difx_db installs in a way that should be familiar to most that have installed
modern Gnu software.

Requirements:

Package cx_oracle (available at http://cx-oracle.sourceforge.net/) is required.

To install from a .tar.gz distribution:

tar zxvf difx_db-XXX.tar.gz
cd difx_db-XXX
./configure --prefix=<prefix>     (replace <prefix> with the base install dir)
make
# (maybe become root here)
make install


To install from a fresh svn checkout, run the following:

aclocal
autoconf
automake -a

./configure --prefix=${DIFX_PREFIX}
make
# (su root?)
make install

After an svn update, these steps do not need to be rerun.  usually just 
"make" will update everything properly, but sometimes it is necessary
to run "autoreconf" before compiling again.  If that doesn't work,
one can always fall back on the above sequence of commands.