need help at make -f Makefile.dist part?

[novacaine06]

i started at 1.7 section in Install.newbie folder and got to the make -f Makefile.dist and it gave me a "No such file or directory, No rule to make target etc... what is wrong? i am a complete linux newb having jsut installed it. Thanks for all input

[Althalus]

Could be:
1) If you did cvs download, then this failed for some reason and you didn't really get the source.

2) You are in wrong directory.

Do a
$ ls -l
in the directory. Do you see all the files? There should be a file called Makefile.dist

[novacaine06]

ok let me try the ls -l command, also when i do any cvs command it says that cvs is not a command? any clue? thanks

[Althalus]

Well if the "cvs" command is failing, then you definitely don't have the source, therefore the "make" command will definitely fail. I could understand if “cvs” was not installed, you would get a command not found error. I’m not sure what a cvs is not a command means. Make sure that cvs is properly installed on your system. This will require you to check the support boards for whatever linux distribution you are using, RedHat, Debian, Slackware, etc. Once you go there and get your cvs problem fixed, then try again.

[BlueAdept]

If he doesnt have the cvs module installed then he probably doesnt have a lot of the other necessary modules installed.

My suggestion is to get either RH9 or fedora core 2 and do a "everything" install.

This is a good site to help learn and figure out problems you have in linux http://www.tldp.org

[S_B_R]

I know this is going to sound like a flame, and I really don't mean it to be but... How do people decide to skip one error message and yet ask about the next error?