6.34. Texinfo-4.7

The Texinfo package contains programs for reading, writing, and converting Info documents.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU

Required disk space: 17 MB

Texinfo installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses, and Sed

6.34.1. Installation of Texinfo

The following patch fixes a problem where the info program sometimes crashes when hitting the Delete key on the keyboard:

patch -Np1 -i ../texinfo-4.7-segfault-1.patch

Prepare Texinfo for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

Optionally, install the components belonging in a TeX installation:

make TEXMF=/usr/share/texmf install-tex

The meaning of the make parameter:

TEXMF=/usr/share/texmf

The TEXMF makefile variable holds the location of the root of the TeX tree if, for example, a TeX package will be installed later.

The Info documentation system uses a plain text file to hold its list of menu entries. The file is located at /usr/share/info/dir. Unfortunately, due to occasional problems in the Makefiles of various packages, it can sometimes get out of step with the Info manuals installed on the system. If the /usr/share/info/dir file ever needs to be recreated, the following optional commands will accomplish the task:

cd /usr/share/info
rm dir
for f in *
do install-info $f dir 2>/dev/null
done

6.34.2. Contents of Texinfo

Installed programs: info, infokey, install-info, makeinfo, texi2dvi, and texindex

Short Descriptions

info

Used to read Info documents which are similar to man pages, but often go much deeper than just explaining all the command line options. For example, compare man bison and info bison.

infokey

Compiles a source file containing Info customizations into a binary format

install-info

Used to install Info files; it updates entries in the Info index file

makeinfo

Translates the given Texinfo source documents into info files, plain text, or HTML

texi2dvi

Used to format the given Texinfo document into a device-independent file that can be printed

texindex

Used to sort Texinfo index files