The Starlink code set is now built using the standard (or at least,
conventional) autoconf system, so that you configure the system before
building using the command ./configure. See the sections above
for whatever platform-specific discussion remains necessary.
The Plan is that you need the standard magic
to build and install any of the distributed components../configure; make; make install
This is rather different from the old Starlink system, which used a
mk script, which set up a number of environment variables to
platform-specific values and then invoked make on your behalf. The
mk script consisted of a switch which set appropriate
values for each of the platforms which the Project supported (plus
sometimes a few other contributed ones). The configure-based system
should be more portable, and work on a broader range of platforms
without such platform-specific customisation.
If you have previously built software using the
mk-based system, you will see little difference in the
new system, beyond the difference in procedure described above.
If, on the other hand, you have previously developed using the
mk-based system, there will be a few more changes:
mk scripts will no longer work.INSTALL and SYSTEM environment
variables have disappeared.xxx_dev scripts have disappeared.If you are simply linking against Starlink libraries, you probably
don't have to care about any of this, and the only difference is that
you now have shared libraries and centrally located include files to
make your job easier. Most of the libraries in the distribution are
built using libtool, and the libtool .la
`library files' are installed.
If you are planning to work on applications in the CVS repository,
you should probably take a look at SSN/78, and might want to introduce yourself on
the Starlink developers mailing list, at
<http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/stardev.html>.