Not clear how to install drake in installation-from-source instructions

[edrumwri]

This page (https://drake.mit.edu/from_source.html) tells how to build drake (binaries) but does not tell how to install libraries, binaries, headers, etc. to, e.g., /usr/lib, /usr/bin, etc. Even producing the directories in the same manner as the binary distribution would be okay (not as simple as the typical make install, but still fine), but that does not appear to be covered by the documentation for "installation from source".

(Assigning to @jwnimmer-tri, please feel free to reassign)

[jwnimmer-tri]

I can see that the docs could be improved, I'll see what I can do.

Could you share your actual use case, so that I can make sure it's addressed, and I'm not firing in the dark on what the target is?

However, the short answer is that it's just like any other CMake project -- you do cmake && make install, probably from a separate build folder like cmake ../drake && make install if you'd like to keep build output separate from the sources.

And of course https://github.com/RobotLocomotion/drake-external-examples shows how to use Drake from another CMake project as an external, though it sounds like you have a different use case in mind.

\CC @jamiesnape FYI

[edrumwri]

I eventually gathered that the installation process used cmake (from which I also gathered that the cmake && make install process was the way to do this) but only after sifting through lots of ./bazel-* outputs.

I wasn't aware of https://github.com/RobotLocomotion/drake-external-examples; the drake_cmake_installed case describes exactly my use case.

@jwnimmer-tri I think essentially copying the documentation on https://github.com/RobotLocomotion/drake-external-examples (specifically that under "Examples of how to use Drake in your own project") to Drake's installation-from-source would have answered my question.

[jwnimmer-tri]

Great. So at a minimum, Drake's docs should hyperlink to drake-external-examples.

[jwnimmer-tri]

(Well, it's linked from the https://drake.mit.edu/ homepage, but the "from source" and "from binary" pages should link to it also.)

[jwnimmer-tri]

Kicking over to @jamiesnape so as to roll up into the overall installation instruction tune-up of code, docs, etc.

[jwnimmer-tri]

Fixed in #22461.