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 according to your system.
14 When compiling for Qt, you may have to set
15 --with-qt-dir=<path-to-your-qt-installation>
16 if the environment variable QTDIR is not set.
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 Subversion checkouts
30 -----------------------------
32 If you have checked this out from Subversion, you need to have:
36 Then type "./autogen.sh" to build the needed configuration
37 files and proceed as stated below.
39 You will also probably need GNU m4 (perhaps installed as gm4).
44 First of all, you will also need a recent C++ compiler, where recent
45 means that the compilers are close to C++ standard conforming.
46 Compilers that are known to compile LyX are gcc 2.95.x and later
47 and Digital C++ version 6.1 and later. Please tell us your experience
50 It is _not_ possible to compile LyX with gcc 2.7.x and 2.8.x.
52 LyX 1.4.x 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. Users of gcc 2.95.x
55 will have to install the STLPort version of these libraries as the
56 ones that come with gcc 2.95.x are too broken for us to use.
58 LyX has been tested with Qt 4.1.5. The only special point to
59 make is that you must ensure that both LyX and the Qt libraries are
60 compiled with the same C++ compiler.
62 Note that if Qt is using Xft2/fontconfig, you may need to install the
63 latex-xft-fonts package (at ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/contrib/) to get
64 maths symbols displayed properly. To find out, type:
66 ldd `which lyx` | grep fontconfig
68 at the console. Both RH8 and Debian unstable distributions are known
71 If, however, your version of Qt does not use fontconfig, then TeX
72 fonts should be added to the font path. 'man xset' is your friend.
74 * Other things to note
76 If you make modifications to files in src/ (for example by applying a
77 patch), you will need to have the GNU gettext package installed, due
78 to some dependencies in the makefiles. You can get the latest version
80 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext/
82 To use the thesaurus, you will need to install libAikSaurus, available
84 http://aiksaurus.sourceforge.net/
86 The two following programs should be available at configuration time:
88 o LaTeX2e should be correctly setup for the user you are logged in
89 as. Otherwise, LyX will not be able to run a number of tests. Note
90 that users can run these tests manually with Edit>Reconfigure.
92 o Python 2.3 or newer installed to be able to import older LyX files
93 with the lyx2lyx script (this script is called automatically when
100 LyX can be configured using GNU autoconf utility which attempts to guess
101 the configuration needed to suit your system. The standard way to use it
102 is described in the file INSTALL.autoconf. In most cases you will be able
103 to create the Makefile by typing
107 For more complicated cases, LyX configure takes the following specific
110 o --with-extra-lib=DIRECTORY that specifies the path where LyX will
111 find extra libraries (qt4) it needs. Defaults to NONE
112 (i.e. search in standard places). You can specify several
113 directories, separated by colons.
115 o --with-extra-inc=DIRECTORY that gives the place where LyX will find
116 extra headers. Defaults to NONE (i.e. search in standard places).
117 You can specify several directories, separated by colons.
119 o --with-extra-prefix[=DIRECTORY] that is equivalent to
120 --with-extra-lib=DIRECTORY/lib --with-extra-inc=DIRECTORY/include
121 If DIRECTORY is not specified, the current prefix is used.
123 o --with-version-suffix will install LyX as lyx-<version>, e.g. lyx-1.4.1
124 The LyX data directory will be something like <whatever>/lyx-1.4.1/.
125 Additionally your user configuration files will be found in e.g.
128 You can use this feature to install more than one version of LyX
129 on the same system. You can optionally specify a "version" of your
130 own, by doing something like :
131 ./configure --with-version-suffix=-latestsvn
133 Note that the standard configure options --program-prefix,
134 --program-suffix and the others will not affect the shared LyX
135 directory etc. so it is recommended that you use --with-version-suffix
136 (or --prefix) instead.
138 o --enable-optimization=VALUE enables you to set optimization to a
139 higher level as the default (-O), for example --enable-optimization=-O3.
141 o --disable-optimization - you can use this to disable compiler
142 optimization of LyX. The compile may be much quicker with some
143 compilers, but LyX will run more slowly.
145 There are also flags to control the internationalization support in
148 o --disable-nls suppresses all internationalization support,
149 yielding a somewhat smaller code.
151 o --with-included-gettext forces the use of the included GNU gettext
152 library, although you might have another one installed.
154 o --with-catgets allows to use the catget() functions which can
155 exist on your system. This can cause problems, though. Use with
158 o You can also set the environment variable LINGUAS to a list of
159 language in case you do not want to install all the translation
160 files. For example, if you are only interested in German and
161 Finnish, you can type (with sh or bash)
162 export LINGUAS='de fi'
163 before running configure.
165 Moreover, the following generic configure flags may be useful:
167 o --prefix=DIRECTORY specifies the root directory to use for
168 installation. [defaults to /usr/local]
170 o --datadir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where all extra LyX
171 files (documentation, templates and layout definitions)
173 [defaults to ${prefix}/share/lyx${program_suffix}]
175 o --bindir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where the lyx binary
176 will be installed. [defaults to ${prefix}/bin]
178 o --mandir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where the man pages will go.
179 [defaults to ${prefix}/man]
181 o --enable-maintainer-mode enables some code that automatically
182 rebuilds the configure script, makefiles templates and other useful
183 files when needed. This is off by default on releases, to avoid
186 Note that the --with-extra-* commands are not really robust when it
187 comes to use of relative paths. If you really want to use a relative path
188 here, you can prepend it with "`pwd`/".
190 If you do not like the default compile flags used (-g -O2 on gcc), you can
191 set CXXFLAGS variable to other values as follows:
193 o CXXFLAGS='-O2' (sh, bash)
194 o setenv CXXFLAGS '-O2' (csh, tcsh)
196 Similarly, if you want to force the use of some specific compiler, you can
197 give a value to the CXX variable.
199 If you encounter problems, please read the section 'Problems' at the end of
202 In particular, the following options could be useful in some desperate
205 o --enable-debug will add debug information to your binary. This
206 requires a lot more disk space, but is a must if you want to try to
207 debug problems in LyX. The default is to have debug information
208 for development versions and prereleases only.
210 o --enable-warnings that make the compiler output more warnings during
211 the compilation of LyX. Opposite is --disable-warnings. By default,
212 this flag is on for development versions only.
214 o --enable-assertions that make the compiler generate run-time
215 code which checks that some variables have sane values. Opposite
216 is --disable-assertions. By default, this flag is on for
217 development versions only.
219 o --enable-stdlib-debug adds some debug code in the standard
220 library; this slows down the code, but has been helpful in the
221 past to find bugs. By default, this flag is on for development
224 o --enable-concept-checks adds some compile-time checks. There is no
225 run-time penalty. By default, this flag is on for development
228 o --without-latex-config that disables the automatic detection of your
229 latex configuration. This detection is automatically disabled if
230 latex cannot be found. If you find that you have to use this
231 flag, please report it as a bug.
233 o --with-frontend=FRONTEND that allows to specify which frontend you
234 want to use. The default value is qt4, which is the only available
238 Compiling and installing LyX
239 ----------------------------
241 Once you've got the Makefile created, you just have to type:
248 Since the binaries with debug information tend to be huge (although
249 this does not affect the run-time memory footprint), you might want
250 to strip the lyx binary. In this case replace "make install" with
254 BTW: in the images subdirectory there is also a small icon "lyx.xpm",
255 that can be used to display lyx-documents in filemanagers.
257 If configure fails for some strange reason
258 ------------------------------------------
260 Even when configure fails, it creates a Makefile. You always can check
261 the contents of this file, modify it and run 'make'.
263 Compiling For Multiple Architectures
264 ------------------------------------
266 You can compile LyX for more than one kind of computer at the same
267 time, by placing the object files for each architecture in their own
268 directory. To do this, you must use a version of `make' that supports
269 the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'. `cd' to the directory where
270 you want the object files and executables to go and run the
271 `configure' script. `configure' automatically checks for the source
272 code in the directory that `configure' is in and in `..'.
274 If you have to use a `make' that does not supports the `VPATH'
275 variable, you have to compile LyX for one architecture at a time in
276 the source code directory. After you have installed LyX for one
277 architecture, use `make distclean' before reconfiguring for another
280 Preparing a binary distribution for the use of others
281 ------------------------------------------------------
283 o Compile LyX with the right compiler switches for your
284 architecture. Make sure you use the --without-latex-config switch
285 of configure, since others might not be interested by your
288 o Create a file README.bin describing your distribution and
289 referring to *you* if problems arise. As a model, you can use the
290 file development/tools/README.bin.example, which can be a good
293 o Type `make bindist'. This will create a file
294 lyx-1.xx.yy-bin.tar.gz. Rename it to reflect you architecture
295 and the peculiarities of your build (e.g. static vs. dynamic).
297 o Check that everything is correct by unpacking the distribution
298 in some private place and running it. In particular, check the
299 output of `ldd lyx' to know which libraries are really needed.
301 o Upload your binary file to ftp.devel.lyx.org:/pub/incoming, and
302 notify larsbj@lyx.org.
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 8, you need gnumake. The LyX makefiles do not
314 work with Solaris make.
316 The Solaris ar seg-faults trying to build the insets library. You
317 will need to use the ar from the GNU binutils for this subdirectory.
319 o LyX can be compiled on Tru64 Unix with either GNU's gcc or the default
322 There are no Alpha-specific problems with gcc.
324 The following notes all refer to compilation with the Compaq cxx compiler.
326 LyX cannot be compiled on Tru64 Unix 4.0d or 4.0e with the default cxx
327 compiler. You should upgrade to at least cxx V6.2, to be found at
328 ftp::/ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/C-CXX/tru64/cxx/CXX622V40.tar. Users
329 running Tru64 Unix 4.0f and greater should have no real problems compiling
332 cxx V6.2 will compile LyX out of the box.
333 cxx V6.3-020 is also known to work, although there is a bug in
334 /usr/include/cxx/deque that will break compilation in FormPreferences.C.
335 Compaq are investigating, but a patch that works /now/ is:
337 --- /usr/include/cxx/deque_safe Mon Mar 4 21:09:50 2002
338 +++ /usr/include/cxx/deque Mon Mar 4 21:09:00 2002
341 if (size() >= x.size())
342 erase(copy(x.begin(), x.end(), begin()), end());
344 - copy(x.begin() + size(), x.end(),
345 - inserter(*this,copy(x.begin(),x.begin()+size(),begin())));
347 + const_iterator mid = x.begin() + difference_type(size());
348 + copy(x.begin(), mid, begin());
349 + insert(end(), mid, x.end());
355 At the time of writing, cxx V6.5-026 is the latest cxx compiler. It is
356 /not/ recommended. The compiler itself appears to be both buggy and
357 extremely bloated (trebling the size of the stripped LyX binary).
359 In order to compile LyX with the cxx compiler, you should run configure
360 with the following flags:
361 CXX='cxx -std strict_ansi'
362 CXXFLAGS='-nopure_cname -nocleanup -ptr /tmp/lyx_cxx_repository -O2'
364 The -nopure_cname flag is needed for compilers V6.3 and above because
365 LyX makes use of functions like popen, pclose that are defined in the
366 c version of <stdio.h> but are not formally part of any c/c++ standard.
367 They are not, therefore, included in the <cstdio> header file.