If you encounter problems, please read the section 'Problems' at the end of
212 The following options allow to tweak more precisely the generated code:
214 o --enable-profiling instruments the code for use with the gprof
215 profiler. The result are only meaningful in conjunction with
216 --enable-build-type=release.
218 o --enable-optimization=VALUE enables you to set optimization to a
219 higher level as the default (-O), for example --enable-optimization=-O3.
221 o --disable-optimization - you can use this to disable compiler
222 optimization of LyX. The compile may be much quicker with some
223 compilers, but LyX will run more slowly.
225 o --enable-debug will add debug information to your binary. This
226 requires a lot more disk space, but is a must if you want to try to
227 debug problems in LyX. The default is to have debug information
228 for development versions and prereleases only.
230 o --enable-warnings that make the compiler output more warnings during
231 the compilation of LyX. Opposite is --disable-warnings. By default,
232 this flag is on for development versions only.
234 o --enable-assertions that make the compiler generate run-time
235 code which checks that some variables have sane values. Opposite
236 is --disable-assertions. By default, this flag is on for
237 development versions only.
239 o --enable-stdlib-debug adds some debug code in the standard
240 library; this slows down the code, but has been helpful in the
241 past to find bugs. By default, this flag is on for development
244 o --enable-concept-checks adds some compile-time checks. There is no
245 run-time penalty. By default, this flag is on for development
248 o --without-latex-config that disables the automatic detection of your
249 latex configuration. This detection is automatically disabled if
250 latex cannot be found. If you find that you have to use this
251 flag, please report it as a bug.
253 o --with-frontend=FRONTEND that allows to specify which frontend you
254 want to use. The default value is qt4, which is the only available
257 o --enable-monolithic-build[=boost,client,insets,mathed,core,tex2lyx,frontend-qt4]
258 that enables monolithic build of the given parts of the source
259 code. This should reduce the compilation time provided you have
260 enough memory (>500MB).
263 Compiling and installing LyX
264 ----------------------------
266 Once you've got the Makefile created, you just have to type:
273 Since the binaries with debug information tend to be huge (although
274 this does not affect the run-time memory footprint), you might want
275 to strip the lyx binary. In this case replace "make install" with
279 BTW: in the images subdirectory there is also a small icon "lyx.png",
280 that can be used to display lyx-documents in filemanagers.
282 If configure fails for some strange reason
283 ------------------------------------------
285 Even when configure fails, it creates a Makefile. You always can check
286 the contents of this file, modify it and run 'make'.
288 Compiling For Multiple Architectures
289 ------------------------------------
291 You can compile LyX for more than one kind of computer at the same
292 time, by placing the object files for each architecture in their own
293 directory. To do this, you must use a version of `make' that supports
294 the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'. `cd' to the directory where
295 you want the object files and executables to go and run the
296 `configure' script. `configure' automatically checks for the source
297 code in the directory that `configure' is in and in `..'.
299 If you have to use a `make' that does not supports the `VPATH'
300 variable, you have to compile LyX for one architecture at a time in
301 the source code directory. After you have installed LyX for one
302 architecture, use `make distclean' before reconfiguring for another
308 This section provides several hints that have been submitted by LyX
309 team member or users to help compiling on some particular
310 architectures. If you find that some of this hints are wrong, please
313 o On SUN Sparc Solaris, you need gnumake. The LyX makefiles do not
314 work with Solaris make.
316 The Solaris 8 ar seg-faults trying to build the insets library. You
317 will need to use the ar from the GNU binutils for this subdirectory.
318 There is no problem with the Solaris 9 and 10 ar.
320 Qt4 uses the Xrender X11 extension for antialiased fonts. This
321 extension was added to Xsun starting from the Solaris 10 8/07
322 release, but it is not activated by default. To activate it, you
323 must issue (as root) the following command:
324 svccfg -s svc:/application/x11/x11-server setprop options/server_args=+xrender
325 and then restart the X server.
327 There is a problem with the fontconfig library shipped with
328 Solaris 10 8/07 causing a seg-fault when it is used by Qt4.
329 Until this is fixed, a workaround is replacing the shared library
330 /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 with a copy from a previous release or
331 installing a new version of fontconfig from http://www.sunfreeware.com/
333 On Solaris, the default fontconfig configuration gives preference
334 to bitmap fonts at (not so small) sizes. As bitmapped fonts are not
335 antialiased, you may prefer changing this configuration. This may be
336 done by adding the following stanza
338 <match target="pattern">
339 <edit name="prefer_bitmap">
344 to either ~/.fonts.conf (for a per-user change) or /etc/fonts/local.conf
345 (for a global system change). The stanza should be added between the
346 <fontconfig> and </fontconfig> tags. If neither ~/.fonts.conf nor
347 /etc/fonts/local.conf exist, you can create them with the following
350 <?xml version="1.0"?>
351 <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
353 <match target="pattern">
354 <edit name="prefer_bitmap">