# Building the Hurd from Source
If you want to build the Hurd libraries and servers (translators) yourself instead of just using pre-built binaries, follow these instructions.
## Getting the Source Code
You can chose between getting the [sources from the developers's RCS](http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/download.html#cvs):
$ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.savannah.gnu.org:/sources/hurd co hurd
... or (if you are working on a Debian system) the ones that are used for the [current Debian hurd package](http://packages.debian.net/source/unstable/hurd):
$ apt-get source hurd
Please see [[Distrib/DebianFAQ]] before using _apt-get source_.
The unpacked source tree is around 20 MiB, and the build tree (configured with _--disable-profile_) is around 100 MiB.
## Preparing for the Build
### ... on Debian systems
Building the Hurd requires the _build-essential_ and _fakeroot_ packages, their dependencies and additional packages that are specified by the source hurd package:
# apt-get install build-essential fakeroot
# apt-get build-dep hurd
### ... on non-Debian systems
[TODO]
## Building
### ... _.deb_ files
Change into the directory with the downloaded / unpacked Hurd sources, e.g.
$ cd hurd-[TODO]
Start the build process with
$ dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc -b -rfakeroot
### [TODO]
The Hurd has to be built in a separate directory:
$ mkdir hurd-build
$ cd hurd-build
$ [...]/hurd-[TODO]/configure --disable-profile
$ make
$ make install
Notice that _make install_ will install the Hurd in _/_, not in _/usr/local/_ or _/local/_, so your current Hurd servers will be replaced. [TODO: how to install somewhere else.]
By default profiling versions of all the libraries and code are generated but this is useless in most of the cases, so we disable them by specifying _--disable-profile_ on \_configure\_'s command line.
As an alternative, you can build and install the Hurd in the Debian way (from CVS snapshot):
$ cd hurd
$ dpkg-buildpackage
If you just want to build a specific server or library, you can pass its name to _make_:
$ make ext2fs
$ make libtrivfs
This will automatically build all libraries that are required to build the requested server or library.
### cross compiling.
[TODO]
## [TODO]
[TODO: update / integrate somewhere.]
If you want to trace the RPC calls made by some process by using `rpctrace` command, you will also want some more human-readable output of this command. This is achieved by generating `hurd.msgids` file that includes the mapping between the number of the RPC call and its name:
$ cd build/hurd
$ make hurd.msgids
$ cp hurd.msgids ~
Now you can use this file in the following way:
$ rpctrace -i ~/hurd.msgids ls
-- [[Main/OgnyanKulev]] - 08 Apr 2003