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Running configure

The first and most important step in preparing source code to run on your system is to configure it so that, when built, the program exhibits the behavior you expect. The configuration process involves preparing a Makefile which contains default and/or customized information for your site and for your hardware/software system. If you are building for more than one platform, you must configure, compile, and install on each platform.

Source code is normally in /usr/cygnus/release_name/src. Good practice is to configure and build the source in another directory—any other clean directory will do. The build process may take hundreds of megabytes of disk space. Never build your toolkit in the source directory.

The default action for configure is to configure a native toolchain for the host on which you run the script. At minimum, you should specify –-prefix and –-exec-prefix to point to your installation directory. Although –exec-prefix is not required for single-host installations, we still recommend using it for all configurations. For cross-compiler toolchains, you must also specify --target. The following examples use a directory for the build location named /usr/cygnus/release_name/build.

To configure a toolchain in /opt/cygnus targeting an Hitachi SH embedded board, use the following example’s steps.

1.
mkdir /usr/cygnus/release_name/build

2.
cd /usr/cygnus/release_name/build

3.
/usr/cygnus/release_name/src/configure
--prefix=/opt/cygnus/release_name \
--exec-prefix=/opt/cygnus/release_name/H-sparc-sun-sunos4.1 \
--target=sh-hms

To configure a native toolchain for HP/UX 9, use the following examples.

1.
mkdir /usr/cygnus/release_name/build

2.
cd /usr/cygnus/release_name/build
/usr/cygnus/release_name/src/configure
--prefix=/opt/cygnus/release_name \
--exec-prefix=/opt/cygnus/release_name/H-hppa1.1-hp-hpux

Note:
--target= is not needed for native configuration. configure will default to native configuration when using --target.

Expect configure to take approximately 15-45 minutes to run, depending on the load of your build system, the toolchain being configured and the sources used.