=========================================================================== OpenSource Erlang/OTP =========================================================================== Please read the whole file before attempting to build and install Erlang. You can find more information about OpenSource Erlang at http://www.erlang.org/ Portability ----------- Erlang/OTP should be possible to build from source on any Unix system, including Mac OS X. Instructions for building from source on Windows are in the file README.win32. Binary releases for Windows can be found at http://www.erlang.org/ At Ericsson we have a "Daily Build and Test" that runs on: Operating system Versions ----------------------------------------------------------- Solaris/Sparc32 8, 9, 10 Linux/Suse x86 9.3, 10.0 Linux/Suse Amd64 9.3, 10.0 Linux/Montavista PPC 3.1 FreeBSD x86 5.0 Mac OS X/Intel 10.4.10 (Tiger) Windows x86 XP SP2, 2003, Vista We have also done some limited testing on the following platforms: Mac OS X/Intel 10.5.1 (Leopard) Mac OS X/PPC 10.4.11 (Tiger) Versions known *not* to work ------------------------------------- Suse linux 9.1 is shipped with a patched GCC version 3.3.3, having the rpm named gcc-3.3.3-41. That version has a serious optimization bug that makes it unusable for building the erlang emulator. Please upgrade GCC to a newer version before building on Suse 9.1. Suse Linux EnterpriSe edition 9 (SLES9) has gcc-3.3.3-43 and is not affected. FreeBSD has a bug which cause kqueue/poll/select to fail to detect that a writev() on a pipe has been made. This bug should have been fixed in FreeBSD 6.3 and FreeBSD 7.0. More information can be found at: * http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/kern/sys_pipe.c * http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-arch/2007-September/006790.html NetBSD and DragonFlyBSD probably have or have had the same bug. getcwd() on Solaris 9 can cause an emulator crash. If you have async-threads enabled you can increase the stack size of the async-threads as a temporary workaround. See the +a command-line argument in the documentation of erl(1). Without async-threads the emulator isn't as vulnerable to this bug, but if you hit it without async-threads the only workaround available is to enable async-threads and increase the stack size of the async-threads. Sun has however released patches that fixes the issue: Problem Description: 6448300 large mnttab can cause stack overrun during Solaris 9 getcwd * http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-21-112874-40-1&searchclause=6448300 * http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-21-114432-29-1&searchclause=6448300 Required utilities ------------------ These are the tools you will need in order to unpack and build Erlang/OTP. Unpacking --------- GNU unzip, or a modern uncompress. A TAR program that understands the GNU TAR format for long filenames (such as GNU TAR). Compiling --------- GNU make GNU C compiler Perl 5 OpenSSL Optional, but needed for building the Erlang/OTP applications 'ssl' and 'crypto'. You need the "development package" of OpenSSL, i.e. including the header files. For building the application 'ssl' the OpenSSL binary command program 'openssl' is also needed. At least version 0.9.7 of OpenSSL is required. Sun Java jdk-1.2.2 Or higher. Optional but needed for building the Erlang/OTP application 'jinterface' and parts of 'ic' and 'orber'. In addition to 1.2.2, we have tested jdk-1.3.1 and jdk-1.4.2. X Windows Optional, but development headers and libraries are needed to build the Erlang/OTP application 'gs' on Unix/Linux. sed There seem to be some problems with some of the 'sed' version on Solaris. Make sure "/bin/sed" or "/usr/bin/sed" is used on the Solaris platform. Flex Optional, headers and libraries are needed to build the flex scanner for the megaco application on Unix/Linux. LibGD Optional, but needed if you want to use the percept application. http://www.libgd.org Installing ---------- An 'install' program that can take multiple file names. How to build and install Erlang/OTP ----------------------------------- Start by unpacking the Erlang/OTP distribution file with your GNU compatible TAR 1) gunzip -c otp_src_R12B-0.tar.gz | tar xf - 1) zcat otp_src_R12B-0.tar.gz | tar xf - Now cd into the base directory 2) cd otp_src_R12B-0 On some platforms Perl may behave strangely if certain locales are set, so optionally you may need to set the LANG variable: 3a) LANG=C; export LANG #Bourne shell or 3b) setenv LANG C #C-shell Run the following commands 4a) ./configure [ options ] or 4b) ./configure --prefix=<BaseDir> [ other options ] By default, Erlang/OTP will be installed in /usr/local/{bin,lib/erlang,man/man1}. To instead install in <BaseDir>/{bin,lib/erlang,man/man1}, use the --prefix=<BaseDir> option. If you upgraded the source with some patch you may need to clean up from previous builds before the new build. Do a "make clean"; see "Caveats" below. 5) make 6) make install Let's go through them in some detail: Step 4 runs a configuration script created by the GNU autoconf utility, which checks for system specific features and then creates a number of makefiles. The configure script allows you to customize a number of parameters; type "./configure --help" for details. One of the things you can specify is where Erlang/OTP should be installed: by default Erlang/OTP will be installed in /usr/local/{bin,lib/erlang,man/man1}; to keep the same structure but install in a different place, <Dir> say, use the --prefix argument like this: "./configure --prefix=<Dir>". This step will also configure any additional libraries unpacked in step 3 (if you didn't add any of the extra libraries configure will issue a warning saying that there is no configuration information in lib; this warning can safely be ignored). You can also specify where the OpenSSL include and library files are located, or alternatively disable the use of SSL and Crypto. (The details can be found by typing './configure --help'.) Other options are: --enable-smp-support See the next section. --disable-smp-support See the next section. --disable-threads Disable support for threaded I/O; this option also disables building of the SMP emulator. (See the next section.) --enable-threads Enable support for threaded I/O. (This is the default if SMP support is enabled. See the next section.) --disable-hipe Disable HiPE (High-Performance Erlang). HiPE will automatically be enabled on supported platforms. Step 5 builds the Erlang/OTP system. On a fast computer, this will take about 5 minutes. After completion of this step, you should have a working Erlang/OTP system which you can try by typing "bin/erl". This should start up Erlang/OTP and give you a prompt. Step 6 is optional. It installs Erlang/OTP (if you change your mind about where you wish to install you can rerun step 4, without having to do step 5 again). If you or your system has special requirements please read the Makefile for additional configuration information. Support for SMP (Symmetric Multi Processing) -------------------------------------------- For platforms that are known by us to support the SMP emulator, the SMP emulator will be built automatically. To force building of an SMP emulator, use "./configure --enable-smp-support". For more details about this, see the release notes. Use "./configure --disable-smp-support" if you for some reason don't want to have the SMP emulator built. If SMP support is enabled, support for threaded I/O will also be turned on (even in the standard, non-SMP emulator). New from the R12B release is that the 'erl' command automatically will start the SMP emulator if the computer has more than one core or CPU. (Use 'erl -smp disable' to force the non-SMP emulator to be started, or 'erl -smp enable' to start the SMP emulator on a computer with only one CPU.) How to install the Erlang/OTP documentation ------------------------------------------- For some graphical tools to find the on-line help you have to install the HTML documentation on top of the installed OTP applications, i.e. cd <PrefixDir>/lib/erlang gunzip -c otp_html_R<XY>B-<Z>.tar.gz | tar xf - For "erl -man <page>" to work the Unix manual pages have to be installed in the same way, i.e. cd <PrefixDir>/lib/erlang gunzip -c otp_man_R<XY>B-<Z>.tar.gz | tar xf - GS (Graphic System) ------------------- GS now requires Tcl/Tk 8.3. It will be searched for when starting GS. Using HiPE ---------- HiPE supports the following system configurations: x86: All 32-bit and 64-bit mode processors should work. The following systems are supported: Linux: Fedora Core is supported. Both 32-bit and 64-bit modes are supported. NPTL glibc is strongly preferred, or a LinuxThreads glibc configured for "floating stacks". Old non-floating stacks glibcs have a fundamental problem that makes HiPE support and threads support mutually exclusive. Solaris: Solaris 10 (32-bit and 64-bit) and 9 (32-bit) are supported. The build requires a version of the GNU C compiler (gcc) that has been configured to use the GNU assembler (gas). Sun's x86 assembler is emphatically /not/ supported. FreeBSD: FreeBSD 6.1 and 6.2 in 32-bit and 64-bit modes should work. PowerPC: All 32-bit 6xx/7xx(G3)/74xx(G4) processors should work. 32-bit mode on 970 (G5) and POWER5 is untested and may need compiler changes (to avoid using the "mcrxr" instruction). Linux (Yellow Dog) and Mac OSX 10.3.9 are supported. SPARC: All UltraSPARC processors running 32-bit user code should work. Solaris 9 and Linux (Aurora) are supported. On Solaris the build requires a gcc that has been configured to use Sun's assembler and linker. Using the GNU assembler but Sun's linker has been known to cause problems. ARM: Big-endian mode on ARMv5TE (i.e. XScale) processors should work. Linux is supported. HiPE is automatically enabled on the following systems: x86 in 32-bit mode: Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD x86 in 64-bit mode: Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD PowerPC: Linux, MacOSX SPARC: Linux ARM: Linux On other supported systems you need to "./configure --enable-hipe". If you are running on a platform supporting HiPE and if you have not disabled HiPE, you can compile a module into native code like this from the Erlang shell: c(Module, native). or c(Module, [native|OtherOptions]). Using the erlc program, write like this: erlc +native Module.erl The native code will be placed into the beam file and automatically loaded when the beam file is loaded. To add hipe options, write like this from the Erlang shell: c(Module, [native,{hipe,HipeOptions}|MoreOptions]). Use hipe:help_options(). to print out the available options. Mac OS X (Darwin) ----------------- Mac OS X version 10.4 (Tiger) or later is recommended. 10.5 (Leopard) is tested, but at the time of writing, not on a regular basis. Earlier releases of Mac OS X might work, but we have not tested them. On earlier releases, use the "gnutar" command to unpack the sources. (If a non-GNU tar is used, some files will not be correctly extracted and the build will fail.) Make sure that the command "hostname" returns a valid fully qualified host name (this is configured in "/etc/hostconfig"). If you develop linked-in drivers (shared library) you need to link using "gcc" and the flags "-bundle -flat_namespace -undefined suppress". You also include "-fno-common" in CFLAGS when compiling. Use ".so" as the library suffix. Universal 32bit binaries can be built on an Intel Mac using the --enable-darwin-universal configure option. There still may occur problems with certain applications using this option, but the base system should run smoothly. When building universal binaries on a PowerPC Mac (at least on Tiger), you must point out a suitable SDK that contains universal binaries: CFLAGS="-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk" LDFLAGS="-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk" ./configure --enable-darwin-universal Experimental support for 64bit x86 darwin binaries can be enabled using the --enable-darwin-64bit configure flag. The 64bit binaries are best built and run on Leopard, but most of the system also works on Tiger (Tiger's 64bit libraries are, however, limited; therefore e.g. odbc, crypto, ssl etc. are not supported in Tiger). 64bit PPC binaries are not supported and we have no plans to add such support (no machines to test on). Universal binaries and 64bit binaries are mutually exclusive options. Make and the variable "ERL_TOP" ------------------------------- All the makefiles in the entire directory tree use the environment variable ERL_TOP to find the absolute path of the installation. The configure script will figure this out and set it in the top level Makefile (which, when building, it will pass on). However, when developing it is sometimes convenient to be able to run make in a subdirectory. To do this you must set the ERL_TOP variable before you run make. For example, assume your GNU make program is called "make" and you want to rebuild the application STDLIB, then you could do: cd lib/stdlib; env ERL_TOP=<Dir> make where <Dir> would be what you find ERL_TOP is set to in the top level Makefile. More Information ---------------- More information can be found at http://www.erlang.org.