Compile mpd without root access
 

Currently I have all my media (primarily mp3s) backed up on a 3rd party server where I don't have root access. I'm definitely new to linux but it seems that mpd is lightweight enough that I could compile it on the server and just point the playlist and database towards the appropriate folders. Is this ridiculous? This seems like just a good idea...

BTW, hello to everyone!

You don't need root access to build software or install it. You only need root access to install software system-wide (i.e., into /usr, /opt, etc.) Just install mpd in your $HOME directory.

thank you, but aren't there dependencies to worry about (which will be located in directories where root access is required)?

1.) I made the directory $HOME/mpd/ and untarred mpd there
2.) When attempting to ./configure I received the error:

checking for GLIB... no.
configure: error: glib-2.6 is required

3.) so I obtained the tar for glib-2.9 and untarred that in a $HOME/glib/ directory, I didn't have the permission to ./configure so I issued the command:

./configure --prefix=/home/eric_the_clerk/glib/glib-2.9.0

I think that was the correct thing to do...anyway I was able to successfully make & make install glib.

4.) I edited .bash_profile to include this location in $PATH, "export PATH=$PATH:/home/eric_the_clerk/glib/".

5.) However I still get the "configure: error: glib-2.6 is required" when trying to ./configure mpd.


I'm really new to manually compiling software, yum normally takes care of all my problems. Do I have the right idea? is there a guide to this I can be referred to? I really appreciate any help.

You don't need root access to link against the dependencies. If it were me, I would create a directory in my $HOME for installing software; something like $HOME/local. Then when I configured a package, I would pass the prefix as --prefix=$HOME/local. I would also add $HOME/local/bin and $HOME/local/sbin to my $PATH and $HOME/local/lib/pkgconfig to my $PKG_CONFIG_PATH.

Adding /home/eric_the_clerk/glib/ to your $PATH isn't going to resolve the mpd error. mpd is looking for glib-2.0.pc which is installed in /home/eric_the_clerk/glib/glib-2.9.0/lib/pkgconfig. Since this isn't a default directory for pkg-config to search in, you need to tell it to look there by adding the directory to $PKG_CONFIG_PATH.