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:
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.
60 Both an Xforms and Xpm libraries should be installed to compile LyX.
61 It is imperative that you have the correct versions of these
62 libraries, and their associated header files.
64 The xforms library has been very recently updated to version 1.0.
65 This version has been released under the LGPL (Lesser General Public
66 License), and the availability of the source means that many bugs that
67 have been plaguing LyX have been fixed in xforms. You are advised to
68 upgrade to xforms 1.0 to enjoy all these new fixes.
69 In fact, LyX 1.3.x no longer supports versions of xforms older than 0.89.5.
71 You can get the source from
72 http://world.std.com/~xforms/
73 ftp://ncmir.ucsd.edu/pub/xforms/OpenSource/xforms-1.0-release.tgz
74 ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/xforms/OpenSource/xforms-1.0-release.tgz
76 If you use a rpm-based linux distribution, such as RedHat or Mandrake,
77 we recommend that you grab a version of xforms from
78 ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/contrib
79 Look for the xforms-1.0-release.src.rpm or the binary libforms*.i386.rpm.
81 In addition, you must have libXpm version 4.7 or newer.
85 LyX has been tested with both Qt 2.x and 3.x libraries. The only special
86 point to make is that you must ensure that both LyX and the Qt libraries
87 are compiled with the same C++ compiler.
89 Note that if Qt is using Xft2/fontconfig, you may need to install the
90 latex-xft-fonts package (at ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/contrib/) to get
91 maths symbols displayed properly. To find out, type:
93 ldd `which lyx` | grep fontconfig
95 at the console. Both RH8 and Debian unstable distributions are known
98 If, however, your version of Qt does not use fontconfig, then the
99 /usr/local/share/lyx/xfonts directory (or equivalent) should be added to
100 the font path. This is done automatically by LyX if LyX is run on
101 the local machine, and the X server supports Postscript fonts. If, however,
102 you're running LyX remotely, then you'll have to do this step yourself.
103 'man xset' is your friend.
105 * Other things to note
107 If you make modifications to files in src/ (for example by applying a
108 patch), you will need to have the GNU gettext package installed, due
109 to some dependencies in the makefiles. You can get the latest version
111 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext/gettext-0.11.4.tar.gz
113 LyX contains a hack to work around this, but you should not rely too
116 To use the thesaurus, you will need to install libAikSaurus, available
118 http://aiksaurus.sourceforge.net/
120 The two following programs should be available at configuration time:
122 o Perl (at least 5.002) is needed for the reLyX script. reLyX will
123 not be installed if perl is not found. If the environment
124 variable PERL is set to point to some program, this value will be
125 used, even if the program does no exist (this can be useful if
126 the machine on which LyX is built is not the one where it will
129 o LaTeX2e should be correctly setup for the user you are logged in
130 as. Otherwise, LyX will not be able to run a number of tests. Note
131 that users can run these tests manually with Edit>Reconfigure.
133 Finally, you will need to have python 1.5.2 or newer installed to be
134 able to import older LyX files with the lyx2lyx script (this script is
135 called automatically when opening a file).
138 Creating the Makefile
139 ---------------------
141 LyX can be configured using GNU autoconf utility which attempts to guess
142 the configuration needed to suit your system. The standard way to use it
143 is described in the file INSTALL.autoconf. In most cases you will be able
144 to create the Makefile by typing
148 For more complicated cases, LyX configure takes the following specific
151 o --with-frontend=FRONTEND that allows to specify which frontend you
152 want to use. Default is "xforms", and the other possible value is
155 o --with-extra-lib=DIRECTORY that specifies the path where LyX will
156 find extra libraries (Xpm, xforms, qt) it needs. Defaults to NONE
157 (i.e. search in standard places). You can specify several
158 directories, separated by colons.
160 o --with-extra-inc=DIRECTORY that gives the place where LyX will find
161 xforms headers. Defaults to NONE (i.e. search in standard places).
162 You can specify several directories, separated by colons.
164 o --with-extra-prefix[=DIRECTORY] that is equivalent to
165 --with-extra-lib=DIRECTORY/lib --with-extra-inc=DIRECTORY/include
166 If DIRECTORY is not specified, the current prefix is used.
168 o --with-version-suffix will install LyX as lyx-<version>, e.g. lyx-1.3.1
169 The LyX data directory will be something like <whatever>/lyx-1.3.1/.
170 Additionally your user configuration files will be found in e.g.
173 You can use this feature to install more than one version of LyX
174 on the same system. You can optionally specify a "version" of your
175 own, by doing something like :
176 ./configure --with-version-suffix=-latestcvs
178 Note that the standard configure options --program-prefix,
179 --program-suffix and the others will not affect the shared LyX
180 directory etc. so it is recommended that you use --with-version-suffix
181 (or --prefix) instead.
183 o --enable-optimization=VALUE enables you to set optimization to a
184 higher level as the default (-O), for example --enable-optimization=-O3.
186 o --disable-optimization - you can use this to disable compiler
187 optimization of LyX. The compile may be much quicker with some
188 compilers, but LyX will run more slowly.
190 o --enable-debug will add debug information to your binary. This
191 requires a lot more disk space, but is a must if you want to try to
192 debug problems in LyX. The default is to have debug information
193 for development versions and prereleases only.
195 There are also flags to control the internationalization support in
198 o --disable-nls suppresses all internationalization support,
199 yielding a somewhat smaller code.
201 o --with-included-gettext forces the use of the included GNU gettext
202 library, although you might have another one installed.
204 o --with-catgets allows to use the catget() functions which can
205 exist on your system. This can cause problems, though. Use with
208 o You can also set the environment variable LINGUAS to a list of
209 language in case you do not want to install all the translation
210 files. For example, if you are only interested in German and
211 Finnish, you can type (with sh or bash)
212 export LINGUAS='de fi'
213 before running configure.
215 Moreover, the following generic configure flags may be useful:
217 o --prefix=DIRECTORY specifies the root directory to use for
218 installation. [defaults to /usr/local]
220 o --datadir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where all extra LyX
221 files (lyxrc example, documentation, templates and layouts
222 definitions) will be installed.
223 [defaults to ${prefix}/share/lyx${program_suffix}]
225 o --bindir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where the lyx binary
226 will be installed. [defaults to ${prefix}/bin]
228 o --mandir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where the man pages will go.
229 [defaults to ${prefix}/man]
231 o --enable-maintainer-mode enables some code that automatically
232 rebuilds the configure script, makefiles templates and other useful
233 files when needed. This is off by default on releases, to avoid
236 Note that the --with-extra-* commands are not really robust when it
237 comes to use of relative paths. If you really want to use a relative path
238 here, you can prepend it with "`pwd`/".
240 If you do not like the default compile flags used (-g -O2 on gcc), you can
241 set CXXFLAGS variable to other values as follows:
243 o CXXFLAGS='-O2' (sh, bash)
244 o setenv CXXFLAGS '-O2' (csh, tcsh)
246 Similarly, if you want to force the use of some specific compiler, you can
247 give a value to the CXX variable.
249 If you encounter problems, please read the section 'Problems' at the end of
252 In particular, the following options could be useful in some desperate
255 o --enable-warnings that make the compiler output more warnings during
256 the compilation of LyX. Opposite is --disable-warnings. By default,
257 this flag is on for development versions only.
259 o --enable-assertions that make the compiler generate run-time
260 code which checks that some variables have sane values. Opposite
261 is --disable-assertions. By default, this flag is on for
262 development versions only.
264 o --without-latex-config that disables the automatic detection of your
265 latex configuration. This detection is automatically disabled if
266 latex cannot be found. If you find that you have to use this
267 flag, please report it as a bug.
270 Compiling and installing LyX
271 ----------------------------
273 Once you've got the Makefile created, you just have to type:
280 Since the binaries with debug information tend to be huge (although
281 this does not affect the run-time memory footprint), you might want
282 to strip the lyx binary. In this case replace "make install" with
286 BTW: in the images subdirectory there is also a small icon "lyx.xpm",
287 that can be used to display lyx-documents in filemanagers.
289 If configure fails for some strange reason
290 ------------------------------------------
292 Even when configure fails, it creates a Makefile. You always can check
293 the contents of this file, modify it and run 'make'.
295 Compiling For Multiple Architectures
296 ------------------------------------
298 You can compile LyX for more than one kind of computer at the same
299 time, by placing the object files for each architecture in their own
300 directory. To do this, you must use a version of `make' that supports
301 the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'. `cd' to the directory where
302 you want the object files and executables to go and run the
303 `configure' script. `configure' automatically checks for the source
304 code in the directory that `configure' is in and in `..'.
306 If you have to use a `make' that does not supports the `VPATH'
307 variable, you have to compile LyX for one architecture at a time in
308 the source code directory. After you have installed LyX for one
309 architecture, use `make distclean' before reconfiguring for another
312 Preparing a binary distribution for the use of others
313 ------------------------------------------------------
315 o Compile LyX with the right compiler switches for your
316 architecture. Make sure you use the --without-latex-config switch
317 of configure, since others might not be interested by your
320 o Create a file README.bin describing your distribution and
321 referring to *you* if problems arise. As a model, you can use the
322 file development/tools/README.bin.example, which can be a good
325 o Type `make bindist'. This will create a file
326 lyx-1.xx.yy-bin.tar.gz. Rename it to reflect you architecture
327 and the peculiarities of your build (e.g. static vs. dynamic).
329 o Check that everything is correct by unpacking the distribution
330 in some private place and running it. In particular, check the
331 output of `ldd lyx' to know which libraries are really needed.
333 o Upload your binary file to ftp.devel.lyx.org:/pub/incoming, and
334 notify larsbj@lyx.org.
340 This section provides several hints that have been submitted by LyX
341 team member or users to help compiling on some particular
342 architectures. If you find that some of this hints are wrong, please
345 o If you have problems indicating that configure cannot find a part of
346 the xforms or Xpm library, use the --with-extra-lib and --with-extra-inc
347 options of configure to specify where these libraries reside.
349 o Configure will seemingly fail to find xpm.h and forms.h on linux
350 if the kernel headers are not available. Two cases are possible:
352 - you have not installed the kernel sources. Then you should
353 install them or at least the kernel-headers package (or
354 whatever it is called in your distribution).
356 - you have the sources, but you did a 'make mrproper' in the
357 kernel directory (this this removes some symbolic links that
358 are needed for compilation). A 'make symlinks' in linux kernel
361 o if you are using RedHat Linux 7.x, you must make sure you have the
362 latest updated gcc and related packages installed (at least -85),
363 or LyX will not compile or will be mis-compiled.
365 o if you get an error message when compiling LyX that looks like this :
367 ../../src/minibuffer.h:17: using directive `Object' introduced
368 ambiguous type `_ObjectRec *'
370 then you need to upgrade the version of the xforms library you have
373 o On SUN Sparc Solaris 8, you need gnumake. The LyX makefiles do not
374 work with Solaris make.
376 The Solaris ar seg-faults trying to build the insets library. You
377 will need to use the ar from the GNU binutils for this subdirectory.
379 o LyX can be compiled on Tru64 Unix with either GNU's gcc or the default
382 There are no Alpha-specific problems with gcc.
384 The following notes all refer to compilation with the Compaq cxx compiler.
386 LyX cannot be compiled on Tru64 Unix 4.0d or 4.0e with the default cxx
387 compiler. You should upgrade to at least cxx V6.2, to be found at
388 ftp::/ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/C-CXX/tru64/cxx/CXX622V40.tar. Users
389 running Tru64 Unix 4.0f and greater should have no real problems compiling
392 cxx V6.2 will compile LyX out of the box.
393 cxx V6.3-020 is also known to work, although there is a bug in
394 /usr/include/cxx/deque that will break compilation in FormPreferences.C.
395 Compaq are investigating, but a patch that works /now/ is:
397 --- /usr/include/cxx/deque_safe Mon Mar 4 21:09:50 2002
398 +++ /usr/include/cxx/deque Mon Mar 4 21:09:00 2002
401 if (size() >= x.size())
402 erase(copy(x.begin(), x.end(), begin()), end());
404 - copy(x.begin() + size(), x.end(),
405 - inserter(*this,copy(x.begin(),x.begin()+size(),begin())));
407 + const_iterator mid = x.begin() + difference_type(size());
408 + copy(x.begin(), mid, begin());
409 + insert(end(), mid, x.end());
415 At the time of writing, cxx V6.5-026 is the latest cxx compiler. It is
416 /not/ recommended. The compiler itself appears to be both buggy and
417 extremely bloated (trebling the size of the stripped LyX binary).
419 In order to compile LyX with the cxx compiler, you should run configure
420 with the following flags:
421 CXX='cxx -std strict_ansi'
422 CXXFLAGS='-nopure_cname -nocleanup -ptr /tmp/lyx_cxx_repository -O2'
424 The -nopure_cname flag is needed for compilers V6.3 and above because
425 LyX makes use of functions like popen, pclose that are defined in the
426 c version of <stdio.h> but are not formally part of any c/c++ standard.
427 They are not, therefore, included in the <cstdio> header file.