Source installation generally consists of three steps: Configuration (configure), compiling (make), mounting (makeinstall).
Configure is an executable script that has a lot of options, use the command ./configure-help output a detailed list of options in the source directory to be installed.
Which --prefix option is to configure the installation path if you do not configure this option after the installation executable file in the default / usr / local / bin, the default library file in / usr / local / lib, the default configuration files in / usr / local / etc, other resource files in / usr / local / share, messy.
If you configure --prefix, such as:
- ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/test
You can put all the resources files in / usr / local / test path, not messy.
Another benefit of using the -prefix option is to uninstall the software or software migration. When a software installation is no longer required, just simply delete the installation directory, you can uninstall the software was clean; porting software to simply copy the entire directory to another machine (same operating system).
Of course you want to uninstall the program, you can also use a make uninstall make in the original directory, but only if the make file specified too uninstall.