Using a shadow directory of symbolic links for the build

Building XFree86 from a Source Distribution : Using a shadow directory of symbolic links for the build
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3. Using a shadow directory of symbolic links for the build

A recommended practice is to use a shadow directory of symbolic links to do the build of XFree86. This permits to keep the source directory unmodified during the build, which has the following benefits:

In the case where CVS is used to maintain the source tree up to date, the update process is not disturbed by foreign files not under the control of CVS.
It is possible to build XFree86 for several different Operating System or architectures from the same sources, shared by NFS.
It is possible to build XFree86 with different configuration options, just by putting a real copyhost.def in each build tree and by customizing it separately in each build tree.

To make a shadow directory of symbolic links, use the following steps:

create the directory at the top of the build tree. It is often created at the same level that the xc directory, but this is not mandatory.
cd the directory containing the xcdirectory mkdir build
use the lndircommand to make the shadow tree:
lndir ../xc
Note that you can refer to the xc directory with an absolute path if needed.
See the lndir(1) manual page for details.

If lndir is not already installed on your system, you can build it manually from the XFree86 sources by running the following commands:

cd xc/config/util make -f Makefile.ini lndir cp lndir some directory in your PATH