What does ./configure do?

[chobo]

Tried to install some kde-themes, and i had to do ./configure in the theme directory
what does that do? and anyway i can undo ./configure?

[slam_head]

./configure is part of the Make system, it usually sets the path to some needed binaries, and get various environment variables. I forget exactly where it stores the values, it probably something like .config or someother dot file. If you do an

[Naib]

./configure basically is a script that scans that the dependancies and tools needed for a sussessful comiling are present and work.
It also sets up the initial conditions for the "make" part (what follows ./configure)

The thing is Gentoo automates the

./configure
make
make install

so all you have to do is go "emerge foo"



odd you have to do that, did you try to install manually or let portage take control?
_________________

[Gridmark]

Long answer:

All the configure script does is checks for certin files, variables, headers, libraries, etc related to the compiling of software (i.e. where KDE is installed, what kind of processor you are running, etc).
It's not making any changes to your system. When you're emerge'ing any software and you see something like the following:

[chobo]

well.. i tried "emerge <theme-name>", but portage doesn't detect anything.
I also tried putting the tar file in /usr/portage/distfiles, and typed "emerge <theme-name>" again. It still doesnt detect anything.

Or am i doing something wrong?

[opqdan]

You would have to inject the package into portage by setting up a portage overlay, creating an ebuild script and running the digest command on it.

This is probably a lot more work then you want to do to install something like a theme. Just do the ./configure, make, etc, but remember that this may cause problems down the road since portage has no idea that the package exists.

Where did you get this kde theme? In my experience, they usually come as tar.gz files that can be directly installed through the control-panel.

[Sangeki]