On Fri, Jul 14, 2006 at 01:49:53PM -0400, Bill Strosberg wrote: > Prof J C Nash wrote: > > Hold on. I'm wanting to build tests that DON'T install anything > > new to my system. Maybe I'm so much into a different mindspace > > that I'll have to go back to MS-DOS where things actually were > > fairly kind to folk who wanted to build test programs. I used to > > do a lot of that for optimization codes. Also on mainframes. > > > > Is there a way I can get an environment set up to do the compiles > > WITHOUT messing up my distro? > > > > JN > > Actually, my suggestions to date do NOT alter your distribution! Well, he did ask for things that don't install anything new. But that's not exactly possible if the required software isn't there. If you don't have a compiler, you need to install one. If you don't have the appropriate libraries, you need to install them. Installing libraries and compilers and interpreters (e.g. Perl, Python, etc.) won't adversely affect your system (short of taking up a bit more disk space), and they can be uninstalled at any time. But you can't compile software just by staring at it for a long time. :) Note that "apt-get source <package>" will *not* install anything. It just downloads the source of the package into your current directory. You don't need to be root. Also, if you don't want to mess with the distro itself, you can just download packages into your home directory and configure them to install there, typically via "./configure --prefix=$HOME" before the "make" and "make install". I use this to install GNU utilities in my home directory on unfriendly Solaris machines.
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