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(stow.info)Cygnus software

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Cygnus software
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   Cygnus is a commercial supplier and supporter of GNU software.  It
has also written several of its own packages, released under the terms
of the GNU General Public License; and it has taken over the
maintenance of other packages.  Among the packages released by Cygnus
are `gdb', `gnats', and `dejagnu'.

   Cygnus packages have the peculiarity that each one unpacks into a
directory tree with a generic top-level Makefile, which is set up to
compile _all_ of Cygnus' packages, any number of which may reside under
the top-level directory.  In other words, even if you're only building
`gnats', the top-level Makefile will look for, and try to build, `gdb'
and `dejagnu' subdirectories, among many others.

   The result is that if you try `make -n install
prefix=/usr/local/stow/PACKAGE' at the top level of a Cygnus package,
you'll get a bewildering amount of output.  It will then be very
difficult to visually scan the output to see whether the install will
proceed correctly.  Unfortunately, it's not always clear how to invoke
an install from the subdirectory of interest.

   In cases like this, the best approach is to run your `make install
prefix=...', but be ready to interrupt it if you detect that it is
recompiling files.  Usually it will work just fine; otherwise, install
manually.