So far we have come across four ways to run make in the GNU
Build System: make, make check, make install, and
make installcheck. The words check, install, and
installcheck, passed as arguments to make, are called
targets. make is a shorthand for make all,
all being the default target in the GNU Build System.
Here is a list of the most useful targets that the GNU Coding Standards specify.
make all ¶Build programs, libraries, documentation, etc. (same as make).
make install ¶Install what needs to be installed, copying the files from the package’s tree to system-wide directories.
make install-strip ¶Same as make install, then strip debugging symbols. Some
users like to trade space for useful bug reports...
make uninstall ¶The opposite of make install: erase the installed files.
(This needs to be run from the same build tree that was installed.)
make clean ¶Erase from the build tree the files built by make all.
make distclean ¶Additionally erase anything ./configure created.
make check ¶Run the test suite, if any.
make installcheck ¶Check the installed programs or libraries, if supported.
make dist ¶Recreate package-version.tar.gz from all the source files.