You have now compiled and installed the emacs editor. I usually leave the source sitting around for a while, just in case I need to make some changes to the software. If you are running low on space you might want to do a make clean in the package directory to clear out any object files (.o) and other files needed for the compilation. Or you can simply delete the directory. Please note that emacs is a fairly big package to download and to compile. On a slow system it can take quite a while to compile. You now know how to download and compile software for your system. Luckily, most software is distributed in the GNU format where you just have to type ./configure, then make, then make install to compile and install the software.

Module 4 Mastery Check

1. What is a .gz file?
2. What does the tar command do?
3. How do you configure a typical GNU software package?
4. What file tells make what to do?
5. What command would you issue to install the package hello-1.3.i386.rpm?
6. What command would you issue to see all the RPM packages installed on your system?
7. How would you verify all of the RPM packages on your system?
8. What two files should you always look for when installing software?
9. You have just gotten done installing some software by hand. As a regular user, you try running the command and it doesn’t work the way you thought. What steps would you take in troubleshooting the problem?
10. How do you become the root user?
11. Name some advantages to using the RPM tool.
12. Name some disadvantages to using the RPM tool.
13. What does the make program do?
14. What does the command make clean do?
15. What command would you issue to install the software you just got done compiling?

This chapter is from Linux Administration, A Beginner's Guide, third edition, by Graham and Shah. (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2002, ISBN: 0072225629). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.