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: if compiling the Qt frontend, you need
10 qt and qt-devel packages of the same version to compile LyX.
13 configures LyX to your system. By default, LyX configures
14 the xforms frontend, use --with-frontend=qt to build a Qt
15 version. You may have to set
16 --with-qt-dir=<path-to-your-qt-installation> to succeed.
22 runs the program so you can check it out.
25 will install it. You can use "make install-strip" instead
26 if you want a smaller binary.
29 Note for CVS checkouts
30 ----------------------
32 If you have checked this out from CVS, you need to have
33 automake, autoconf, and gettext installed. Then,
34 type "./autogen.sh" to build the needed configuration
35 files and proceed as stated below.
37 You will also probably need GNU m4 (perhaps installed as gm4).
42 First of all, you will also need a recent C++ compiler, where recent
43 means that the compilers are close to C++ standard conforming.
44 Compilers that are known to compile LyX are egcs 1.1.x, gcc 2.95.x and
45 later, and Digital C++ version 6.1 and later. Please tell us your
46 experience with other compilers. It is _not_ possible to compile LyX
47 with gcc 2.7.x and 2.8.x, and this is not likely to change in the
50 Note that, contrary to LyX 1.0.x, LyX 1.3.x makes great use of C++
51 Standard Template Library (STL); this means that gcc users will have
52 to install the relevant libstdc++ library to be able to compile this
57 Both an Xforms and Xpm libraries should be installed to compile LyX.
58 It is imperative that you have the correct versions of these
59 libraries, and their associated header files.
61 The xforms library has been very recently updated to version 1.0.
62 This version has been released under the LGPL (Lesser General Public
63 License), and the availability of the source means that many bugs that
64 have been plaguing LyX have been fixed in xforms. You are advised to
65 upgrade to xforms 1.0 to enjoy all these new fixes.
66 In fact, LyX 1.3.x no longer supports versions of xforms older than 0.89.5.
68 You can get the source from
69 http://world.std.com/~xforms/
70 ftp://ncmir.ucsd.edu/pub/xforms/OpenSource/xforms-1.0-release.tgz
71 ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/xforms/OpenSource/xforms-1.0-release.tgz
73 If you use a rpm-based linux distribution, such as RedHat or Mandrake,
74 we recommend that you grab a version of xforms from
75 ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/contrib
76 Look for the xforms-1.0-release.src.rpm or the binary libforms*.i386.rpm.
78 In addition, you must have libXpm version 4.7 or newer.
82 LyX has been tested with both Qt 2.x and 3.x libraries. The only special
83 point to make is that you must ensure that both LyX and the Qt libraries
84 are compiled with the same C++ compiler.
86 Note that if Qt is using Xft2/fontconfig, you may need to install the
87 latex-ttf-fonts package (available on ftp://ftp.lyx.org/) to get maths
88 symbols displayed properly. To find out, type:
89 ldd `which lyx` | grep fontconfig
90 at the console. Both RH8 and Debian unstable distributions are known
93 If, however, your version of Qt does not use fontconfig, then the
94 /usr/local/share/lyx/xfonts directory (or equivalent) should be added to
95 the font path. This is done automatically by LyX if LyX is run on
96 the local machine, and the X server supports Postscript fonts. If, however,
97 you're running LyX remotely, then you'll have to do this step yourself.
98 'man xset' is your friend.
100 * Other things to note
102 If you make modifications to files in src/ (for example by applying a
103 patch), you will need to have the GNU gettext package installed, due
104 to some dependencies in the makefiles. You can get the latest version
106 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext/gettext-0.11.4.tar.gz
108 LyX contains a hack to work around this, but you should not rely too
111 To use the thesaurus, you will need to install libAikSaurus, available
113 http://aiken.clan11.com/aiksaurus/
115 The two following programs should be available at configuration time:
117 o Perl (at least 5.002) is needed for the reLyX script. reLyX will
118 not be installed if perl is not found. If the environment
119 variable PERL is set to point to some program, this value will be
120 used, even if the program does no exist (this can be useful if
121 the machine on which LyX is built is not the one where it will
124 o LaTeX2e should be correctly setup for the user you are logged in
125 as. Otherwise, LyX will not be able to run a number of tests. Note
126 that users can run these tests manually with Edit>Reconfigure.
128 Finally, you will need to have python 1.5.2 or newer installed to be
129 able to import older LyX files with the lyx2lyx script (this script is
130 called automatically when opening a file).
133 Creating the Makefile
134 ---------------------
136 LyX can be configured using GNU autoconf utility which attempts to guess
137 the configuration needed to suit your system. The standard way to use it
138 is described in the file INSTALL.autoconf. In most cases you will be able
139 to create the Makefile by typing
143 For more complicated cases, LyX configure takes the following specific
146 o --with-frontend=FRONTEND that allows to specify which frontend you
147 want to use. Default is "xforms", and the other possible value is
150 o --with-extra-lib=DIRECTORY that specifies the path where LyX will
151 find extra libraries (Xpm, xforms, qt) it needs. Defaults to NONE
152 (i.e. search in standard places). You can specify several
153 directories, separated by colons.
155 o --with-extra-inc=DIRECTORY that gives the place where LyX will find
156 xforms headers. Defaults to NONE (i.e. search in standard places).
157 You can specify several directories, separated by colons.
159 o --with-extra-prefix[=DIRECTORY] that is equivalent to
160 --with-extra-lib=DIRECTORY/lib --with-extra-inc=DIRECTORY/include
161 If DIRECTORY is not specified, the current prefix is used.
163 o --with-version-suffix will install LyX as lyx-<version>, e.g. lyx-1.3.1
164 The LyX data directory will be something like <whatever>/lyx-1.3.1/.
165 Additionally your user configuration files will be found in e.g.
168 You can use this feature to install more than one version of LyX
169 on the same system. You can optionally specify a "version" of your
170 own, by doing something like :
171 ./configure --with-version-suffix=-latestcvs
173 Note that the standard configure options --program-prefix,
174 --program-suffix and the others will not affect the shared LyX
175 directory etc. so it is recommended that you use --with-version-suffix
176 (or --prefix) instead.
178 o --enable-optimization=VALUE enables you to set optimization to a
179 higher level as the default (-O), for example --enable-optimization=-O3.
181 o --disable-optimization - you can use this to disable compiler
182 optimization of LyX. The compile may be much quicker with some
183 compilers, but LyX will run more slowly.
185 o --enable-debug will add debug information to your binary. This
186 requires a lot more disk space, but is a must if you want to try to
187 debug problems in LyX. The default is to have debug information
188 for development versions and prereleases only.
190 There are also flags to control the internationalization support in
193 o --disable-nls suppresses all internationalization support,
194 yielding a somewhat smaller code.
196 o --with-included-gettext forces the use of the included GNU gettext
197 library, although you might have another one installed.
199 o --with-catgets allows to use the catget() functions which can
200 exist on your system. This can cause problems, though. Use with
203 o You can also set the environment variable LINGUAS to a list of
204 language in case you do not want to install all the translation
205 files. For example, if you are only interested in German and
206 Finnish, you can type (with sh or bash)
207 export LINGUAS='de fi'
208 before running configure.
210 Moreover, the following generic configure flags may be useful:
212 o --prefix=DIRECTORY specifies the root directory to use for
213 installation. [defaults to /usr/local]
215 o --datadir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where all extra LyX
216 files (lyxrc example, documentation, templates and layouts
217 definitions) will be installed.
218 [defaults to ${prefix}/share/lyx${program_suffix}]
220 o --bindir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where the lyx binary
221 will be installed. [defaults to ${prefix}/bin]
223 o --mandir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where the man pages will go.
224 [defaults to ${prefix}/man]
226 o --enable-mainainer-mode enables some code that automatically
227 rebuilds the configure script, makefiles templates and other useful
228 files when needed. This is off by default, to avoid surprises.
230 Note that the --with-extra-* commands are not really robust when it
231 comes to use of relative paths. If you really want to use a relative path
232 here, you can prepend it with "`pwd`/".
234 If you do not like the default compile flags used (-g -O2 on gcc), you can
235 set CXXFLAGS variable to other values as follows:
237 o CXXFLAGS='-O2' (sh, bash)
238 o setenv CXXFLAGS '-O2' (csh, tcsh)
240 Similarly, if you want to force the use of some specific compiler, you can
241 give a value to the CXX variable.
243 If you encounter problems, please read the section 'Problems' at the end of
246 In particular, the following options could be useful in some desperate
249 o --enable-warnings that make the compiler output more warnings during
250 the compilation of LyX. Opposite is --disable-warnings. By default,
251 this flag is on for development versions only.
253 o --enable-assertions that make the compiler generate run-time
254 code which checks that some variables have sane values. Opposite
255 is --disable-assertions. By default, this flag is on for
256 development versions only.
258 o --without-latex-config that disables the automatic detection of your
259 latex configuration. This detection is automatically disabled if
260 latex cannot be found. If you find that you have to use this
261 flag, please report it as a bug.
264 Compiling and installing LyX
265 ----------------------------
267 Once you've got the Makefile created, you just have to type:
274 Since the binaries with debug information tend to be huge (although
275 this does not affect the run-time memory footprint), you might want
276 to strip the lyx binary. In this case replace "make install" with
280 BTW: in the images subdirectory there is also a small icon "lyx.xpm",
281 that can be used to display lyx-documents in filemanagers.
283 If configure fails for some strange reason
284 ------------------------------------------
286 Even when configure fails, it creates a Makefile. You always can check
287 the contents of this file, modify it and run 'make'.
289 Compiling For Multiple Architectures
290 ------------------------------------
292 You can compile LyX for more than one kind of computer at the same
293 time, by placing the object files for each architecture in their own
294 directory. To do this, you must use a version of `make' that supports
295 the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'. `cd' to the directory where
296 you want the object files and executables to go and run the
297 `configure' script. `configure' automatically checks for the source
298 code in the directory that `configure' is in and in `..'.
300 If you have to use a `make' that does not supports the `VPATH'
301 variable, you have to compile LyX for one architecture at a time in
302 the source code directory. After you have installed LyX for one
303 architecture, use `make distclean' before reconfiguring for another
306 Preparing a binary distribution for the use of others
307 ------------------------------------------------------
309 o Compile LyX with the right compiler switches for your
310 architecture. Make sure you use the --without-latex-config switch
311 of configure, since others might not be interested by your
314 o Create a file README.bin describing your distribution and
315 referring to *you* if problems arise. As a model, you can use the
316 file development/tools/README.bin.example, which can be a good
319 o Type `make bindist'. This will create a file
320 lyx-1.xx.yy-bin.tar.gz. Rename it to reflect you architecture
321 and the peculiarities of your build (e.g. static vs. dynamic).
323 o Check that everything is correct by unpacking the distribution
324 in some private place and running it. In particular, check the
325 output of `ldd lyx' to know which libraries are really needed.
327 o Upload your binary file to ftp.devel.lyx.org:/pub/incoming, and
328 notify larsbj@lyx.org.
334 This section provides several hints that have been submitted by LyX
335 team member or users to help compiling on some particular
336 architectures. If you find that some of this hints are wrong, please
339 o If you have problems indicating that configure cannot find a part of
340 the xforms or Xpm library, use the --with-extra-lib and --with-extra-inc
341 options of configure to specify where these libraries reside.
343 o Configure will seemingly fail to find xpm.h and forms.h on linux
344 if the kernel headers are not available. Two cases are possible:
346 - you have not installed the kernel sources. Then you should
347 install them or at least the kernel-headers package (or
348 whatever it is called in your distribution).
350 - you have the sources, but you did a 'make mrproper' in the
351 kernel directory (this this removes some symbolic links that
352 are needed for compilation). A 'make symlinks' in linux kernel
355 o if you are using RedHat Linux 7.x, you must make sure you have the
356 latest updated gcc and related packages installed (at least -85),
357 or LyX will not compile or will be mis-compiled.
359 o if you get an error message when compiling LyX that looks like this :
361 ../../src/minibuffer.h:17: using directive `Object' introduced
362 ambiguous type `_ObjectRec *'
364 then you need to upgrade the version of the xforms library you have
367 o On solaris 2.6, you may have to compile with --with-included-string
368 if compiling with gcc 2.95.2.
370 o LyX can be compiled on Tru64 Unix with either GNU's gcc or the default
373 There are no Alpha-specific problems with gcc.
375 The following notes all refer to compilation with the Compaq cxx compiler.
377 LyX cannot be compiled on Tru64 Unix 4.0d or 4.0e with the default cxx
378 compiler. You should upgrade to at least cxx V6.2, to be found at
379 ftp::/ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/C-CXX/tru64/cxx/CXX622V40.tar. Users
380 running Tru64 Unix 4.0f and greater should have no real problems compiling
383 cxx V6.2 will compile LyX out of the box.
384 cxx V6.3-020 is also known to work, although there is a bug in
385 /usr/include/cxx/deque that will break compilation in FormPreferences.C.
386 Compaq are investigating, but a patch that works /now/ is:
388 --- /usr/include/cxx/deque_safe Mon Mar 4 21:09:50 2002
389 +++ /usr/include/cxx/deque Mon Mar 4 21:09:00 2002
392 if (size() >= x.size())
393 erase(copy(x.begin(), x.end(), begin()), end());
395 - copy(x.begin() + size(), x.end(),
396 - inserter(*this,copy(x.begin(),x.begin()+size(),begin())));
398 + const_iterator mid = x.begin() + difference_type(size());
399 + copy(x.begin(), mid, begin());
400 + insert(end(), mid, x.end());
406 At the time of writing, cxx V6.5-026 is the latest cxx compiler. It is
407 /not/ recommended. The compiler itself appears to be both buggy and
408 extremely bloated (trebling the size of the stripped LyX binary).
410 In order to compile LyX with the cxx compiler, you should run configure
411 with the following flags:
412 CXX='cxx -std strict_ansi'
413 CXXFLAGS='-nopure_cname -nocleanup -ptr /tmp/lyx_cxx_repository -O2'
415 The -nopure_cname flag is needed for compilers V6.3 and above because
416 LyX makes use of functions like popen, pclose that are defined in the
417 c version of <stdio.h> but are not formally part of any c/c++ standard.
418 They are not, therefore, included in the <cstdio> header file.