GNU Wget Installation Procedure
===============================
-0. Preparation
---------------
-
-To build and install GNU Wget, you need to unpack the archive (which
-you have presumably done, since you are reading this), and read on.
-Like most GNU utilities, Wget uses the GNU Autoconf mechanism for
-build and installation; users familiar with compiling GNU software
-should feel at home.
+0. Introduction
+---------------
-Note that instructions in this file do not pertain to installation on
-Windows, for which see windows/README.
+This document describes how to build Wget from source code on
+Unix-like systems. If you want to install a precompiled Wget, this
+document is not for you -- refer to the documentation provided by the
+distributors instead. If you already have Wget and want to learn how
+to use it, refer to Wget's Info documentation or man page which you
+should have received with your system. If you are using Windows
+(except for Cygwin), read windows/README instead. If you want to
+compile Wget from source code on a Unix-like system, read on.
+
+The preferred form of building Wget is to get a release archive and
+unpack it (which you have presumably done, since you are reading
+this). If you have obtained the source code via the Mercurial
+repository, please follow the instructions in `README.checkout' before
+continuing, as the sources from the Mercurial repository do not include
+some files that are present in official distributions; these additional
+files must be generated first.
+
+1. Dependencies
+---------------
-1. Configuration
+To build Wget, your system must support a Unix-like command-line
+development environment, including the text-processing utilities (sh,
+grep, awk, sed, etc.) and a functional C compiler. On some GNU/Linux
+systems, this means that you will need to install packages such as
+`gcc', `glibc-devel' (or `libc6-dev') and `make'. Most systems come
+with these packages preinstalled, but it doesn't hurt to check. If
+you have successfully compiled other software from source, you
+probably have them all.
+
+In addition to the C development environment, Wget can use a number of
+optional libraries to provide additional features, such as translated
+messages and support for "https" URLs. The "external" dependencies
+include:
+
+ - OpenSSL -- for "https" URLs.
+ - GNU gettext -- for translated messages.
+ - GNU libidn -- for IDN/IRI support.
+ - GNU libiconv -- for IDN/IRI support (not needed on GNU).
+
+To be usable for building Wget, the listed libraries must be installed
+with their "development" header files. On GNU/Linux systems this
+typically means installing the corredponsing "lib<name>-devel" or
+"lib<name>-dev" package along with the package with "lib<name>".
+
+2. Configuration
----------------
-Before compiling Wget, you need to "configure" it using the provided
-`configure' script. Configuration serves two purposes: it enables the
-compilation system to inspect certain features of your operating
-system for more robust compilation, and it enables you to choose which
-features you want the resulting Wget to have.
+Before compiling Wget, you need to "configure" it using the
+`configure' script provided with the distribution. Configuration
+serves two distinct purposes: it enables Wget's build system to
+inspect certain features of your operating system for more robust
+compilation, and it enables you to choose which features you want the
+resulting Wget to have.
+
+As is the case with most GNU software, Wget's configure script was
+generated with GNU Autoconf. If you're not familiar with
+Autoconf-generated scripts, read on.
-The simplest way to configure Wget is by running the configure script
-provided with the distribution without additional arguments. After
-running some programming-related tests, it will create the Makefiles
-needed to compile Wget. If you have experience with Autoconf-based
-build systems, you may use the standard arguments such configure
-scripts take, the most important ones being:
+The most straightforward way to configure Wget is by running the
+configure script without any arguments. After running some
+compilation-related tests, it will create the Makefiles needed to
+build Wget. However, you may wish to customize Wget's configuration
+by providing arguments to `configure'. Wget's configure script
+accepts standard Autoconf arguments, the most important ones being:
--help display a help message and exit
--infodir=DIR info documentation in DIR [PREFIX/info]
--mandir=DIR man documentation in DIR [PREFIX/man]
-For example, if you are not root and want to install Wget in your home
-directory, you can use:
+For example, if you are not root and want to install Wget in
+subdirectories of your home directory, you can use:
./configure --prefix=$HOME
-Options beginning with "--disable", such as `--disable-opie' or
+In addition to the above generic options, Wget's configuration
+supports a number of options more or less specific to Wget. Options
+beginning with "--disable", such as `--disable-opie' or
`--disable-ntlm', allow you to turn off certain built-in functionality
you don't need in order to reduce the size of the executable. Options
beginning with "--with" turning off autodetection and use of external
--disable-largefile omit support for large files
--disable-ipv6 disable IPv6 support
--disable-rpath do not hardcode runtime library paths
+ --disable-iri disable IDN/IRIs support
+
+For the full list, see the output of `./configure --help'.
-You can inspect the decisions made by configure by editing the
-generated Makefiles and the `src/config.h' include file. The defaults
-should work without intervention, but if you know what you are doing,
-editing the generated files before compilation is fine -- they will
-not be regenerated until you run configure again.
+You can inspect decisions made by configure by editing the generated
+Makefiles and the `src/config.h' include file. The defaults should
+work without intervention, but if you know what you are doing, editing
+the generated files before compilation is fine -- they will not be
+regenerated until you run configure again.
-configure will try to find a compiler in your PATH, defaulting to
+`configure' will try to find a compiler in your PATH, defaulting to
`gcc', but falling back to `cc' if the former is unavailable. This is
a reasonable default on most Unix-like systems, but sometimes you
might want to override it. The compiler choice is overridden by
This assumes that `cc' is in your path -- if it is not, simply use
CC=/path/to/cc instead. Note that environment variables that affect
-configure can be set with the usual shell syntax `VAR=value
-./configure' (assuming sh syntax), but can also be specified as
-arguments to configure, as shown above. The latter method, while
-being specific to configure, works unmodified in all shells.
+configure can be set with the usual shell syntax `VAR=value ./configure'
+(assuming sh syntax), but can also be specified as arguments to
+configure, as shown above. The latter method, while being specific to
+configure, works unmodified in all shells, and in addition allows
+configure to detect when that setting has been changed across
+invocations.
Environment variables that affect `configure' include: CFLAGS for C
compiler flags, CPPFLAGS for C preprocessor flags, LDFLAGS for linker
flags, and LIBS for libraries.
-Barring a the use of --without-* flags, configure will try to
-autodetect certain external libraries needed by Wget, currently only
-the OpenSSL libraries. If they are installed in the system library
-directories or in the same prefix where you plan to install Wget,
-configure should be able to autodetect them. If they are installed
-elsewhere, use the `--with-libNAME' option to specify the root
-directory under which libraries reside in the `lib/' subdirectory and
-the corresponding header files reside in the `include/' subdirectory.
-For example, if the OpenSSL libraries are installed under the
-/usr/local/ssl prefix, use `--with-libssl=/usr/local/ssl'.
+Barring the use of --without-* flags, configure will try to autodetect
+external libraries needed by Wget, currently only the OpenSSL
+libraries. If they are installed in the system library directories or
+in the same prefix where you plan to install Wget, configure should be
+able to autodetect them. If they are installed elsewhere, use the
+`--with-libNAME' option to specify the root directory under which
+libraries reside in the `lib/' subdirectory and the corresponding
+header files reside in the `include/' subdirectory. For example, if
+the OpenSSL libraries are installed under the /usr/local/ssl prefix,
+use `--with-libssl=/usr/local/ssl'.
Sometimes external libraries will be installed on the system, but the
-header files will be missing, which happens on Linux if you forget to
-install the "-devel" or "-dev" package that corresponds to the library
-and that is typically *not* installed by default. In that case
-configure will not find the library and you will not be able to use
-the features provided by the library until you install the devel
-package and rerun configure. If you have all the necessary headers,
-but configure still fails to detect the library, report a bug.
-
-2. Compilation
+header files will be missing. This often happens on GNU/Linux if you
+forget to install the "-devel" or "-dev" package that corresponds to
+the library and that is typically *not* installed by default. In that
+case configure will not find the library and you will not be able to
+use the features provided by the library until you install the devel
+package and rerun configure. If you believe you have the necessary
+headers, but configure still fails to detect the library, please
+report it as a bug.
+
+3. Compilation
--------------
To compile GNU Wget after it has been configured, simply type make.
testing the binary, but it should be easy enough to test whether the
basic functionality works.
-3. Installation
+4. Installation
---------------
Use `make install' to install GNU Wget to directories specified to
projects / wget / blobdiff