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

We recommend that you use a shadow directory of symbolic links to do the build of XFree86, because it allows you to keep the source directory unmodified during the build process. It has the following benefits:

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

If the lndir command is not already available 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

Occasionally there may be stale links in the build tree. This happens when files in the source tree are either removed or renamed. These stale links can be cleaned by running the "cleanlinks" script from the build directory (see the cleanlinks(1) manual page for further details).

Rarely will there be changes that require the build tree to be re-created from scratch. If you think that this may be the case, look for build problems, which could indicate that this is the problem. The best solution in this scenario 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