Build Serna Free on Ubuntu GNU/Linux in 10 steps

I like Debian Linux and I like Ubuntu Linux very much as its more successful derivative. So today I will share some tips with you about how to build Serna Free on Ubuntu in 10 very easy steps.

1. First we need to go to Syntext Downloads page and download the sources:
   1. Serna Free Source: serna-free-src-20090715.tar.bz2
   2. Third party Open Source Software Packages:
      • DITA Open Toolkit
      • PyQt X11
      • QScintilla
      • ANTLR
      • Doxygen
      • Libiconv
      • LibXml2
      • LibXSLT
      • Qt X11 Open Source
      • QtPropertyBrowser
      • Aspell
      • Docbook XSL
      • SIP
      • Python
2. Create a dir where Serna Free will be built: mkdir ~/serna-free.
3. Then we move there a package with Serna Free source code and extract it:

    ~serna-free$ tar xvfj serna-free-src-20090715.tar.bz2 && mv serna-free-src-20090715/* .

4. Create there a dir for the downloaded 3rd-party packages:

    ~serna-free$ mkdir 3rd/packages

5. After that, we move all the 3rd-party packages to the 3rd/packages dir.

6. On this step, we make sure that we’ve done everything correctly:

     ~serna-free$ ls -1 .

must show something like this:

3rd
build
build.bat
build.sh
defaults.pro
GPL_EXCEPTION.txt
INSTALL
LICENSE.GPL
Makefile.pro
serna
serna-free-src-20090710
serna-free-src-20090710.tar.bz2
sfworks
tools

and

     ~serna-free$ ls -1 3rd/packages/

antlr-2.7.1.tar.gz
aspell-0.50.5.tar.bz2
DITA-OT1.4_fullpackage_bin.tar.gz
docbook-xsl-1.68.1.tar.bz2
doxygen-1.5.1.src.tar.gz
jdk-1.6.0.tar.bz2
libiconv-1.11.tar.gz
libxml2-2.6.27.tar.gz
libxslt-1.1.19.tar.gz
PyQt-x11-gpl-4.5.4.tar.gz
Python-2.6.2.tar.bz2
QScintilla-gpl-2.4.tar.gz
qtpropertybrowser-2.5-opensource.tar.gz
qt-x11-opensource-src-4.5.1.tar.gz
sip-4.8.2.tar.gz

7. Install required libraries: sudo aptitude install libx11-dev libxext-dev libxmu-dev libfreetype6-dev libxft-dev libxinerama-dev zlib1g-dev ncurses-dev

8. Install required tools: sudo aptitude install build-essential flex patch bison

9. Make an alias for the make tool: sudo ln -s /usr/bin/make /usr/bin/gmake

10. And run building of Serna!

 ~serna-free$ ./build.sh

When building is done:

• You can use the built .tar.gz package to install Serna (located in the ~/serna-free/build/serna directory).
• Run Serna immediately:

~serna-free$ cd build/serna/bin

~serna-free$ . envserna.sh

~serna-free$ ./serna

Andrew

P.S. Btw, if you are good at making and mantaining .deb packages, your help to “debianize” Serna would be very much appreciated!

// Andrew Sichevoi