Building and Configure Options

Building nano from source is fairly straightforward if you are familiar with compiling programs with autoconf support:

tar xvfz nano-x.y.z.tar.gz (where x.y.z is the version of nano) cd nano-x.y.z/ ./configure make make install

if you are looking to optimize nano for size, you may want to consider the following command line options:

--disable-tabcomp

Disable the tab completion code when reading or writing files.

--disable-justify

Disable the justify (^J)/unjustify (^U) functions in the editor.

--disable-speller

Disables spell checker abillity.

--disable-help

Disables the help function (^G). Disabling this option maks the binary much smaller, but makes it difficult for new users to learn more than very basic things about using the editor.

--disable-browser

Disables the mini file browser (^O) when reading or writing files.

--enable-tiny

This options disables all the above. It also disables some of the larger internals of the editor, like the marker code (^^) and the cut to line (-k) option which it depends on to work properly. It also disables the function toggles and mouse support.

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