Installation without root access

When using Linux systems, the user account does not typically have root privileges to install to system-wide directories such as /usr/local. You may be able to simply use sudo make install or sudo birch install to install to these directories. Alternatively, to install into your home directory, add the following lines to your .profile file:

export BIRCH_PREFIX=$HOME
export PATH=$BIRCH_PREFIX/bin:$PATH
export CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=$BIRCH_PREFIX/include:$CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$BIRCH_PREFIX/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Restart your terminal. You can now install Birch locally with:

./configure --prefix=$BIRCH_PREFIX
make -j 8
make install

To confirm that the version of Birch being run is that in your home directory, run which birch. This version of Birch in your home directory will likewise install your Birch packages into your home directory when you run birch install.