Building XFree86 from a Source Distribution : Building and installing the distribution
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## 4. Building and installing the distribution

Before building the distribution, read through the OS-specific `README` file in `xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc` that is relevant to you. Once you have addressed the OS-specific details, go your build directory (either the `xc` directory or the shadow tree created before) and run "`make World`" with the BOOTSTRAPCFLAGS set as described in the OS-specific README (if necessary, but most systems supported by XFree86 don't need BOOTSTRAPCFLAGS). It is advisable to redirect stdout and stderr to `World.Log` so that you can track down problems that might occur during the build.

With Bourne-like shells (Bash, the Korn shell, `zsh`, etc.) use a command like:

> `make World > World.log 2>&1`

Witch C-shell variants (`csh`, `tcsh`, etc), use:

> `make World >& World.log`

You can follow the progress of the build by running:

> `tail -f World.log`

in a terminal.

When the build is finished, you should check the `World.Log` file to see if there were any problems. If there weren't any then you can install the binaries. By default the "make World" process will ignore errors and build as much as possible. If there were problems and they are not corrected at this stage, the installation process will fail. To restart the build process after correcting the problems, just run 'make'. If Imakefiles or part of the build configuration was changed as part of correcting the problem, either re-run "make World", or run "make Everything".

If you would prefer "make World" to exit at the first error, run it in the following way instead of the way described above:

for Bourne-like shells:

> `make WORLDOPTS= World > World.log 2>&1`

for C-shell variants:

> `make WORLDOPTS= World >& World.log`

To do the install, run "`make install`" and "`make install.man`". Make sure you have enough space in `/usr/X11R6` for the install to succeed. If you want to install on a filesystem other than `/usr`, make a symbolic link to `/usr/X11R6` before installing.

Building XFree86 from a Source Distribution : Building and installing the distribution
Previous: Using a shadow directory of symbolic links for the build
Next: Reconfiguring the server (source distribution)