1.1 The Starlink CVS repository

All of Starlink's source code is kept in a CVS repository, which is publicly available (a CVS repository is a central library of source code, maintained in such a way that multiple individuals can have convenient access to it it; for further details see <http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/note/2003/cvsprimer/> for example).

The Starlink build system consists of

• the Starlink CVS repository;
• build tools, consisting of modified versions of the GNU autotools autoconf automake and libtool;
• configuration and bootstrap code, consisting of the starconf system and the scripts at the top level of the Starlink source tree.

The repository is on the machine cvs.starlink.ac.uk. See <http://www.starlink.ac.uk/Download/getcvs.html> for details of checking out the software and building the system.

The getcvs.html web page above says that, after checking the source tree out of CVS, you should read the README at the top of the tree. There are platform-specific notes about this in Section 2 below.

The build system as a whole is described in considerable detail in SSN/78. This is a large document, but you probably don't have to read it, if what you want to do with the Starlink applications and libraries is to build them from distributed source tarballs, use the applications, and link against the libraries from your own programs. You will only need to read SSN/78 if you wish to

1. build from the up-to-the-minute versions in the CVS repository (though even in that case, you are probably better with the up-to-the-day versions available in the nightly build tarballs at <http://dev.starlink.ac.uk/build/>);
2. work on the CVS sources themselves, since you are welcome to play with the versions of the sources available as an anonymous CVS checkout; or
3. you wish to add further components to the Starlink CVS repository, though in this case you should probably talk to the Project first, to coordinate your efforts with others.