Numerous people ask this question on lynx-dev periodically. This page is an attempt to answer some of the questions and direct you to the resident Lynx-genius for a particular platform in case you're having trouble. Most of us will try to be helpful, but please be considerate when asking questions.
Amiga | Atari | DOS/Windows | Macintosh | OS/2 | OS-9 | Unix | VMS
There is a Lynx port for Amiga which seems to be quite successful. ALynx 1.29 is the most current version and is based on a port of Lynx2.4-FM. From all acounts, ALynx runs on Amiga without any major problems. More information is available at the *Amiga Lynx pages.
Atari users have been able to build Lynx on their machines.
Wayne Buttles has made available a port of Lynx 2.7 to Win32 at *http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/wlynx/, there is a patch and an executable, this appears to work in Windows95.
DJ Delorie recently reported that *Lynx 2.6 was successfully ported to *DJGPP (MS-DOS only) and that you could get the port from *ftp://ftp.delorie.com/pub/dj/. There has been a great deal of excitement over this in various newsgroups. Most users have had positive results, here's one of the *success stories.
DOS-Lynx is a completely different browser that runs on DOS. It has it's own development list called DOSLynx-dev. You can subscribe to it by sending a message to listproc@listproc.cc.ukans.edu with SUBSCRIBE DOSLYNX-DEV <YOUR NAME> in the message body.
Those interested in the future development of DOSLynx might wish to contact Wayne Buttles <buttles@wsb.champlain.edu> directly. Most questions/queries should be sent to the DOSLynx-Dev list though. Wayne's most recent *statement on the feasability of making a Lynx binary for DOS elucidates some issues. It seems as if a DOS version of Lynx itself (not DOSLynx) would require at least a 386 to run/compile on. Someone else is working on this and *their statement on the progress being made is archived as well. Meanwhile, we hear that Lynx 2.5 has successfully been ported to *GNU-WIN32 by Sergey Okhaskin <sos@prospect.com.ru>.
The *DOS-Lynx page at UKans has some useful info about DOS-Lynx. *F-DISK's DOS-Internet page has information on using DOS to get to general network services, including the web. The F-DISK page is maintained by Wayne. You might also want to consider using *Bobcat which is an alternative text browser for DOS.
It's reportedly easy to build Lynx for mklinux, just use the linux-ncurses argument for make (but you must have ncurses installed). There's a binary available through LYBiDO
There is an executable of lynx 2.5 for mklinux available from *ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/os/Linux/mklinux/mkarchive/comm/browsers/index.html In addition, it may be possible that someone has compiled Lynx on MachTen (Unix for the MAC) but we haven't heard about it yet. David Kammer recently *enquired about porting Lynx for the Mac
There is a version of Lynx ported to the PowerPC running *BE's Be Operating Systems. BeOS is shipping with Mac clones as of early 1997. The Lynx port was accomplished by John Jeffy Lin <jjl@columbia.edu> and more information can be found at *BE's BeWare: Communications page.
There is a Lynx port for OS/2 available, more information is available from *http://www.cris.com/~djd/products.html The port was accomplished by *Derek Decker <djd@cris.com>
We have heard of one success story as far as compiling the Unix/VMS distribution of Lynx on an OS-9 machine goes. The modifications made were quite comprehensive though, and the person who made them decided not to submit them for inclusion into the generic Unix/VMS distribution. For more information contact "Scott McGee (Personal)" <smcgee@sol.slcc.edu>.
Lynx runs on most *ix operating systems without a problem. *Tips on Lynx and Linux are provided by Duncan Hill. The Lynx 2.7 distribution should compile out of the box for the following flavours (output of 'make' without any arguments):
Please run make with one of the following arguments aix4 -- for RS/6000 running AIX 4.n and some 3.2 aix32 -- for RS/6000 running AIX 3.2 aix31 -- for RS/6000 running AIX 3.1 with curses bug apollo -- apollo systems (untested) bsdi -- BSD Interactive bsdi-ncurses -- BSD/OS(v2.0 or later) using ncurses(v1.9.4 or later) package. clix -- for Intergraph CLIX convex -- for Convex C-series convex-ncurses -- for Convex C-series with ncurses package dgux -- for DGUX freebsd -- for FreeBSD freebsd-ncurses -- for FreeBSD using ncurses package freebsd-slang -- for FreeBSD with color slang package generic -- for generic UNIX isc -- for Interactive Machines (untested) linux -- for PC linux linux-ncurses -- for PC linux using ncurses package linux-slang -- for linux with color slang package mips -- for MIPS, svr3/bsd flavour (untested) netbsd -- for NetBSD netbsd-ncurses -- for NetBSD using ncurses package news -- for SONY NEWS-OS 4.2.1R news-ncurses -- for SONY NEWS-OS 4.2.1R using ncurses package news-slang -- for SONY NEWS-OS 4.2.1R with color slang package next -- for NeXT OS next-ncurses -- for NeXT OS using ncurses package osf -- for Alpha OSF/1 osf-slang -- for Alpha OSF/1 with color slang package ptx -- for Sequent's DYNIX/ptx, version 4, (current version) ptx-slang -- for Sequent's DYNIX/ptx, version 4, with color slang package ptx -- for Sequent's DYNIX/ptx, current version ptx2 -- for Sequent's DYNIX/ptx, version 2 riscos -- Control Data Unix machine running EP/IX sco -- for SCO machines sco5 -- for SCO OpenServer Release 5 machines sgi -- for SGI machines sun3 -- for SUN 3 OS with System V curses sun4 -- for SUN 4 OS with System V curses sun4-ncurses -- for SUN 4 OS using ncurses package sun4-pure -- for SUN 4 OS with PURIFY and System V curses sun4-slang -- for SUN 4 OS with color slang package svr4 -- for SVR4 snake -- for HP-UX lt 9.01 (gcc) snake2 -- for HP-UX gte 9.01 (gcc) snake2-slang -- for HP-UX gte 9.01 (gcc) with color slang snake3 -- for HP-UX (purchased compiler) snake3-slang -- for HP-UX (purchased compiler) with color slang solaris2 -- for solaris 2.x solaris2cc -- for Solaris 2.x using Sun's unbundled C compiler solaris2-slang -- for Solaris 2 and color slang package solaris2-slangcc -- for Solaris 2 slang using Sun's unbundled C compiler ultrix -- for DEC Ultrix decstation -- for DEC Ultrix (same as ultrix) ultrix-slang -- for DEC Ultrix and color slang package decstation-slang -- for DEC Ultrix and color slang (same as ultrix-slang) umaxv -- for Encore's UMAXV (SVR3.x) umaxv-slang -- for Encore's UMAXV and color slang package unixware -- for Novell's Unixware univell -- for Novell's Unixware unixware-slang -- for Unixware and color slang package univell-slang -- for Unixware and color slang package
There are known problems with compiling for certain hardware/software combinations. If you are having trouble compiling, or trouble running the Lynx executable immediately after compiling it, please read the PROBLEMS file that came with the distribution. The *PROBLEMS file for Lynx 2.7 is available here. Don't forget to take a look at the *Lynx FAQ as well. If you can't find a solution in either of these places, feel free to send e-mail to lynx-dev@sig.net with a complete, detailed descripton of your woes.
Lynx 2.7 will compile for VMS with DECC, VAXC, or Pat Rankin's VMS port of GNUC, on AXPen or VAXen, and any of the TCP-IP agents for VMS (including MultiNet, UCX, TCPware, SOCKETSHR_TCP, CMU_TCP and WIN_TCP).