From: Richard M. Stallman Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 06:13:36 +0000 (+0000) Subject: Explain trouble with link farms in `make install'. X-Git-Tag: emacs-20.3~1385 X-Git-Url: http://git.eshelyaron.com/gitweb/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=e1655e2bae45932303a0f2fe17750f06ab975b15;p=emacs.git Explain trouble with link farms in `make install'. --- diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL index ad0fdc9b67c..a9a2259d8f5 100644 --- a/INSTALL +++ b/INSTALL @@ -173,6 +173,15 @@ Emacs source code in the directory that `configure' is in. To build in a separate directory, you must use a version of `make' that supports the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'. +3c) Some people try to build in a separate directory +by filling it full of symlinks to the real source directory. +If you do that, `make all' does work, but `make install' fails: +it copies the symbolic links rather than the actual files. + +As far as is known, there is no particular reason to use +a directory full of links rather than use the standard GNU +facilities to build in a separate directory (see 3b above). + 4) Look at `./lisp/paths.el'; if some of those values are not right for your system, set up the file `./lisp/site-init.el' with Emacs Lisp code to override them; it is not a good idea to edit paths.el