Configuring and compiling links-hacked for linux

by Sergey Karpov and Jens Korte

Content

 What you need
How to unpack
./configure
Possible errors
Other questions



What you need:


  • links-hacked
  • The fontset is an extra file, because it's so big (about 2M). Since lh021225 this file has a new format.
  • Things mentioned on the original links page
  • PDFlib is needed for (crude) printing support w/o pictures (watch the Copyright!)
  • lua the programming language
  • a working compiling environment

    How to unpack

     tar -xvzf links-hacked-<version>
    cd links-hacked-<version>
    tar -xvzf ../links-fonts-new.tgz
    cd graphics
    ./gen
    # If you get an error here, John from links-list suggests:
    #I made the system_font directory and chmod'ed it, then rerun ./gen and without
    #any complaints.
    mkdir system_font;./gen
    cd ..

    <fixme>Here I am. more changes to be made.
    <fixme>./configure stops with error, the following text is from the older install-lh version

    ./configure

     Look with ./configure --help which options you want and start configuring.

  • GPM support: is needed when using mouse on text console, with fb and with svgalib
  • PDFlib support: is only needed for printing
    Sergey: Yes, for current very primitive one... I think it will disappear soon, and we will generate postscript by our own code.
  • Freetype support: Currently it means nothing. Soon it will mean freetype fonts backend, for external fonts support.
  • Lua support: Lua support is needed, if you want to add flexible code to your compiled links. Currently it is useful for smart prefixes mostly.
  • SSL support: For accessing pages with https: .
  • Graphics enabled: If you not only want the text frontend, but graphics.
  • Graphics drivers: There are 5 drivers: X, FB, DIRECTFB, SVGALIB, PMSHELL and ATHEOS. X stands for X-Windows, FB for Framebuffer, SVGAlib for graphic on console with SVGAlib, pmshell for OS/2 (half OS ;-) and AtheOS is a graphical OS under GPL.
  • Image formats: GIF PNG XBM JPEG TIFF are all available image formats.

    Example:
    ./configure --enable-ldap-support --enable-javascript \
    --enable-graphics --enable-static --with-ssl --with-x

    The ./configure result maybe looks like this:
    ---------------------------------------------------------
    Configuration results:

    GPM support: YES
    PDFlib support: NO
    FreeType support: YES
    Lua support: NO
    SSL support: YES
    Javascript enabled: YES
    Graphics enabled: YES
    Graphics drivers: FB X
    Image formats: GIF PNG XBM JPEG TIFF
    xterm for OS/2 support: NO
    "links" executable: static
    ---------------------------------------------------------

    If an options is disabled though you wrote --enable-<option> or --with<option> then you don't have the package needed, or ./configure doesn't find it. Check $path !

    make to start compiling

    remark: Maybe you can't compile or even configure links-hacked. Please drop a note to links-discuss.

    Possible Errors

     1. make: missing depcomp
    depcomp is part of the package automake. Copy it from your automake/lib directory to you links-hacked-<version> directory.

    Subject: [links-list] Re: cannot compile links-hacked-021215

    Dear diary, on Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 09:03:02PM CET, I got a letter,
    where Mister X told me, that...
    > Yes, it does work now. I had some issues with freetype, but removing the
    > freetype-related lines in the Makefile and ft.c, it compiled.

    Petr Baudis:
    Try to swap -I/usr/local/include and -I/freetype2 - there's a little of mess there and if you have freetype both with X11 and in /usr/local/include, you're in trouble since the includes will mix together between freetype1-style ones and freetype2 ones.

    Other questions
    Is ssl with links secure?

    > > It isn't secure at all, we don't have any support for certificates checking,
    > > thus we blindly trust what server sends us. Thus, we communicate in an
    > > encrypted way, but we have no idea about who we talk with in fact - some
    > > man-in-the-middle can spoof the SSL negotiation and feed us with a bogus
    > > certificate; then we believe that we're secure, but... this attack is possible,
    > > however in the real conditions, a little difficult to perform. That's what I've
    > > been told about it ;-).

    I don't like the icons from links-hacked, may I change them?
    Please read skins.html from Sergey Karpov
    Tabbed browsing/keyboard navigation doesn't work in graphic mode
    Yes, this function gets lost when using graphics mode. Look at Serkey Karpov's Page.
    Written with vi
    You may find an actual version of this file on http://www.stud.fh-dortmund.de/~jkorte/links/links-hacked.html