Arch Linux

scubasteve

Member

Registered: 2009-08-10

Posts: 3

Trouble make installing anything

Hey guys,

Just recently decided to give arch linux a go and I have to say it's the best distro I've used. Easier to use than gentoo, and more powerful than Fedora. However out of all the Linux distributions I've tried I've never ran into a similar problem as this one.

After attempting to install from source numerous tools (Ruby, gnome-color-chooser, xchat to name a few) this problem seems reoccuring. Here's what happens when I try to run "xchat" from bash.

note that no errors occured during compilation, configuration, or installation (./configure, make, make install). I have also updated make to the most recent package.

[root@anub1s:/home/ArchInstall/xchat-2.8.6]$which xchat
which: no xchat in (/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/opt/kde/bin:/usr/bin/perlbin/site:/usr/bin/perlbin/vendor:/usr/bin/perlbin/core:/opt/qt/bin)
[root@anub1s:/home/ArchInstall/xchat-2.8.6]$xchat
bash: xchat: command not found

I realize I am running it as root. I'm just copying it from the root terminal I have open at the moment.

A similar occurance (bash: <target>: command not found) occurs when I try to install/run Ruby 1.9.1, and gnome-color-chooser.

The strangest part is that installing exiftool via make install worked just fine. It appears to only happen on source compiles that involve GCC (or the C language, period).

Am I doing something wrong? Any help would be most appreciated.

Last edited by scubasteve (2009-08-10 00:15:40)

majiq

Member

Registered: 2009-03-06

Posts: 259

Re: Trouble make installing anything

If you make things, chances are it was installed in /usr/local/bin, which is not in the path by default (Arch's policy is usually to put things in just /usr). Double check to see where it got installed and make sure that's in your path.

scubasteve

Member

Registered: 2009-08-10

Posts: 3

Re: Trouble make installing anything

Thank you for the quick reply!

That seems to have done the trick. However, is there a way I'm not aware of to change the make install directory to /usr/bin rather than /usr/local/bin?

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,549

Re: Trouble make installing anything

Yes, you usually do it in the configure step: ./configure --prefix=/usr
Sometimes it is necessary to force installation through other means in make, for example, use make DESTDIR=somedirectory install, and then move around the files and copy them into the real filesystem.

Might I recommend the ABS? It is highly not recommended to install apps with 'make install'. This leaves files scattered about your system, and you must trust that there is a working 'make uninstall' or such, etc. Instead, it is extremely easy to make packages for Arch Linux through use of a PKGBUILD, which is a simple Bash script to build a package and install it. You can also submit your created PKGBUILDs on the AUR for others to enjoy. You can browse the PKGBUILDs and such of official Arch packages using the ABS, or using the Arch web site (View SVN entries). If you simply want to install a package from source, the ABS is all you need, and you can modify the PKGBUILD to have your own configure options, patches, etc. if desired. There's also source-based frontends to Pacman on the AUR, like pacbuilder.

I hope this newfound power allows you to enjoy Arch even more

Last edited by Ranguvar (2009-08-10 01:45:14)

scubasteve

Member

Registered: 2009-08-10

Posts: 3

Re: Trouble make installing anything

It would appear ABS/PKGBUILD is easier to use. In the past hour I've compiled quite a few PKGBUILDs of different projects I've been struggling with. I'll upload them to AUR to share with everyone once I get all the bugs worked out and stuff.

Thanks again guys!

Last edited by scubasteve (2009-08-10 03:55:54)

dezza

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2007-04-05

Posts: 126

Re: Trouble make installing anything

Ranguvar is right, you should prefix when installing from source with ./configure & make .. If you install into /usr/local it is easy to know which files belong to which install and you can easily delete them afterwards then. But ABS is the right way to go.

Other than that you should stop using root as your normal user.

Last edited by dezza (2009-08-11 07:30:51)