xref: /netbsd-src/external/bsd/am-utils/dist/README (revision a53f50b9b44dc9467ccc9c464999b1d1c509cb0c)

This is the official version of am-utils.

See the file NEWS for news on this and previous releases.

*** General Notes to alpha/beta testers:

[A] as alpha/beta testers, I expect you to be able to find certain things on
your own (especially look at the sources to figure out how things work).

[B] if you intend to modify any files, first find out if the file you want
to modify gets autogenerated from some other place.  If so, modify it at the
source.

You can adjust some of the configuration of am-utils after it has been
auto-configured by putting whatever definitions you wish in a file called
localconfig.h, located in the top build directory (the same one where
config.h is created for you).

[C] there are several ways you can build am-utils:

(1) run the buildall script as follows:

	./buildall

This would build all the applications inside a special directory relative to
the root of the source tree, called A.<cpu-company-system>, where the <>
part is filled in by GNU's config.guess script.  This is the preferred
method, for it will separate the build from the sources, and allow you to
run buildall for multiple architectures concurrently.

You can run "buildall -h" to see what options it takes.

(2) run the configure script such as:

	./configure

and then run

	make

This would configure amd in the directory you've run the configure script
in, and the built it there.  Run "make install" to install all the necessary
files.

Note that this is good for building only one version of amd on one
architecture!  Don't try this for multiple architectures.  If you must, then
after doing one such build, run "make distclean" and then reconfigure for
another architecture.

(3) run the configure script for build in a different location.  Let's say
that /src/am-utils-6.0 is where you unpacked the sources.  So you could

	mkdir /src/build/sunos5
	cd /src/build/sunos5
	/src/am-utils-6.0/configure --srcdir=/src/am-utils-6.0
	make

This is a manual method that will let you build in any directory outside the
am-utils source tree.  It requires that your "make" program understand
VPATH.  This can be used multiple times to build am-utils concurrently in
multiple (but different) directories.  In fact, the buildall script
described above does precisely that, using the A.* subdirectories.

(4) If you need to configure am-utils with extra libraries and/or headers,
for example to add hesiod support, do so as follows:

	configure --enable-libs="-lhesiod -lresolv" \
		--enable-ldflags="-L/usr/local/hesiod/lib" \
		--enable-cppflags="-I/usr/local/hesiod/include"

[D] If you modify any of the *.[chyl] sources in the directories amd, amq,
hlfsd, lib, etc, all you need to do to get a new version of am-utils is run
make.

If you modify any of the files in the m4/ or conf/ directories, or any *.in
or *.am file, then you must rebuild the configure script, Makefile.in files,
aclocal.m4, etc.  The best way to do so is to run

	./bootstrap
or
	./buildall -K

To be a developer and be able to run "bootstrap", you must have
autoconf-2.50, automake-1.5, and libtool 1.4 installed on your system (or
later versions thereof).  You no longer need to get my special version of
automake.  Contact me if you'd like to be a maintainer and get access to the
CVS server.

After you've remade the basic configuration files you must rerun the
buildall script to rerun configure and then remake the binaries.

Modifying M4 macros may not be very intuitive to anyone that has not done so
before.  Let me know if you are having any problems with them.  I fully
expect, at least initially, to have to be the sole developers of the M4
macros and let others concentrate on C sources.

[E] Report all bugs via Bugzilla or the am-utils list (see
www.am-utils.org).  Avoid reporting to my personal email address.  It is
important to involve the whole list in bug fixes etc.

Good luck.

Erez Zadok,
Maintainer, am-utils.