HowTo Compile In Gentoo
Compiling a recent version of aMule on Gentoo should be a breeze by just typing emerge amule. Unfortunately, it isn't quite that easy right now. So here's a little step by step explanation. Please read the entire document before attempting installation.
Note: currently Diego "Flameeyes" Pettenò (non-official devel) is trying to make the aMule emerge easier. Please take a look at Gentoo Bug #71108 for further information. The new ebuild requires, at minimum, wxGTK 2.5, but there is another ebuild for wxGTK 2.5 (also from Diego) which should allow to safely unmask that version.
Contents
aMule CVS ebuild
The eBuild for aMule CVS can be found here: http://forum.amule.org/thread.php?sid=&postid=30548
Stable aMule from portage
If you just emerge amule you will install the version of aMule that Gentoo considers stable. This version is amule-1.2.8 which is over 12 months old, lacks several bugfixes and features which could seriously lower your downloads or make it impossible to connect to some servers. So this option is not really a good option.
Unstable aMule from portage
Gentoo classifies amule-2.0.0-rc releases as unstable because they are Release Candidates. The most current ebuild in Portage is net-p2p/amule-2.0.0-rc7.ebuild (masked by keyword).
The most current, unofficial ebuild for Gentoo is amule-2.0.1.ebuild. Version 2.0.1 depends on >=wxGTK2.5.3 (masked by keyword) to build the aMule daemon. wxGTK 2.6.0 is suggested.
However, if rc7 is "good enough", fire up a console window and enter an su environment.
mkdir /etc/portage
echo 'net-p2p/amule ~x86' >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
emerge -av amule
Keep in mind that rc7 is getting quite old now, so the best ebuilds to use would be for version 2.0.1 (Gentoo Bug #71108) or even the recent CVS (Gentoo Bug #88243).
Recent aMule manual installation
By default, Gentoo uses gtk2 in all recent profiles. When it comes to wxGTK (which is needed by aMule), this can be some trouble. The recent stable wxGTK in portage is wxGTK2.4.2 which should never be linked against GTK2. It causes random crashes, freezes, unpredictable behaviour and may even harm your pet dog!
So there are two possible ways to go: choose wxGTK2.4.2 linked against GTK1.2 (which should be fine for everybody who doesn't want to use aMuled, the aMule daemon) or choose wxGTK2.5.3 linked either against GTK1.2 or GTK2 (for those who want to try aMuled as aMuled doesn't work with wxGTK prior to 2.5.3).
Another thing is unicode support: You can't enable unicode support when using GTK1.2 and enabling unicode with GTK2 causes huge memleaks (100MB and more in 24h). So I will just disable it in these examples.
wxGTK 2.5.3 - 2.6.0
If you want to use amuled then you need, at least, wxGTK2.5.3. Currently, the only version not hard masked in Portage is wxGTK 2.4.2 due to problems when compiling with OpenGL support in wxGTK 2.5.3. But as aMule is no 3D egoshooter, we can safely disable OpenGL support and use it anyway. To do so enter the following into a console as root:
mkdir /etc/portage (this may give you an error if the directory already exists, just ignore that)
echo 'x11-libs/wxGTK ~x86' >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
If you want to use GTK1.2 (recommended):
echo 'x11-libs/wxGTK -gtk2 -unicode -opengl' >> /etc/portage/package.use
If you want to use GTK2 (not thoroughly tested yet):
echo 'x11-libs/wxGTK -unicode -opengl' >> /etc/portage/package.use
emerge -av wxGTK
Note: There are two ebuilds available for amule-cvs. A version with >=wxGTK 2.6.0 support and a version with <=wxGTK 2.5.3 support. Please use the correct version depending on what version of wxGTK you choose to use. Of course, wxGTK >= 2.6.0 is recommended.
wxGTK 2.4.2
If you don't want to use the aMule daemon, wxGTK2.4.2 is just fine for. You only need to tell it that it should link against GTK1.2. To do this grab a console and enter (as root):
mkdir /etc/portage (this may give you an error if the directory already exists, just ignore that)
echo 'x11-libs/wxGTK -gtk2 -unicode' >> /etc/portage/package.use
emerge -av wxGTK
This should (re-)emerge wxGTK2.4.2 linked against GTK1.2. Now you can go on to compiling aMule.
Compiling aMule
Grab either amule-2.0.1 from http://www.aMule.org or (specially if you want to use aMuled) a recent CVS tarball from http://amule.hirnriss.net. Untar it by entering tar -xvjf aMule-foo.tar.bz2 and go into the newly created directory.
Review ./configure --help (or this article) for a summary of all configure options. Pick the ones you want and run (as an example building, the monolithic client and aMuleCMD)
./configure --enable-amulecmd
Review the configure output for errors and if everything seems fine type make. Once aMule is done compiling change to a root account and type make install to install aMule. Now you're done and can start enjoying your aMule experience.
