3.1 Installing the Core Libraries

The GNUstep packages uses the Autoconf mechanism for configuration; it checks some host capabilities which are used by all GNUstep software. The first package you will compile is gnustep-make. To configure gnustep-make just type:

./configure

The GNUstep makefile package can be configured to use different types of filesystem layouts. By default, GNUstep is installed with a Unix-style filesystem layout into /usr/local/. That is a good, recommended default if you don’t have an opinion on which filesystem layout to use.

But you can also install it somewhere else by using the prefix parameter; the following command installs it in /opt/GNUstep:

./configure --prefix=/opt/GNUstep

You can also install GNUstep using a GNUstep layout (or some other filesystem layout of your choice) by using the with-layout parameter; the following command configures GNUstep to use the traditional GNUstep layout:

./configure --with-layout=gnustep

In this document we will always present examples that assume that you are using the default filesystem layout in /usr/local/. If you are using a different layout, you will need to make the obvious changes.