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Linux ctags build instructions in CONTRIBUTING.md are missing build dependencies

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
84/100
Issue type
Documentation
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
linux, shell

Research direction

Start with the Linux universal-ctags build instructions in CONTRIBUTING.md and compare their dependencies with install-ctags-macos.sh. Verify the documented setup on a clean Debian Bookworm container, including the --enable-json configure step. Done means the instructions list the required dependencies and the build proceeds past autogen.sh and configure.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

The Linux instructions for building universal-ctags in CONTRIBUTING.md don't list any build dependencies, so they fail on a clean machine.

On a clean debian:bookworm container with build-essential installed:

$ ./autogen.sh
No autotools (autoconf and automake) found
$ echo $?
1

After installing autoconf, automake and pkg-config, the next step fails too, since the documented configure line uses --enable-json:

$ ./configure --program-prefix=universal- --enable-json
configure: error: jansson not found
$ echo $?
1

install-ctags-macos.sh already installs these via brew, so the Linux path just needs the equivalent.

Happy to open a PR.

Dominant language
TypeScript
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Merged PRs (30d)
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