Check if svgalib is installedYou may go on and install linrad without worrying about this. If svgalib and nasm are in place everything will be ok automatically. If something is missing you will get a plain language message saying what is missing.Under Linux there is a command called locate by which you can get immediate information about all files present on your system. The locate command does not search the disk itself, it searches a data base. To search for svgalib you have to build the database if you are not sure that has already been done. The command is: updatedb This command will take some time but you do not have to repeat it until you want new files included in the database. Search for svgalib by typing: locate vgagl.h If locate prints something like /usr/local/include/vgagl.h svgalib is most probably installed properly already. In case your computer is modern and your Linux distribution is old it may be a good idea to get a later version of svgalib from the Internet because older versions do not support as many video boards - particularly not modern ones.... Remove any old svgalib installationThere is a command to remove old svgalib files that may interfere with the new installation (make clean). There may be a lot of old source code left after that so I prefer to make sure everything old is removed first by hand.Type:locate svgalib and you will get a listing on the svgalib source and man files on your system. Update the database with updatedb first if you have not done it recently. Typically you have to type the following commands to remove all of it: rm -r -f /usr/local/src/svgalib* rm -f /usr/local/man/man7/svgalib* rm -f /usr/local/man/man5/svgalib* Then type: locate libvga and you will get a listing on the libraries. The following commands may be needed to remove: rm -f /etc/vga/libvga* rm -f /usr/local/lib/libvga* rm -f /usr/local/man/man5/libvga* Finally remove the include files: rm /usr/local/include/vga.h rm /usr/local/include/vgagl.h When you think all is removed, run the updatedb command and then use locate to search for svgalib and libvga this way you will be sure nothing is left of the old installation. Install svgalibTo compile linrad you need the files vga.h and vgagl.h. To run linrad you need libvga.so.1 and libvgagl.so.1. Note that you do not need any of this to compile xlinrad, the version of Linrad that runs under X11, the graphical environment of Linux.It is not difficult to install directly from the source code. Just follow the detailed instructions below. Get the latest source code package from svgalib.org or download from here: svga1925.tbz packed with bzip2. (808237 bytes) Note that the version you can download here has a few small modifications that allows it to be used with old versions of gcc, the GNU C compiler as well as with the latest Linux kernels. Copy the file to a suitable location, for example /usr/src (you will need root privileges for this and for some of the following operations. Use the command su or just log in as root when you do installation work) Unpack the file. Type:bunzip2 svga1925.tgz This command produces the svga1925.tar file (Tape archive, an old standard to combine many small files into a single file) In case you downloaded from the Internet. Type:gunzip svgalib-1.9.25.tar.gz Then, to get the svgalib source directory with all the source files in it, type:tar xvf svga1925.tar Descend into the svgalib source directory, type:cd svgalib-1.9.25 It is possible to edit Makefile.cfg to make the installation place files where you want them. To avoid any complications, use defaults. Type: make install svgalib has a configuration file, /etc/vga/libvga.config. You may have to edit this file to specify what type of mouse you are using, what vertical and horizontal sync frequencies are acceptable to your screen and so on. To edit a file you need a text editor. My favourite is joe. If you do not have it there will surely be some other text editor available in your Linux system. The default libvga.config specifies the mouse as unconfigured. This must be changed. You may have to make other changes to get full performance out of your hardware. Wait with libvga.config until linrad is installed. SM 5 BSZ Home page Linrad home page |