8. Final Steps
Read the software package documentation to determine whether certain
environmental variables need setting (in .bashrc
or .cshrc) and
if the .Xdefaults and .Xresources files need customizing.
There may be an applications default file, usually named Xfoo.ad
in the original Xfoo distribution. If so, edit the Xfoo.ad file to
customize it for your machine, then rename (mv) it Xfoo
and install it in the /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults directory,
as root. Failure to do this may cause the software to behave
strangely or even refuse to run.
Most software packages come with one or more preformatted man
pages. As root, copy the Xfoo.man file to the appropriate
/usr/man, /usr/local/man, or /usr/X11R6/man
directory (man1 - man9), and rename it accordingly.
For example, if Xfoo.man ends up in /usr/man/man4, it should be
renamed Xfoo.4 (mv Xfoo.man Xfoo.4). By convention, user commands go
in man1, games in man6, and administration packages in
man8 (see the man docs for more details). Of course,
you may deviate from this on your own system, if you like.
A few packages will not install the binaries in the appropriate system
directories, that is, they are missing the install option in the
Makefile. Should this be the case, you can install the binaries
manually by copying the binaries to the appropriate system directory,
/usr/bin, /usr/local/bin or /usr/X11R6/bin,
as root, of course. Note that /usr/local/bin is
the preferred directory for binaries that are not part of the Linux
distribution's base install.
Some or all of the above procedures should, in most cases, be handled
automatically by a make install, and possibly a make
install.man or make install_man. If so, the README
or INSTALL doc file will specify this.
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