1.6 Configuration

GNUstep supports arbitrary filesystem layouts to map the locations in the various domains to directories on the filesystem.

When you run gnustep-make’s ./configure program you can use the –with-layout=xxx flag to select the filesystem layout that you prefer (choosing between the ones in the FilesystemLayouts directory, or creating your own in there!).

For most users, this is all they need to know.

In this section we’ll go more into the details of how the filesystem layout system internally works; this is only useful if you need to do something advanced with it, typically because you have multiple GNUstep installations or you are trying to do some custom packaging of GNUstep.

The filesystem layout is determined by the GNUstep configuration file (or if that is not present, by default values built into the GNUstep make and base packages when they were configured and built).

The location of the GNUstep configuration file is built in to the make and base packages when they are configured using the –with-config-file option to the configure script. The path specified must be an absolute one for the make package, but may also be a path relative to the location of the base library itsself (as dynamically linked into applications) for the base package.

However, the location of the configuration file may also be specified using the GNUSTEP_CONFIG_FILE environment variable, overriding the value built in to the package, at any time when using the make package to build or install software. Support for the environment variable may also be enabled for the make package when its configure script is run.

The GNUSTEP_CONFIG_FILE environment variable is particularly useful if you have multiple installations and need to easily switch between them.