Creating setup files in Linux

[uniquerockrz]

I have written a console program in C named main.c.

I want to turn it into an application, so that using a Makefile and 'make' and 'make install' commands one is able to install that in his/her computer.

Any ideas how to do that? I have searched tutorials for making the Makefile but they just tell me the way to compile the source files, not "install" them.

PS, I use Fedora 15 and Code::Blocks Ide, if that is of any help.

PPS : I have seen that copying the executable produced by gcc to /usr/bin directory does has the same result as installing. Is that what 'make install' command does?

[khmadhu]

for a single file better use the binary file after compiling , that should work. but Linux binary is different from windows.thus u cannot use in windows, u need to rebuild again in windows environment.
thats why they told you to build from source..

'make install' does the same but in addition it does a lot in placing/checking files in correct path.

remember in Linux Everything is a file!

[Garbage]

From What does "make install" actually do?

What does "make install" do entirely depends on the concrete case we are talking about. "make" is a tool that -unless otherwise instructed via command line options- looks into the current directory for a makefile, and builds the target you instructed it to build. In this case, the target is "install". Such target is usually scripted in a fashion that it will install a number of files after the program is compiled. Each file to the right place (i.e. binaries in /bin or /usr/bin, docs in /usr/share/doc..... ), but it will also set permissions and ownerships and maybe do some other tasks.

So, in short, to compile a program you usually do "make", and to install it after compiling you do "make install". Usually you do need root permissions if you want to install to /

It usually installs the stuff in your system, however, this entirely depends on the one who scripted the makefile. It wouldn't make much sense to use the "install" target to launch a pacman clone, but it's certainly possible to do so.

But, you can safely assume that "make install" will install the program or whatever you just built in your system.