installing from source

[nwas]

Hi,

I'm trying to install NetworkManager which is originally a Gnome program but also works for KDE.

It came as:
NetworkManager-0.6.0.tar.gz

I extracted to my home folder using ark. I cd to it from the shell and typed this:
nick@nick-laptop:~/NetworkManager-0.6.0$ ./configure
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... mawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... no
checking for gcc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cl... no
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See `config.log' for more details.

nick@nick-laptop:~/NetworkManager-0.6.0$ make
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

what is the problem?

in the folder is a Makefile.in and a Makefile.an so i'm not sure what it wants


Thanks

[arochester]

Re: installing from source

Looking at the packages available in Synaptic Package Manager I can see Network-Manager.

It this the same thing?

[nwas]

Re: installing from source

Looking at the packages available in Synaptic Package Manager I can see Network-Manager.

It this the same thing?

oh yeah it seems like it is, but it says GNOME frontend? Not sure what that means.


i would still like ot know how to install from command line though

[arochester]

Re: installing from source

See http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing/ - "How to install ANYTHING in Ubuntu"

There is also "knetworkmanager" described as "User friendly KDE frontend for NetworkManager"

[nwas]

Re: installing from source

knetwork manager never works for me (gives me all sorts of errors)

Also I still get that error with make and I've read that link

can i run network-manager even though it says gnome frontend?

[Nirvana]

Re: installing from source

knetwork manager never works for me (gives me all sorts of errors)

Also I still get that error with make and I've read that link

can i run network-manager even though it says gnome frontend?

yes. Any KDE/GNOME package will run in either Desktop Environment, just probably will not look as good. Furthermore, anything found in synaptic/adept will run in any *buntu version.

[mchuskie]

Re: installing from source

i would still like ot know how to install from command line though

I'm sure there are posts elsewhere on the forums that go into greater detail, but here's an overview:

1) Make sure you absolutely need to. Most programs are available in the repositories. It's a lot easier to install using Adept/Synaptic than from source. If you really desperately need the bleeding-edge version of something, or if it really isn't in the repositories (and you can't find an RPM to use with 'alien') then consider from source.

2) Have the package build-essential installed. As the name suggests, this package will install the things that are essential to build from source (including the compiler, gcc)!

3) Read the README and/or INSTALL files that are provided with the source. They give you lots of clues as to what can go wrong - the most likely thing to go wrong is that you don't have some libraries installed that the program needs.

4) ./configure
This will set up the "makefile" that the system will use to actually build the program. Sometimes you can set some options here. If configure doesn't exit without errors, then read what it says and try and fix (missing libraries are normally solved by installing packages with -dev or -devel endings.)

5) make
This uses the Makefile created in step 4, and will actually compile the program and give you files that you can run. Again, if it goes wrong, it's most likely due to missing libraries.

6 (usually optional) ) sudo make install
This will copy the program files, its shared files and libraries to all the right places so that any user can run the program.

Note that programs installed this way won't appear in the K menu unless you add them; also Adept/Synaptic will have no idea of their existence, which can sometimes cause problems if you try to install other programs that need the one you're installing.

Hope that helps