Build GNU Guile stable on Ubuntu 16.04

Question

The Ubuntu repositories only contain the old 2.0 version of GNU Guile. I want to build the current stable 2.2 on my machine.

I cloned the repository:

git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/guile.git

and checked out stable:

git checkout stable-2.2

The README file says that install instructions are in the INSTALL file. That one does not exist, so I searched the web and the only instructions I found are on http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/cvs/general/guile.html. They mention to run the typical configure, make, make install process with parameters and other things. However, next problem: There is no configure file in the repository I cloned.

How to build GNU Guile?

Answer 1

Apparently there is a not mentioned difference between what you can pull with git and versions one can download from https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/download/#debian for example. I have no idea why it would make sense to leave the important parts for installing out of the repository, since they are only some scripts, but it seems they only get added for releases downloadable in other ways.

The downloaded release versions can be built and installed using the usual ./configure, make, make install, process.

Answer 2

Here are some instructions that add more detail than in Zelphir's answer. This is what worked for me in Feb 2019.

Go to https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/download/#debian

Download tarball. (Per Zelphir's answer, don't use git).

apt-get install libgmp-dev libunistring-dev libffi-dev
./configure
make
make install
ldconfig
rm /usr/bin/guile
ln -s /usr/local/bin/guile /usr/bin/guile

Compiling took about 25 min on my system. Re the necessity for the ldconfig command, see https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-user/2014-05/msg00019.html . Libraries are in /usr/local/share/guile.