en/LXR 2.4 Tools Installation

The current version of LXR depends on the software tools enumerated below. Instructions are given for Linux, but similar steps can be inferred for Windows or other OSes.

In all cases, the preferred method of installation of these tools is a package download of your favourite distribution, so that you do not bother with compiling and configuring the tool, which may require expertise beyond the need of using LXR. If you really must compile and configure, refer to the appropriate documentation for installing each tool. There is usually a fairly automated procedure.

A Perl interpreter
Installed by default in nearly every distribution.
Check it is version 5.10 or higher, because LXR relies on features introduced in this version. Type the following in a terminal: $ perl -v This is perl 5, version 14, subversion 2 (v5.14.2) built for … If you can't upgrade to 5.10 (released in December 2007, so this is not really bleeding edge), install LXR 0.11.1 which is the last compatible version, but new features will not be available.
A recent version of the exuberant ctags program
Usually installed from a package of your distribution. As a last resort, it is available from SourceForge.
For "recent", read version 5 or higher. Type this in a terminal: $ ctags --version Exuberant Ctags 5.8, Copyright (C) 1996-2009 Darren Hiebert … You can launch automatically these two tests once you have installed LXR and before you start the configuration step. See next page.
A relational database
MariaDB or MySQL 4.x/5.x, Oracle, PostgreSQL and SQLite are supported. You will also need the right Perl DBI drivers for your particular database, usually available from CPAN (if not in your distribution).
A webserver
Apache httpd with mod_perl is very common. lighttpd is an alternate choice. Starting with LXR 2.0, Cherokee, Nginx and thttpd may also be used.
All may be installed from a package.
For free-text searching, either Glimpse or Swish-e version 2.1 or later Swish-e is fully GPL'ed. Since September 2014, Glimpse is released under ISC open source licence which is GPL compatible. However, it is highly unlikely you would find binary packages for them in your favorite distribution, but installing one from source is quite automated.
How do you choose between them?
- Glimpse gives you access to the line of the occurrence and can distinguish multiple occurrences within a file.
- Swish-e gives you access to the file containing occurrences, merging all occurrences into a single reference. But it can index CVS repositories (through file copy, which cancels the size advantage of a CVS repository).
The developers' preferred choice is Glimpse which provides more useful information.
The Perl database driver interface DBI and the relevant DBD driver for the database you are using If they are not already installed, you can get them from CPAN. More info here.
The Perl File::MMagic module First, try package perl-file-mmagic. If that fails, available from CPAN.