Linux From Scratch - Version 6.1.1

Chapter 6. Installing Basic System Software

6.34. Texinfo-4.8

The Texinfo package contains programs for reading, writing, and converting info pages.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 14.7 MB
Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses, and Sed

6.34.1. Installation of Texinfo

Texinfo allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on temporary files. Apply the following patch to fix this: 

patch -Np1 -i ../texinfo-4.8-tempfile_fix-1.patch

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 the TeX tree if, for example, a TeX package will be installed later.

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 sync with the info pages installed on the system. If the /usr/share/info/dir file ever needs to be recreated, 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

6.34.2. Contents of Texinfo

Installed programs: info, infokey, install-info, makeinfo, texi2dvi, texi2pdf, and texindex

Short Descriptions

info

Used to read info pages which are similar to man pages, but often go much deeper than just explaining all the available command line options. For example, compare man bison and info bison.

infokey

Compiles a source file containing Info customizations into a binary format

install-info

Used to install info pages; it updates entries in the info index file

makeinfo

Translates the given Texinfo source documents into info pages, plain text, or HTML

texi2dvi

Used to format the given Texinfo document into a device-independent file that can be printed

texi2pdf

Used to format the given Texinfo document into a Portable Document Format (PDF) file

texindex

Used to sort Texinfo index files