1 =========================
2 Building LyX with SCons
3 =========================
8 The GNU Build System (autoconf, automake and make) has been used to build
9 and distribute lyx. These de facto *nix tools are readily available and
10 widely supported on the *nix systems, but not so under windows. They are
11 not necessarily easy to use and maintain (at least to non-m4 experts)
12 either. Because of these, a scons (http://www.scons.org) build system has
13 been set up as an alternative way to build lyx. As of writing, this system
14 only supports qt3 and qt4 frontends.
16 This README file is organized as follows:
17 1. General usage of scons
18 2. *nix systems (Linux, Solaris and Mac OSX)
25 1. General usage of scons
26 =========================
32 Python >= 1.5.2 is required to run scons, but Python >= 2.2 is used by
33 lyx itself so the newer version is recommended. Python is widely
34 available on non-windows systems. Windows users can download and install
35 python from http://www.python.org.
38 scons >= 0.96.92 is needed. You can either use a full system-wide scons
39 distribution or a light-weight one (called scons-local) installed along
40 with the lyx source tree. Both variants of scons are freely available
41 from http://www.scons.org. Note that LyX source may ship with scons-base
45 These include zlib (required), qt3 or qt4 (required), gettext
46 (optional), boost (optional), aspell (optional) and Aiksaurus
47 (optional). Please refer to the system-specific sections regarding the
48 availability and installation of them.
54 The scons system resides under development/scons. You can invoke it from
55 either development/scons by, for example:
56 > cd development/scons
57 > scons frontend=qt4 qt_dir=d:/qt4 -j3 lyx
58 or from top source directory by:
59 > scons -f development/scons/SConstruct frontend=qt4 all
61 There are three types of command line options:
62 * key=value are user options. They are used to tell scons which
63 frontend to use, whether or not use included boost libraries etc.
64 You can use 'scons -h' to list all of the options.
65 * parameters start with - or -- are scons options. Useful ones include
66 -j3 (with three threads) and --config=force (force reconfiguration).
67 * others options are targets, which are lyx objects to build.
73 Here I only list important options that you will likely use. Full option
74 list with detailed description and default value can be displayed using
77 Components to use/build:
79 * frontend=qt3/qt4: qt3 is the default for all *nix systems including
80 windows cygwin. qt4 is the default for windows/mingw and windows/
81 msvc. xform and gtk are not currently supported.
82 * mode=debug/release: lyx will be built under the debug or release
83 directory, with different default build options.
84 * boost=included/system/auto: whether or not use included boost, system
85 boost, or try to detect system boost first
86 * gettext=included/system/auto
87 * nls=yes/no whether or not enable natural language support.
88 * spell=aspell/pspell/ispell/auto: spell engine
90 Paths: Most of them will be probed if not specified.
92 * qt_dir: top level directory of qt (with subdirectory include, lib)
93 * qt_lib_path: path to the qt library, use only if there is no
95 * qt_inc_path: path to qt include directory, use only if there is no
97 * extra_inc_path, extra_inc_path1, extra_lib_path, extra_lib_path1:
98 additional paths to other libraries
103 * fast_start=yes/no: if true, bypass initial configuration step and use
104 existing src/config.h
105 * load_option=yes/no: if true, load previously saved command line
106 options so you can run 'scons install' directly after a long
107 'scons all' building command.
108 * rebuild=target1,target2... By default, scons will exam all components
109 when you build lyx. You can free scons from some hard work and save
110 yourself some time by telling scons to rebuild only specified
112 * log_file: a log file of executed commands, default to scons_lyx.log
115 Installation options:
117 * prefix: directory where lyx will be installed
118 * exec_dir: directory where lyx binaries will be installed.
119 Default to $prefix/bin
120 * dest_dir: if specified, install to this directory instead of $prefix.
122 Compiler choice and flags:
123 * use_vc: use msvc instead of mingw g++ under windows
124 * CC, LINK, CPP, CXX, CCFLAGS, LDFLAGS etc: compiler commands and
125 flags. They can be set as environment variables as well.
131 You can specify one or more of the following targets:
133 Static libraries (names correspond to their directories):
134 boost, intl, support, mathed, insets, frontends, graphics,
135 controllers, client, qt3, qt4, lyxbase
137 tex2lyx, client, lyx, all = tex2lyx + client + lyx
139 po, install = all + po
144 A typical working sequence:
145 ---------------------------
147 > cd development/scons
148 > scons frontend=qt4 qt_dir=/path/to/qt4
149 (build lyx, and all necessary libraries...)
151 (build lyx, client and tex2lyx, options like qt_dir will be carried
153 > scons rebuild=lyxbase
154 (working on lyx_main.C, so only need to rebuild lyxbase)
156 (build again, only lyxbase will be rebuilt)
157 > scons fast_start=no --config=force
158 (need to regenerate src/config.h)
159 > scons prefix=/usr/site dest_dir=/install/dir
160 (lyx is built for /usr/site, but install to /install/dir)
164 2. *nix systems (Linux, Solaris and Mac OSX)
165 ============================================
167 Proper use of extra_inc_path, qt_dir etc should solve most of the
172 =======================
174 * install mingw with the following packages:
177 * install the latest Qt official "open source" binary package for
180 * install iconv: latest gnuwin32 package installed in mingw tree
183 * install mingw/zlib: ditto
185 * aspell: this is difficult. Everybody has his own compiled library.
186 Mine is in D:\program\Aspell-0.60.4.
188 * Open a mingw xterm, and start scons as usual.
192 =======================
194 LyX should be easy to compile, but the qt3 library in the cygwin
195 distribution does not work with the current cygwin dll (version 1.5.19-4
196 as of June 2006) due to broken threading support. You should either wait
197 for the forthcoming 1.5.20 version or install a recent snapshot from
198 http://cygwin.com/snapshots.
200 To build lyx for cygwin, you should
202 * install (using the cygwin setup program) at least the following
203 packages and all other packages pulled in by dependencies:
205 aspell grep libintl1 qt3-bin tar
206 coreutils jbigkit libintl2 qt3-devel
207 diffutils jpeg libpng python
208 gettext libintl libpng2 sed
210 * run scons as you would do under linux.
214 =====================
216 To build lyx with msvc, you should
219 It is recommended that you use MSVC2005 Express edition which is
220 freely available from microsoft.
222 * get windows platform SDK
223 Please follow the link in the MSVC webpage to download and configure
226 - download qt4 source from trolltech (not the binary version, which
227 only works with mingw)
228 - get q../free patch for qt4
229 - compile qt4 as instructed
231 * download and install the official zlib library from www.zlib.org.
233 * set up other optional libraries like aspell (following mingw
236 * start from msvc command prompt, use the use_vc option to build lyx.
237 You may need to use extra_inc_path etc to point to zlib paths.
239 * you can use the msvs_projects target to obtain msvc project files
240 for each lyx component.
241 - go to development/scons (important)
243 > scons [other options] msvs_projects
245 - the resulting project files will use scons to build lyx
246 - all command line options are used as usual (when msvs invoke
253 When you get an error:
255 Q. Some path is not found.
256 A, Try options such as extra_inc_path, extra_lib_path.
258 Q. A test fails (failed to find zlib etc).
259 A. Have a look at config.log.
261 Q. I get a linking error.
262 A. Get the command sequence from scons_lyx.log and see what could
263 have gone wrong. You usually only need to tweak the last linking
266 Q. Still can not figure it out.
267 A. Send an email to lyx-devel mailing list.
269 Q. Feeling too impatient/adventurous to wait for list response.
270 A. Read SConstruct and SConscript and see what went wrong. Trust me, they
271 are much easier to decipher than the autoconf/m4 files.