mc/doc/INSTALL

Build requirements for GNU Midnight Commander
---------------------------------------------

- glibc
- gcc
- make
- autoconf >= 2.64
- automake >= 1.12
- libtool
- glib2 >= 2.32
- slang2 or ncurses
- gettext >= 0.18.2
- libssh2 >= 1.2.8 is required only for sftp vfs
- libaspell to support spell checking in the internal editor
- ext2fs >= 1.42.4 to support ext{2,3,4}fs extended attributes


Installation instructions for GNU Midnight Commander
----------------------------------------------------

Midnight Commander is written in a portable manner and uses GNU Autoconf
for configuration, so it is expected to compile without changes on many
other operating systems.

If you are installing from an official tarball, it already contains
pre-bootstrapped autotools build system (specifically the `configure'
script). In the case that you are installing from a version control
checkout, you need to bootstrap the build system yourself first using
the `autogen.sh' script. Note that to do this you would need to install
the autotools suite first and not only direct mc build dependencies.

The `configure' shell script attempts to guess correct values for
various system-dependent variables used during compilation, and creates
the makefiles.  It also creates a file `config.status' that you can run
in the future to recreate the current configuration.

To compile this package:

1.  Configure the package for your system.

Normally, you just `cd' to the directory containing the package's source
code and type `./configure'.

To compile the package in a different directory than the one containing
the source code, you must use a version of `make' supporting the `VPATH'
variable, such as GNU `make'.  Change to the directory where you want
the object files and executables to go and run the `configure' script
with the full path.  If for some reason `configure' cannot find the
source code directory, run `configure' with the option `--srcdir=DIR',
where DIR is the directory that contains the source code.

By default, `make install' will install the package's files in
`/usr/local/bin', `/usr/local/man', etc.  You can specify an
installation prefix other than `/usr/local' by giving `configure' the
option `--prefix=PATH'.

If compiled on GNU/Linux, Midnight Commander detects if you have the gpm
library installed.  If you installed the gpm mouse library in a
non-standard place, you will need to use the --with-gpm-mouse flag with
the directory base where you installed the gpm package.

`configure' recognizes the following options (the list may be
incomplete, use `configure --help' to get the full list):

`--help'
     Print a summary of the options to `configure' and exit.

`--quiet'
`--silent'
     Do not print messages saying which checks are being made.

`--version'
     Print the version of Autoconf used to generate the `configure'
     script, and exit.

`--without-edit'
     Configure GNU Midnight Commander to be compiled without the
     built-in file editor.  The built-in editor is compiled in by
     default.

`--enable-aspell[=prefix]'
     This option adds spell check support to the internal editor using
     libaspell and optionally sets path to libaspell installation prefix
     [default=/usr]. Disabled by default.

`--without-gpm-mouse'
     Use this flag to disable gpm mouse support (e.g. if you want to
     use mouse only on X terminals).

`--with-glib-static'
     Force linking against glib statically.  This option is intended for
     building binaries for distribution purposes and may not work on
     some operating systems.

`--with-subshell[=optional]', `--without-subshell' 
     The subshell support is by default turned on, you can disable
     this by using the --without-subshell option.  If you pass the
     =optional parameter, then the subshell support is turned off by
     default.  To turn it on, specify the `-U' option to the program.

`--without-x'
     By default, the Midnight Commander tries to connect to the X Window
     System events to query the status of the keyboard modifiers, such
     as Control, Shift and Alt, when invoked in a terminal emulator
     under X11.  This is necessary (but not always sufficient) to
     recognize some optional but handy key combinations like Ctrl-Home
     and Shift-Cursor keys.  Use `--without-x' if the dependency on
     X11 libraries is not desired.

`--disable-largefile'
     This option disables support for large files (2 gigabytes and more)
     on the systems where file operations use 32-bit offsets by default,
     but support for 64-bit offsets is available.  May be useful for
     slow processors and embedded systems.

`--enable-charset'
     This option adds support for selecting character set of the text in
     the internal viewer and editor and converting it on the fly.  The
     implementation of this option is currently incomplete.

`--disable-background'
     This option disables support for background operations.  Background
     operations allow to perform some tasks such as copying files in a
     separate background process.  Any messages from the background
     process are forwarded to the foreground process.  More advanced
     dialogs cannot be forwarded yet, so the background process uses the
     default.  Background code is known to be less stable than the rest
     of the code, so you may want to disable it at the compile time.

`--with-homedir'
     This option allow users  to place user config directories in any
     place. By default value is 'XDG', this mean, mc will respect XDG
     standards. If other value is specified, this will used as directory
     name (relative to $HOME if path is relative, or as is if path is
     absolute).

VFS options:
- - - - - -

`--disable-vfs'
     This option disables the Virtual File System switch code in the
     Midnight Commander and uses the standard file system calls for
     file access.  If you specify this option, you won't get the
     transparent access to archives and remote directories.

`--enable-vfs-cpio'
     (on by default)
     Support for cpio filesystem

`--enable-vfs-tar'
     (on by default)
     Support for tar filesystem

`--enable-vfs-ftp'
     (on by default)
     Support for FTP vfs

`--enable-vfs-shell'
     (on by default)
     Support for SHELL vfs

`--enable-vfs-sftp'
     (auto)
     Support for SFTP vfs

`--enable-vfs-extfs'
     (on by default)
     Support for extfs

`--enable-vfs-sfs`
     (on by default)
     Support for sfs

`--enable-vfs-undelfs'
     (off by default)
     Support for ext2 undelete filesystem.
     On systems that use the ext2 or ext3 file system and have the
     libext2fs library available, this option adds support for
     recovering deleted files (the undel virtual file system).

Screen library:
- - - - - - - -

You may also tell configure which screen library you want to use with
the Midnight Commander.  The configure script will use S-Lang as
default, and prefers an already installed S-Lang library over the
included one, but you can override this by using the following flag
(please note that since S-Lang is default, it is tested better than
ncurses):

`--with-screen={slang|ncurses}'
     Choose the library used to manage interaction with the terminal.
     `slang' means S-Lang library already installed on the system,
     `ncurses' means ncurses library already installed on the system.
     The S-Lang library is used by default if found.

`--with-ncurses-includes=[DIR]'
     Set path to ncurses includes [default=/usr/include]; make
     sense only if --with-screen=ncurses is used;
     for /usr/local/include/ncurses specify /usr/local/include.

`--with-ncurses-libs=[DIR]'
     Set path to ncurses library [default=/usr/lib]; make sense
     only if --with-screen=ncurses is used.

On systems that require unusual options for compilation or linking that
the package's `configure' script does not know about, you can give
`configure' initial values for variables by placing them in the command
line:

./configure CC='gcc -traditional' LIBS=-lposix

2.  Type `make' to compile the package.

3.  Type `make install' to install programs, data files, and the
documentation.

If you're on a GNU/Linux system, this will install the `cons.saver'
utility, which allows the Midnight Commander to save and restore the
console contents.  This utility can be installed setuid root, but it's
only needed on systems where users cannot access /dev/vcsaN, where N is
the virtual console number, on which the uses is logged on.


Obtaining related software
--------------------------

glib
----

The only "hard" dependency of GNU Midnight Commander is glib.  You can
get glib from

* https://download.gnome.org/sources/glib/

Minimal version of glib: 2.32.0
Recommended version: 2.32.x and higher.

Newer versions may work, but haven't been tested.

PCRE
----

Both PCRE and PCRE2 libraries are supported. You can get PCRE from

* https://www.pcre.org

Terminal database
-----------------

There are many incomplete terminal databases out there, however, a
complete terminfo is bundled with ncurses.  (It is simple to generate
the termcap database using the infocmp utility in ncurses).

Some terminfo data are included with the mc distribution (lib/*.ti).
Particularly linux, xterm and vt100. Use e.g. ''tic linux.ti'' to use
them.

If you want to run mc on xterm/color_xterm/ansi_xterm (not rxvt), then
you might read lib/README.xterm for further information.

Screen libraries
----------------

GNU Midnight Commander can use the included version of S-Lang, but you
can get the latest version here:

* https://www.jedsoft.org/slang/

Alternatively, you can use ncurses:

* https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce.html

Mouse support
-------------

The general purpose mouse (gpm) daemon is available from

* https://www.nico.schottelius.org/software/gpm/

Porting
-------

Some less widespread UNIX systems like AIX or Solaris often come with their own
implementations of make and relevant parts of the toolchain necessary to build
mc. While autotools abstract a lot of platform specific issues, you might
encounter unresolved problems while using the native toolchain.

Often, GNU tools are shipped as a part of an additional software collection
(/opt/freeware on AIX, or OpenCSW on Solaris). These tools are usually prefixed
with the letter `g', e.g. `gmake' instead of `make'. If you are not really
interested in building with the native toolchain, try to override tools causing
problems like this:

./configure MAKE=gmake AR=gar
gmake