Building XFree86 from a Source Distribution : Using a shadow directory of symbolic links for the build
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3. Using a shadow directory of symbolic links for the build

A recommended practice is to use a shadow directory of symbolic links to do the build of XFree86. This permits to keep the source directory unmodified during the build, which has the following benefits:

To make a shadow directory of symbolic links, use the following steps:

If lndir is not already installed on your system, you can build it manually from the XFree86 sources by running the following commands:
cd xc/config/util
make -f Makefile.ini lndir
cp lndir some directory in your PATH

From time to time there may be some stale links in the build tree, for example, when files in the source tree are removed or renamed. These can be cleaned up by running the "cleanlinks" script from the build directory (see the cleanlinks(1) manual page). Rarely there will be changes that will require the build tree to be re-created from scratch. A symptom of this can be mysterious build problems. The best solution for this is to remove the build tree, and then re-create it using the steps outlined above.


Building XFree86 from a Source Distribution : Using a shadow directory of symbolic links for the build
Previous: Configuring the source before building
Next: Building and installing the distribution