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Writing and Compiling C programs on Linux

By Tony Lawrence
2005-04-22

Writing and Compiling C programs on Linux
Most Linux and Unix programs are written in C. When you download source for a project, it will often be C or C++ source code. You don't necessarily need to know a darn thing about C or anything else to compile the source if you aren't changing it. It may be helpful for you to understand a bit if you are having problems with the compile, but even that isn't really necessary.

Just to cover that ground for the folks who stumbled across this and don't care about learning: the stuff you downloaded probably came with a README file (or files). Try "ls *READ* *read*" and if you see anything at all, take a look: "less *READ* *read*" would also be a start. If you see a file named "configure", do "./configure". If this is a Perl project, you may see a "Makefile.PL" - in that case try "perl Makefile.PL". Try "ls Make*" - if you only see one "Makefile", try "make". There really, really should be a "readme" if your required steps are much different than "./configure; make; make install"



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© Copyright 2005 A.P. Lawrence
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