Hi... I'm getting quite frustrated with Mandrake. I successfully compile and install about 1 out of 5 programs I try. Everything else gives me something along the lines of:

Nothing to be done for `install-exec-am'
or
Nothing to be done for `install-data-am'

This was never a problem with SuSe a couple of months back. "./configure" always works fine, "make" sometimes works and sometimes ends up with the above... "make install" just about never works!

Here's an example of what pushed me over the edge and made me come on here to beg for answers. It's a KDE theme I'm trying to install. Configure and make both went through ok.

[spoon@localhost alloy-0.4.1a]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost alloy-0.4.1a]# make install
Making install in alloystyle
make[1]: Entering directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloystyle'
make[2]: Entering directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloystyle'
make[2]: Nothing to be done for `install-exec-am'.
/bin/sh ../admin/mkinstalldirs /usr/local/kde/share/apps/kdisplay/color-schemes
/usr/bin/install -c -p -m 644 alloy.kcsrc /usr/local/kde/share/apps/kdisplay/color-schemes/alloy.kcsrc
/bin/sh ../admin/mkinstalldirs /usr/local/kde/lib/kde3/plugins/styles
/bin/sh ../libtool --silent --mode=install /usr/bin/install -c -p alloy.la /usr/local/kde/lib/kde3/plugins/styles/alloy.la
PATH="$PATH:/sbin" ldconfig -n /usr/local/kde/lib/kde3/plugins/styles
/bin/sh ../admin/mkinstalldirs /usr/local/kde/share/apps/kstyle/themes
/usr/bin/install -c -p -m 644 alloy.themerc /usr/local/kde/share/apps/kstyle/themes/alloy.themerc
make[2]: Leaving directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloystyle'
make[1]: Leaving directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloystyle'
Making install in alloyclient
make[1]: Entering directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloyclient'
Making install in config
make[2]: Entering directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloyclient/config'
make[3]: Entering directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloyclient/config'
/bin/sh ../../admin/mkinstalldirs /usr/local/kde/lib/kde3
/bin/sh ../../libtool --silent --mode=install /usr/bin/install -c -p kwin_alloy_config.la /usr/local/kde/lib/kde3/kwin_alloy_config.la
PATH="$PATH:/sbin" ldconfig -n /usr/local/kde/lib/kde3
make[3]: Nothing to be done for `install-data-am'.
make[3]: Leaving directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloyclient/config'
make[2]: Leaving directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloyclient/config'
make[2]: Entering directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloyclient'
make[3]: Entering directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloyclient'
/bin/sh ../admin/mkinstalldirs /usr/local/kde/lib/kde3
/bin/sh ../libtool --silent --mode=install /usr/bin/install -c -p kwin_alloy.la /usr/local/kde/lib/kde3/kwin_alloy.la
PATH="$PATH:/sbin" ldconfig -n /usr/local/kde/lib/kde3
/bin/sh ../admin/mkinstalldirs /usr/local/kde/share/apps/kwin/
/usr/bin/install -c -p -m 644 alloy.desktop /usr/local/kde/share/apps/kwin//alloy.desktop
make[3]: Leaving directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloyclient'
make[2]: Leaving directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloyclient'
make[1]: Leaving directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a/alloyclient'
make[1]: Entering directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a'
make[2]: Entering directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a'
make[2]: Nothing to be done for `install-exec-am'.
make[2]: Nothing to be done for `install-data-am'.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a'
make[1]: Leaving directory `/main/Downloads/alloy-0.4.1a'

As you can probably tell, I am no programmer and have only a vague understanding of what make spits out

Can anyone help me out...? I really would like to keep Mandrake for a little while. And as much as I like hunting for RPM's, I'll gladly get myself a copy of SuSe 9.0 if I can't compile anything.

Thanks!

'nothing to be done' need not be bad news. It just means that there is nothing to be done for that specific part (maybe because of your system specs or the arguments you passed to configure or whatever). Did you actually see if the programs run after doing make install?

Hmmm... to tell you the truth, I think I tried twice. After seeing that the applications didn't run at that time, I assumed it would always be like this if I encountered a nothing to be done. Since I had'nt encountered such a message in SuSe (which is what I'm used to) I panicked!

I'll look deeper into it and see if things will run despite the messages!

Thanks.

since you're using mandrake... You'll probably have to do something like
./configure --prefix=/usr
to get a lot of the things working. I'm not sure about the kde theme though. From your output, it seems to be installing things under /usr/local/kde and I'm quite sure that will not have any effect on your system (it's not where mandrake installs its kde stuff).

Also, if compile and install fails for some reason, do
make clean
before recompiling. This will get rid of stuff lying around from the previous compile.

Thats the one!! Doing a bit of tinkering yesterday I found out that the theme files and stuff were always installing and could be located with find, but I couldn't see them in KDE control center. With that switch it seems ok! Programs are running as well now.

Thanks for your help!