Many problems with "make"

[schawing]

First off, I am using SimplyMepis 2004.06 on a Gateway notebook with a P4 CPU. I have tried many many times to use the "make" utility to build from source. I have followed the instructions packed within Mepis itself, linux.com's instructions, and numerous other "official" sources for instructions on using this utility. Absoulutely none of these have worked, some of them even called for functions that Mepis identified as non existant.

I need very simple yet detailed instructions on how to use this utility. I do not have very much time to deal with Linux so try to keep it as simple as possible.

Thank you for your time.

And by the way, if anyone has a shell script or a program that can do all of the Make utility functions in a simpler, preferably in a GUI setup, it would very much appreciated.

[dylunio]

What is the exact problem/error you are having schawing?

dylunio

[swemic]

I need very simple yet detailed instructions on how to use this utility. I do not have very much time to deal with Linux so try to keep it as simple as possible.

And by the way, if anyone has a shell script or a program that can do all of the Make utility functions in a simpler, preferably in a GUI setup, it would very much appreciated.

If you really don't have much time to deal with Linux, I would sugest you to download ready-made binarys rather than source tarballs.

Quite impossible to have a total generall toolkit for "make", but, in most cases when it comes to source tarballs, they are distributed with a neat "configure" script that you have to run before "make"

Did you check the "README" and possibly "INSTALL" file prior you tried the "make" command?

[schawing]

For swemic, yes I did check the readme and install files, they didn't have much light on the subject. About the time situation, I have spent significantly less time on the source package issue than the prebuilt packages. On the other side of things, source packages are more up to date, take less time to hunt down, can be used on diverent distros, and have the wnole program in them, so much of the time prebuilt binaries are missing information.

Anyway back to dylunio
Okay, lets start at the beginning of things. Most of the instructions that I have found say to execute the following commands: (./configure), then (make), and followed by (make install)

when I use ./configure, it processes for a moment then comes up with the error message "checking for X . . . configure error: Can't find X includes. Please check your installation and add correct paths."
I don't know what to do with this error message other than to bring it here.

I then tried to skip this portion by using just plain make:
Error message: "make: *** No targets specified and no Makefile found. Stop." the following files are present in most of the sources that I have found: Makefile.am, Makefile.am.in, Makefile.cvs, and Makefile.in

I then tried to go to the last instruciton
Error Message: "make: *** No rule to make target 'install' Stop

As I have used Linux for only a few months, and that I am just a teenager, and have no programming experience beyond a little bit of HTML

[Flatline]

If it says it can't find the x includes, that usually means you need to install the devel packages for x. Take a look for them in synaptic.

[Santa's little helper]

And by the way, if anyone has a shell script or a program that can do all of the Make utility functions in a simpler, preferably in a GUI setup, it would very much appreciated.

Errm , how could it possibly be any simpler than make ?
All you have to do is type make or make install.
As it has been pointed out above your problem is not with make but with the fact that certain libraries don't seem to
exist on your system.