[FIXED] makeinfo command not found

In this article, we have explored the reason behind the error "makeinfo command not found" and presented various fixes to resolve this error.

Table of contents:

1. Reason for error
2. Fix 1: apt-get and alternatives
3. Fix 2: Build teXinfo from source

In short, the fix for the error is:

sudo apt-get install texinfo

If this quick fix does not work for you, go through this article at OpenGenus to fix this issue from the root.

Reason for error

You can get this error in various cases:

makeinfo: command not found 

This error comes because teXinfo project is not installed in your system. Texinfo is an open-source project by GNU that is usually installed in UNIX systems. It is used to format GNU projects.

Fix 1: apt-get and alternatives

Use the following command to install teXinfo in Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get udpate
sudo apt-get install texinfo

If the package teXinfo is not found, then add the following lines in the file "/etc/apt/sources.list":

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security main
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates main

If you are using MacOS, use the following command:

brew install texinfo

On Centos or Rocky Linux 8, use the following command:

yum install texi2html texinfo 
OR
dnf config-manager --set-enabled powertools && dnf install texinfo

On OpenSUSE, use:

sudo zypper install texinfo

Fix 2: Build teXinfo from source

Choose a version of teXinfo to download:

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/

Alternatively, you can clone the source code of teXinfo from GitHub:

https://github.com/debian-tex/texinfo

For this example, let us take the version 6.8:

wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/texinfo-6.8.tar.gz

Unzip the download source code of teXinfo:

tar -xvf texinfo-6.8.tar.gz
cd texinfo-6.8

Build and install teXinfo:

make -j 
make install

With this, teXinfo will be installed. Restart your session and the error will be resolved.