# Building XFree86® from a Source Distribution

## David Dawes, Matthieu Herrb

16 March 2005

This document describes how to build XFree86 from the source distribution and is designed to be used in conjunction with the operating system (OS) specific README files.

> NOTE: Refer to the appropriate OS-specific README file before attempting to build XFree86. These files often contain additional information that you need to successfully build for your OS.

We recommend using gcc to build XFree86, but XFree86 generally builds with the native compiler for each OS platform.

### 1. How to get the XFree86 4.8.0 source

### 2. Configuring the source before building

### 3. Using a shadow directory of symbolic links for the build

### 4. Building and installing the distribution

### 5. Reconfiguring the server (using the source distribution)

### 6. Other useful make targets

    $XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/BUILD.sgml,v 3.20 2006/04/12 01:39:22 dawes Exp $