From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2 (2011-06-06) on dcvr.yhbt.net X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-ASN: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 required=3.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,BAYES_00 shortcircuit=no autolearn=unavailable version=3.3.2 X-Original-To: misc@80x24.org Received: from localhost (dcvr.yhbt.net [127.0.0.1]) by dcvr.yhbt.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31D5B1FDBB; Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:39:24 +0000 (UTC) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:39:24 +0000 From: Eric Wong To: misc@80x24.org Subject: ./configure --prefix=... for autotooled projects Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline List-Id: autoconf (and any build systems emulating the "./configure" build script) support a nice --prefix= switch which allows you to install the software to an easily writable section of your filesystem. No need for containers, chroots, root access, or weird, package-specific build/packaging scripts such as RVM (Ruby Version Manager). Just set PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH appropriately. I can still link to system libraries provided by my GNU/Linux distro, or I can pass additional arguments and use LD_LIBRARY_PATH/-Wl,-rpath as necessary to point linkage to newer development versions as needed. I do this for each project I want the latest revisions of and leave any distribution-supplied installations untouched. Sometimes I'll even configure the prefix to be /tmp/$SOMETHING if I don't care about using something past a reboot :) Fwiw, GNU/Linux distribution maintainers are likely to set --prefix=/usr whereas the default is --prefix=/usr/local And even non-autotooled build systems such as the default GNU Make-based build system in git supports it. Heck, git was probably the first project I encountered to default the prefix to $HOME instead of /usr/local