Hi, I'm trying to install glibc-2.7 on my RedHat EL 4 machine. After I unzip the tarball, I ran the command ./configure and there is an error message like this:
configure: error: you must configure in a separate build directory

I find it so strange because according to the book I read, you should run the ./configure file right inside the tarball you unzipped, not from another directory.
Anyway, I created another directory called "glibc-build" and ran the ./configure command from there. It created a file named "config.log" inside the "glibc-build" directory. From here, I don't know what to do next. Normally, I would run make && make install next, but when I run that command from the tarball, there is an error message like this:

Makeconfig:84: sysdeps/../config.make: No such file or directory
Makerules:808: no file name for `include'
configure.in > configure.new
/bin/sh: configure.in: command not found
make: *** [configure] Error 127


Can anyone tell me what the problem is and how to solve it? Thanks a lot.

From within the package tar ball...

mkdir -v ../glibc-build
cd ../glibc-build

Next, run the configure script...

../glibc-2.7/configure --prefix=/usr (or /usr/share)

This should produce the required makefile. Check to ensure it exists!

Compile the package...

make

make install

There are several Linux packages that need to be built outside of the package tarball. They
are binutils, gcc and glibc. Nearly all others are built within the packages. Also be aware that the source code is damaged or altered during this process, so if somthing goes wrong you will need to untar the package again. You cannot rely on a make clean to start again.

Hope this helps
gregvs

Thanks, I tried and it did work. Anyway, can you explain a bit more about the "--prefix.." in the command ../glibc-2.7/configure --prefix=/usr (or /usr/share)?

Before running the configure script, try .configure --help.

This will display a list of options which can be used change the standard build.

For example --prefix=/usr is usualy the destination default, but not always.
--with-package and --without-package can include/exclude dependency support from other packages.
There are many other options.

Most distros use the standard default values and the INSTALL file only describes the basic configure/make/make install process.

When you run the configure script take a very close look at the output. It will give you some idea as to additional options that may be considered. glibc has no real dependancies and as such should build with the basic c/m/mi.

I'm not sure what your host is but i build/use Linux from Scratch. Have a look at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/ to get an idea of what these option look like and the reasons are explained as well.

gregvs