LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Andrew O'Callaghan <androc@box.net.au>
  To  : Craig Mann <manno@riverland.net.au>
  Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 01:15:19 +1030

Re: Aureal Drivers, Make command.

Hi Craig,
as Damien also replied, if you are root, then you will be able to run the make 
program. However, you do not HAVE to be root to run it. It depends on where you
are doing the installing and compiling.

The way it boils down is this:
- when a user logs in, they open a shell which communicates with the operating
system kernel.

- depending on the shell the user is running, a hidden 'rc' file will be run when the
shell is initiated. If the user is running bash, this file will be called .bashrc and
should be located in the user's home directory. If the file doesn't exist, you can 
create it with your favourite editor.

- a user can run more than one shell that connects with the kernel, ie. each xterm 
that is opened is running a shell that is connected to the kernel. Each shell has
a range of environment variables, that can be viewed by typing 'env' at the command prompt
of that shell. One of the variables is called PATH, and looks something like this:

PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin

- the PATH environment variable is used by the kernel to look in the directories specified
in the PATH variable (separated by colons ':') for any of the commands you type at the command
prompt.

- you can add directories to your PATH variable by specifying them in the .bashrc file (if 
using bash), ie. you would have a line like the following:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin

- this line means  you wish to add the path '/usr/bin' to whatever is already specified by
the PATH variable.

As Damien said, if you type whereis make, the whereis command will find the location that 
the make command is located in. Another command you could type is which make, which would
try and find the make command in the paths specified in your shell's PATH env variable.


Your problem depends on what error messages you get back after typing make install. If 
you get something along the lines of:
unable to install in drectory xxx

then the problem is probably that you should be doing the install as root, as only root has
access to some of the directories (like /usr/bin). If you get something like:
command not found

then the problem is probably one to do with the PATH variable.

Hope this helps, and apologies for the verbosity,

regards,
Andrew O'C

On Sun, Feb 06, 2000 at 01:44:47PM +1030, Craig Mann wrote:
> Hey.
> 
> I'm a new Linux user (since last weekend, Redhat 6.1).
> 
> Ok I need some help with something.
> I've downloaded linux drivers for my Aureal Vortex sound card (Xitel Storm 
> Platinum) from
> linux.aureal.com/ .
> 
> that was ok, copied them from Windows over to Linux in the root directory.
> To install I need to type "make install" which is the problem as I have no 
> "make" in /bin.
> No big deal I did an upgrade and installed "make" but it's located under 
> /usr/bin so in terminal when I type "make install" it still doesn't work. 
> So I copied "make" from /usr/bin to /bin but I think I need to do something 
> to make it work, this is where I need help as I have no idea what I need to 
> type in terminal, or a config file somewhere to get the "make" command to 
> work. Someone in deja news (archives) said something about echo $path but I 
> dunno they were rather brief and undetailed about the procedure.
> 
> If someone could help me out that would be great. Either run me through 
> what I need to do or point me toward the relevant Howto to read.
> 
> thanks.
> 
> Craig..
> 
> 
> 
> 
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