INSTALL

This document describes building and installing Tapper from sources.

Unpacking

Unpack the source tarball first:

$ tar xzf tapper-0.7.4-0.vdb.1.tar.gz
$ cd tapper-0.7.4-0.vdb.1

In-source build is prohibited, so you have to create a build directory and change to it before running configure:

$ mkdir _build
$ cd _build

All the intermediate and output files (including HTML pages and RPM packages) will be located in the build directory.

Installing build and test tools

Tapper provides the setup.sh script to install the tools and libraries needed to build Tapper: the program, the man page, and the RPM package (in case of RPM-based distro). The script works for Alt, Arch, Debian, Fedora, Mageia, OpenMandriva, openSUSE, Ubuntu, and Void. (The script will likely work for other distros as well, but I can not guarantee it — I can't test dozens of GNU/Linux distros.)

In case of any doubt use the -n option for a "dry" run — the script will show the commands, but will not actually run them, e. g.:

$ ../bin/setup.sh -n
Detected distro     : ubuntu                                                             ❶
Package manager     : apt-get                                                            ❷
List of packages    : ../bin/setup-ubuntu.sh                                             ❸
Packages to install : g++ make perl-base pkgconf libpath-tiny-perl libtry-tiny-perl …    ❹
Command to run      : add-apt-repository universe -y                                     ❺
Command to run      : apt-get update -y                                                  ❺
Command to run      : apt-get install -y g++ make perl-base pkgconf libpath-tiny-perl …  ❺

Note that a dry run does not require superuser privileges. Check the output of the script: make sure your distro is detected correctly (❶), verify the choice of package manager (❷) and the list of packages to install (❹). If everything is ok, run the script with superuser privileges for actual installation:

$ sudo ../bin/setup.sh

Use the -y option to install packages non-interactively, without questions.

If sudo command is not available in your distro (e. g. in Mageia), use su command instead, for example:

$ su -c "../bin/setup.sh -y"

If you do not want to install some packages, review the ‘list of packages’ file (❸) and comment out unwanted packages. Do not comment out mandatory packages — configure will fail, but optional packages may be commented freely. However, lack of optional build tools may disable Tapper components: e. g. if pandoc is missed, the man page will not be built. Lack of optional test tools will cause some tests to skip. If you are not going to develop Tapper, most of the test tools can be safely commented out. (Stuff is a bit more complicated, though: for example, building the RPM package does require some test tools.)

If you do not like an idea of running setup.sh with superuser privileges, you can run ‘Commands to run’ (❺) manually.

Configuring

Run configure in the build directory:

$ ../configure

If you are going to install Tapper locally to your home directory, run:

$ ../configure --prefix=$HOME/.local

Run configure with --help option to see list of all available options.

Options to disable Tapper functionality and components

--disable-gnome: Disable GNOME support (namely, GNOME layouter).
--disable-kde: Disable KDE support (namely, KDE layouter).
--disable-metainfo: Do not build metainfo file. Useful if your distro does not provide pandoc program.
--disable-man: Do not build man page. Useful if your distro does not provide pandoc program.
--disable-rpm: Do not build RPM packages. Useful in case of non-RPM distros (e. g. Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, etc).
--disable-html: Do not build HTML pages.

Options to disable libraries

--without-glib: Do not use GLib libraries. These libraries are required for GNOME and KDE layouters and for loading and saving settings.
--without-libevdev: Do not use libevdev library. This library is required for the libevdev emitter.
--without-libinput: Do not use libinput library. This library is required for the libinput listener.
--without-x: Do not use X Window System libraries. These libraries are required for the XRecord listener and the Xkb layouter.

Building

To build Tapper, just run make:

$ make

By default, RPM packages and HTML pages are not built. To build them, specify targets rpm and/or html in the command line:

$ make rpm html

All GNU Automake standard targets (check, dist, etc) are supported. There are some non-standard convenience targets, run make help to see them.

Testing

To execute tests, run

$ make check

Note: In contrast to make all that does not build RPM packages and HTML pages, make check tests really all components, including optional ones.

Installing

I strongly recommend building and installing the package appropriate for your GNU/Linux distro, if it is possible.

Installing the package

Fedora

$ DIST=$(rpmbuild --eval %{?dist})
$ sudo dnf install ./tapper-0.7.4-0.vdb.1$DIST.x86_64.rpm

Mageia

$ DIST=$(rpmbuild --eval %{?dist})
$ su -c "dnf install ./tapper-0.7.4-0.vdb.1$DIST.x86_64.rpm"

OpenMandriva

$ DIST=$(rpmbuild --eval %{?disttag:-%{disttag}})
$ sudo dnf install ./tapper-0.7.4-0.vdb.1$DIST.x86_64.rpm

openSUSE

$ sudo zypper install ./tapper-0.7.4-0.vdb.1.x86_64.rpm

Installing the program

If installing the package is not feasible, run

$ sudo make install

If you want to strip debug information from the installed binary, run:

$ sudo make install-strip

(Use su -c "..." instead of sudo if sudo is not available in your distro.)

If you configured Tapper for local install, run:

$ make install CHGRP=: CHOWN=: SETCAP=:

Such local non-privileged installation will work for all desktops running on top of X Window System session; attempts to use the libinput listener or the libevdev emitter (e. g. to run Tapper in Wayland session) will fail, though.