Re: Installing GNU make-3.81

[Paul Smith]

On Thu, 2010-07-22 at 13:45 -0700, Jeffrey Freeman wrote:
> Ultimately, I would like to use GNU Octave with GNUPlot, and from what
> I have read thus far, I need to install GNU make be able to do that. I
> have downloaded and unpacked GNU make-3.81. Upon reading the README
> and INSTALL files, I believe I am supposed to 'cd' to the directory
> containing the source code, then proceed with:

Hi Jeff; welcome.

So, a few things.  First, there's a separate mailing list for people
using GNU make on Windows: address@hidden  Note we're not trying to
send you off to the kiddie table here: it's just that the kinds of
issues people have on Windows and POSIX-based systems are very different
and often the people who are interested in one aren't so interested in
the other.  So, the people on that mailing list will probably be a lot
more helpful than the people here... but that's not to say we won't try
to help!


First, note that the information you're reading is for building GNU make
from source on a POSIX-type system (Linux, Solaris, AIX, *BSD, etc.)

What you want to do is read the README.W32 file that comes with GNU
make.  That gives specific instructions for building make on Windows
systems.  It discusses what compilers you can use (you don't need to use
GCC if you don't want to: you can use MSVC etc.) and how to use them.


Of course, even simpler than that is to get a prebuilt binary version of
GNU make; that way you don't have to compile it yourself at all.  The
FSF does not make these available but they ARE available, out there on
the inter-tubes somewhere.  If Google doesn't know, then surely the
folks on the above mailing list will be able to help.


Good luck!