Create setup for Linux C project

Question

I want to create a setup for my project so that it can be installed on any pc without installing the header files. How can I do that?

Answer 1

There are two general ways to distribute programs:

1. Via source. The most common way is to use GNU autotools to generate a configure script so that your project can be installed by doing ./configure && make install
2. Prebuilt. Instead of shipping source, you ship binaries. There are a couple of competing standards although the two main ones are RPM and DEB file.

Answer 2

You just changed your question (appreciated, it was kind of vage), so my answer no longer applies ..

• make sure you have a C compiler
  I'd be surprised if you didn't, Linux normally has one
• find an editor you are comfortable with
  vi and emacs are the classics
• write your first program and compile
• learn about makefiles
• learn about sub projects and libraries

Answer 3

In many respects, your question is too vague to be answerable. You will need to describe more what you have in mind. All else apart, if you are using an integrated development environment (IDE), then what you do should be coloured strongly by what the IDE encourages you to do. (Fighting your IDE is counter-productive; I've just never found an IDE that doesn't make me want to fight it.)

However, for a typical project on Linux, you will create a directory to hold the materials. For a small project (up to a few thousand lines of code in a few - say 5-20 - files), you might not need any more structure than a single directory. For bigger projects, you will segregate sub-sections of the project into separate sub-directories under the main project directory.

Depending on your build mechanisms, you may have a single makefile at the top of the project hierarchy (or the only directory in the 'hierarchy'). This goes in line with the 'Recursive Make Considered Harmful' paper (P Miller). Alternatively, you can create a separate makefile for each sub-directory and the top-level makefile simply coordinates builds across directories.

You should also consider which version control system (VCS) you will use.