[mythtv-users] What does make install actually do

[David Watkins]

On 28/10/05, R. Geoffrey Newbury <newbury at mandamus.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 21:58:20 +1000, Phill Edwards wrote:
>
> >>
> >> I've noticed that make install puts the binaries into /usr/local/,
> >> whereas the rpm binaries are currently in /usr/local/bin, so am I
> >> correct in thinking that nothing would get overwritten and I manually
> >> move files or adjust the order of the path to enable the compiled
> >> versions?
> >
> >I think there's a file called settings.pro (from memory) which lets
> >you override the target dir for install so you could use that to get
> >make install to install to the current location. I don't know what the
> >consequences of having simultaneous RPM and CVS installs, but it
> >sounds like the sort of thing that could turn ugly.
>
> Better to use the --prefix=DIR  setting in configure before 'make'ing the
> compile.
>
> Either run ./configure --help or open it in an editor to see all of the
> available switches and their defaults.
> 'prefix' is usually set to /usr/local which means that the binaries will
> end up in /usr/local/bin and the libs in /usr/local/lib etc.
>
> Using --prefix=/usr will move everything 'up' one level.
> If you install a new version into /usr and the old is in /usr/local then
> which one gets called would depend upon the ordering of your $PATH
> variable. Given the nature of linux, I suspect however, that each version,
> if called directly would run quite happily because each would look for its
> own libraries in its own path (ie: the old one would always look in
> /usr/local/lib while the new one would only look to /usr/lib) This would
> be fine until they start looking at the same database... and possibly
> using different schemas.
>
> Unless you wish to live dangerously, it would be best practice to rpm -e
> the original version before 'make install' of the new *if they are going
> into different places. If the same, then the new will over-write the old.

Well thanks for all the advice.  You've convinced me that I should
delete the rpms, so it's off to start doing some serious backing-up!.

Thanks again,

D