I'm trying to update Automake on a really old CentOS machine. The build is failing with:
$ make -j 4
...
MAKEINFO doc/automake.info
/home/scripts/automake-1.15.1/lib/missing: line 81: makeinfo: command not found
WARNING: 'makeinfo' is missing on your system.
You should only need it if you modified a '.texi' file, or
any other file indirectly affecting the aspect of the manual.
You might want to install the Texinfo package:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/>
The spurious makeinfo call might also be the consequence of
using a buggy 'make' (AIX, DU, IRIX), in which case you might
want to install GNU make:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/make/>
gmake: *** [Makefile:2518: doc/automake.info] Error 127
Building the docs is not a requirement. In fact it is unwanted because it is another point of failure and it takes up space on some devices that only have a couple hundred MB free.
According to configure --help
we can disable them with --disable-FEATURE
. The problem is, I don't know the feature name. I tried the obvious ones like:
--disable-doc
--disable-docs
--disable-texi
--disable-texinfo
--disable-DOCDIR
--disable-automake.info
How do I disable the docs during configure?
Here is the configuration information for Automake 1.15.1:
$ ./configure --help
`configure' configures GNU Automake 1.15.1 to adapt to many kinds of systems.
Usage: ./configure [OPTION]... [VAR=VALUE]...
To assign environment variables (e.g., CC, CFLAGS...), specify them as
VAR=VALUE. See below for descriptions of some of the useful variables.
Defaults for the options are specified in brackets.
Configuration:
-h, --help display this help and exit
--help=short display options specific to this package
--help=recursive display the short help of all the included packages
-V, --version display version information and exit
-q, --quiet, --silent do not print `checking ...' messages
--cache-file=FILE cache test results in FILE [disabled]
-C, --config-cache alias for `--cache-file=config.cache'
-n, --no-create do not create output files
--srcdir=DIR find the sources in DIR [configure dir or `..']
Installation directories:
--prefix=PREFIX install architecture-independent files in PREFIX
[/usr/local]
--exec-prefix=EPREFIX install architecture-dependent files in EPREFIX
[PREFIX]
By default, `make install' will install all the files in
`/usr/local/bin', `/usr/local/lib' etc. You can specify
an installation prefix other than `/usr/local' using `--prefix',
for instance `--prefix=$HOME'.
For better control, use the options below.
Fine tuning of the installation directories:
--bindir=DIR user executables [EPREFIX/bin]
--sbindir=DIR system admin executables [EPREFIX/sbin]
--libexecdir=DIR program executables [EPREFIX/libexec]
--sysconfdir=DIR read-only single-machine data [PREFIX/etc]
--sharedstatedir=DIR modifiable architecture-independent data [PREFIX/com]
--localstatedir=DIR modifiable single-machine data [PREFIX/var]
--libdir=DIR object code libraries [EPREFIX/lib]
--includedir=DIR C header files [PREFIX/include]
--oldincludedir=DIR C header files for non-gcc [/usr/include]
--datarootdir=DIR read-only arch.-independent data root [PREFIX/share]
--datadir=DIR read-only architecture-independent data [DATAROOTDIR]
--infodir=DIR info documentation [DATAROOTDIR/info]
--localedir=DIR locale-dependent data [DATAROOTDIR/locale]
--mandir=DIR man documentation [DATAROOTDIR/man]
--docdir=DIR documentation root [DATAROOTDIR/doc/automake]
--htmldir=DIR html documentation [DOCDIR]
--dvidir=DIR dvi documentation [DOCDIR]
--pdfdir=DIR pdf documentation [DOCDIR]
--psdir=DIR ps documentation [DOCDIR]
Program names:
--program-prefix=PREFIX prepend PREFIX to installed program names
--program-suffix=SUFFIX append SUFFIX to installed program names
--program-transform-name=PROGRAM run sed PROGRAM on installed program names
System types:
--build=BUILD configure for building on BUILD [guessed]
--host=HOST cross-compile to build programs to run on HOST [BUILD]
Optional Features:
--disable-option-checking ignore unrecognized --enable/--with options
--disable-FEATURE do not include FEATURE (same as --enable-FEATURE=no)
--enable-FEATURE[=ARG] include FEATURE [ARG=yes]
--enable-silent-rules less verbose build output (undo: "make V=1")
--disable-silent-rules verbose build output (undo: "make V=0")
Some influential environment variables:
AM_TEST_RUNNER_SHELL
a sturdy POSIX shell for our testsuite
CC C compiler command
CFLAGS C compiler flags
LDFLAGS linker flags, e.g. -L<lib dir> if you have libraries in a
nonstandard directory <lib dir>
LIBS libraries to pass to the linker, e.g. -l<library>
CPPFLAGS (Objective) C/C++ preprocessor flags, e.g. -I<include dir> if
you have headers in a nonstandard directory <include dir>
CXX C++ compiler command
CXXFLAGS C++ compiler flags
FC Fortran compiler command
FCFLAGS Fortran compiler flags
F77 Fortran 77 compiler command
FFLAGS Fortran 77 compiler flags
GNU_CC GNU C compiler
GNU_CFLAGS GNU C compiler flags
GNU_CXX GNU C++ compiler
GNU_CXXFLAGS
GNU C++ compiler flags
GNU_FC GNU Fortran compiler
GNU_FCFLAGS GNU Fortran compiler flags
GNU_F77 GNU Fortran 77 compiler
GNU_FFLAGS GNU Fortran 77 compiler flags
GNU_GCJ GNU Java compiler
GNU_GCJFLAGS
GNU Java compiler flags
Use these variables to override the choices made by `configure' or to help
it to find libraries and programs with nonstandard names/locations.
Report bugs to <[email protected]>.
GNU Automake home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/>.
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>.
Automake is a tool for automatically generating Makefile.in s from files called Makefile.am . Each Makefile.am is basically a series of make variable definitions1, with rules being thrown in occasionally. The generated Makefile.in s are compliant with the GNU Makefile standards.
In software development, GNU Automake is a programming tool to automate parts of the compilation process. It eases usual compilation problems. For example, it points to needed dependencies. It automatically generates one or more Makefile.in from files called Makefile.am.
Autoconf essentially runs the preprocessor on your script to produce a portable shell script which will perform all the requisite tests, produce handy log files, preprocess template files, for example to generate Makefile from Makefile.in and and take a standard set of command line arguments.
Instead of editing files, when I run make I pass the argument MAKEINFO
make MAKEINFO=true
It might not be obvious at first glance what this does.
It overrides the MAKEINFO variable predefined by GNU make, which normally points to the program to call in order to get makeinfo invoked. So by setting it to true
you are effectively replacing calls to makeinfo
by calls to /bin/true
. This changes the makeinfo
tasks into no-op actions that always succeed, thus allowing the whole build to succeed, rather than halting at makeinfo
errors.
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With