====== Installation how-to =======

//If you are using Ubuntu Linux, have a look at [[1.x/UbuntuInstallation | UbuntuInstallation]].//

There are two ways to install Equinox Desktop Environment:
  - download binary packages for your distribution
  - download source tarballs and compile it.

For the first option, please consult the documentation of your distribution. The rest of this document describes the second option.

Note that EDE requires eFLTK (extended FLTK) library. This library is an improved FLTK 2.0 library with many changes and core modifications. To build it, you don't need FLTK 2.0 source, eFLTK already includes it. You can download it from the standard project page.

===== Building efltk from source =====

After downloading, unpack it, cd into the unpacked directory and run:

<code>
./configure
</code>

You can check additional options with:

<code>
./configure --help
</code>

The usual way, configure will build eFLTK with MySQL and unixODBC support. EDE does not use it, so you can safely disable it. Option:

<code>
./configure --disable-mysql --disable-unixODBC
</code>

will do the job. eFLTK supports xft (font anti-aliasing) too. Building with this option EDE will have it too. Xft in older X versions, especially in XFree86 was very buggy and in that case the best way is to leave it. On the other hand, newer distributions ship with the X.org server which has very good xft support. In that case, command:


<code>
./configure --enable-xft
</code>


will include it.

If you have some spare time and would like to help us, we suggest to build eFLTK and EDE with debug support. This will create bigger and slower executable files, but in the case of odd behaviors and crashing the output will be more descriptive which will help us easily find the bugs. The option is:


<code>
./configure --enable-debug
</code>


After configure had done it's job, running:


<code>
./emake
</code>


will start the compilation process. When it is done,  you can install it (as root) with:


<code>
./emake install
</code>



===== Building EDE from source =====

EDE building is the same as building eFLTK, except for some configure options. Debugging is usually supported by the


<code>
./configure --enable-debug
</code>

flag. Other flags are:


<code>
./configure --disable-silent
</code>

which will remove those Compiling something... console output strings, replacing with the full compiler command line. This can be very useful (for debugging too) in case the compiler starts to act weird. Classical


<code>
make
</code>

and


<code>
make install
</code>


after configure finished will place EDE where it should be.

Last option left to be done is to place 


<code>
startede
</code>
in your local .xinitrc file line. This will invoke the script with the same name which will start various programs that are part of the desktop environment. The command


<code>
startx
</code>


will start X server and pull commands from your .xinitrc file.

If you use a login manager like XDM, GDM or KDM, put the line

<code>
/usr/local/bin/startede
</code>

(if startede is lying there) in your users home ~/.xsession file (create it if not exists).