The Texinfo package contains programs for reading, writing, and converting Info documents.
Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU Required disk space: 17 MB
Texinfo installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses, Sed.
Prepare Texinfo for compilation:
./configure --prefix=/usr
Compile the package:
make
To test the results, issue: make check.
Install the package:
make install
Optionally install the components belonging in a TeX installation:
make TEXMF=/usr/share/texmf install-tex
The meaning of the make parameter:
TEXMF=/usr/share/texmf: The TEXMF makefile variable holds the location of the root of your TeX tree if, for example, you plan to install a TeX package later on.
The Info documentation system uses a plain text file to hold its list of menu entries. The file is located at /usr/share/info/dir. Unfortunately, due to occasional problems in the Makefiles of various packages, it can sometimes get out of step with the Info manuals actually installed on the system. If ever you need to recreate the /usr/share/info/dir file, the following optional commands will accomplish the task:
cd /usr/share/info rm dir for f in * do install-info $f dir 2>/dev/null done
Installed programs: info, infokey, install-info, makeinfo, texi2dvi and texindex
info is used to read Info documents. Info documents are a bit like man pages, but often go much deeper than just explaining all the flags. Compare for example man tar and info tar.
infokey compiles a source file containing Info customizations into a binary format.
install-info is used to install Info files. It updates entries in the Info index file.
makeinfo translates the given Texinfo source documents into various other formats: Info files, plain text, or HTML.
texi2dvi is used to format the given Texinfo document into a device-independent file that can be printed.