upgrading BRLTTY

[Geoff Shang]

Hi,

Some general advice about compiling.

First, read the ReadMe file and, if there is one, the Install file that 
comes with the source code you're trying to compile.  These should tell you 
about any dependencies you might need.  NOte that if you're using a 
package-based distribution such as redhat/fedora or Debian/Ubuntu, you will 
need the development versions of any required libraries, not just the 
runtime versions.  For Redhat and Fedora, this will usually involve 
installing a package with devel in the name, for Debian and Ubuntu the 
package will have dev in the name.

Second, if ./configure fails, don't bother trying to run Make.  Configure 
will usually only indicate an error if something important is missing. 
Unless configure is able to complete successfully, the sources won't be 
ready for you to run make.

finally, if you do get to running make and it errors out, the important 
information will not be the final line of output, but several lines further 
up.  The error will usually indicate a particular type of error in a 
specific line of a file.

Hope this helps.  My advice is, unless you really need to upgrade anything, 
you might want to stick with using packages for now, as compiling can get 
complicated if things aren't quite right with the code you're compiling. 
and if you do need to upgrade, you may be able to install a more recent 
package, rather than having to compile it from sources.

Geoff.