flightgear/README.Linux

Oct 8, 1998
============

This is a short description of the things I had to do to get
FlightGear up and running under Linux.

1. Prerequisites:

Linux (of any Flavour), a 3DFX-card (Voodoo1 in my case). 3D
operations without hardware support can force even the fastest PII to
its knees.... To make use of the accelerator board you need

- the GLIDE library installed. Grab it at:

	http://www.3dfx.com/software/download_glidel.html

and install. There is even an install script contained that will do
things for you. The canonical place for GLIDE is /usr/local/glide, if
you prefer another location, you'll have to edit the Makefile for
FlightGear by hand. Be sure to read and understand the file
/usr/local/glide/README.

- the MESA library version 2.6 (or greater) installed. I used 3.0 to
be on the safer side...

Grab it at"

	ftp://iris.ssec.wisc.edu/pub/Mesa

unpack it and run "make linux-glide" in the Mesa directory. Follow the
instructions in the README file, take a close look at README.3DFX and
play with the demo programs. Relax, rejoice :-)

- the GLUT library version 3.7 (or greater, aka GameGLUT) installed.

Grab it at:

	http://reality.sgi.com/opengl/glut3/glut3.html

  Note: glut-3.7 is included with Mesa 3.0 so if you've already
grabbed the latest version of mesa, you should have everything you
need.

2. Build FlightGear:

You will need the following files:

	FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz (source code)
	base-x.xx.tar.gz       (data files)

Unpack FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz using :

	tar xvfz FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz

and cd info FlightGear-x.xx. Run:

	./configure

and wait a few minutes. configure knows about a lot of options. Have a
look at the file INSTALL in the FlightGear source directory to learn
about them. If run without options, configure assumes that you will
install the data files under /usr/local/lib/FlightGear. Assuming
configure finished successfully, simply run

	make

and wait for the make process to finish. Now become root (for example
by using the su command) and type

	make install

This will install the binaries in /usr/local/bin. Notice that the name
of the FlightGear binary is "fgfs".

Another problem with Linux/Glide is permission-related. All programs
accessing the Accelerator board need root permissions. The solution is
either to play as root or make the /usr/local/bin/fgfs binary "setuid
root", i.e. when this binary is run root priviledges are given. Do
this by issuing (as root)

	chmod +s /usr/local/bin/fgfs

A solution for this problem is upcoming, keep an eye on the 3Dfx
website.

3. Install the data files

Change to /usr/local/lib/FlightGear and unpack the data files:

	tar xvfz WHERE_YOU DOWNLOADED_THE_FILES/base-x.xx.tar.gz 
	tar xvfz WHERE_YOU DOWNLOADED_THE_FILES/textures-x.xx.tar.gz

That's it...

4. Fly!

If everything went ok, simply type

	runfgfs

at the prompt. You should see the FlightGear splash-screen and a few
seconds later you'll find youself somewhere in the desert, ready for
take-off.

5. Strange things happen...

A note on the behaviour of Voodoo boards:

Your card comes packaged with a loop-through-cable. If you have only
one monitor, then the Voodoo will take it over when used. This means
that all the applications on your desktop will continue running but
you'll only see the FlightGear screen. If your window manager uses a
focus-follows-mouse policy, don't move the mouse. If you lose the
focus, there's no way to shut down FlightGear graciously! Better
solution: Use two monitors, one for your desktop, connect the other
one to your accelerator. You'll then get a window on your desktop
which manages all keyboard events and you're still able to see your
desktop.

Enjoy!

6. Conclusion

I hope this document provides some help. If it does, send virtual/real
beer to me, if not flame me!

Bernhard H. Buckel
<buckel@wmad95.mathematik.uni-wuerzburg.de>