Wow, today I finally managed to compile a progam. Namely Gens (the Sega Genesis emulator) in Ubuntu! I had to install a few development packages first like SDL and GCC so it probably took me the best part of a hour to research and complete! I've got a special OpenGL version of Gens which is simply AWESOME! Joypad support is included as well. The funny thing is, Gens for Linux actually runs better then the Windows version. Nothing new there then
Congrats dude. :good: One doesn't need to compile software very often at all in a binary distro, but it's nice to be able to so easily when you need to. I've been compiling a lot of software lately to update certain software on my Wife's system. She's been running the same installation of the same version of Linux for years now with no incentive to upgrade. [ot]Linux literally runs faster over time, not slower like certain other OSes.[/ot] Anyway, for the most part she's totally happy with the software she's running, but there is some software she wants the latest versions of, such as Firefox, Thunderbird, Gaim and amaroK. There are easily installable binaries of FF and TB, etc. But amaroK is a special case since it integrates so closely with KDE. That program I had to compile, also htop. But using the "upgrade as necessary" method, she'll probably never need to reinstall her OS. Ever.
[ot] Mega, I am not sure if you are aware but you might sometimes find software packages which are not for debian (*.deb). They can still be installed using 'Alien'. At first, in Ubuntu, that was the only way I manged to install Skype. I downloaded the .rpm package and installed with Alien. Worked first time..... Thought I would mention..... [/ot]
Sabashuali, I know there are pre-assembled packages out there! Call me a geek because I actually find compiling software fascinating I can know for sure if a peice of software is optimised for my computer if I compile it. Chances are that it may run better then a pre-compiled debian or RPM package. Compiling software is quite easy. The reason the whole process can take hours is because of various missing developing or compiling libraries. Numerious errors will happen when a program tries to configure and 'make'. It's simply a case of using a search engine to find the solution. I have been compiling software exclusively on my Ubuntu computer. I've had to install just about every developing library available as Ubuntu doesn't ship with them. Not suprising though as Ubuntu is targeted at a new Linux user. So far I have compiled: Gens VisualBoy Advance (+ VBA Express Front-End) ZSNES Anti-Trend, although my Ubuntu box is now properly configured with the correct set of developing libraries, my SuSE box isn't Unfortunately, the SuSE forums aren't half as helpful as the members in the Ubuntu forums. When I try to compile Gens in SuSE, this is the error: Code: megamaced@emachines3220:~/gens-rc3.5-opengl> ./configure checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking target system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c checking whether build environment is sane... yes checking for gawk... gawk checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes checking for gcc... no checking for cc... no checking for cc... no checking for cl... no configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH See `config.log' for more details. I had this problem in Ubuntu as well, but I managed to correct it by EXPORTing something. However, SuSE is different to Ubuntu and I couldn't find anything relevant. As far as I am aware, I have the correct packages installed: glib 1.2.10 glib-devel 1.2.10 glibc 2.3.5 glibc-devel 2.3.5 glib2 2.8.5 glib2-devel 2.8.5 Any ideas?
OK, never mind. I've sorted the C compiler issue but now I have another problem :x: Now I need sort out my GTK2 packages. However this time round its not so simple. When I click to install GTK2-devel in YaST, I get a whole bundle of dependency issues which obviously haven't been solved despite the fact i've added 10 repositories I've offically given up compiling anything on SuSE for the time being. I've said it before and i'll say it again, SuSE is an almost perfect distribution but for god's sake where are all those missing packages in the SuSE repositories?
I didn't have to do that, I set development packages to be installed at the first install with both SuSE and Mandriva. Less hassle in the end!
