Installing

An autosetup-enabled project will typically have an install target in the Makefile. If the project follows the autoconf conventions, two settings may be used to control where the build results are installed, --prefix and $DESTDIR.

Using --prefix

By default, the install prefix is set to /usr/local. This means that binaries are installed to /usr/local/bin, manual pages to /usr/local/man, etc.

The --prefix option changes this install prefix. For example, --prefix=/usr will install to /usr, while --prefix= will install to the root directory (/bin, /man, etc.)

Note that the given prefix may be used within the project to locate it’s files at runtime, so it should match the actual target destination.

Using $DESTDIR to stage installation

In addition to --prefix, the $DESTDIR environment variable controls the root of the tree under which the build results are installed. This is an install time environment variable, not a configure time environment variable. Consider:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr
$ make DESTDIR=/tmp/staging install

Here, the project is configured to install to /usr on the final target, but the files are copied to /tmp/staging/usr/bin, etc. This can be used to stage installation to a temporary directory before installation in the final location.

This is often done when cross compiling to build an installation filesystem, or when creating a binary package for later installation.

Additional Installation Locations

In addition to --prefix, autosetup supports the following autoconf-compatible options to override the installation location of specific build results. Note that the project may or may not have support for these options, and their use is discouraged.

--includedir
--mandir
--infodir
--libexecdir
--sysconfdir
--localstatedir