What is the difference between gmake and make?

Question

I am trying to understand the difference between \'gmake\' and \'make\'?

On my linux box they are identical:

% gmake --version
GNU Make 3.81
Copyri         


        

Answer 1

On my system no difference (gmake is soft link to make):

-> ls -l $(which gmake make)
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      4 Jun  5  2007 /usr/bin/gmake -> make
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 168976 Jul 13  2006 /usr/bin/make

gmake stands for GNU make. There're different implementations of make. On Linux machine most probably make will by GNU and to make user's life isier make is soft linked to gmake.