flightgear/docs-mini/README.Linux

I.  GENERAL LINUX INSTRUCTIONS
==============================

This is a short description of the things that need to be done to get
FlightGear up and running under Linux.

1. Prerequisites:

- You need to understand the concepts of 3D acceleration under Linux
  and the needed libraries.  You will need to install and configure
  accelerated drivers for your specific video card.  It is beyond the
  scope of this document to describe the process for your specific
  video card.

  More and more distributions are coming out with pre-packaged drivers
  so look around (just in case) before you go out and build software
  yourself.

  Here are some potentially useful sites, but be careful and find the
  specific instructions for your specific video card and distribution:

    http://www.thedukeofurl.org/reviews/misc/3dlinux/
    http://www.linux3d.net/
    http://dri.sourceforge.net/
    http://www.nvidia.com
    http://glide.xxedgexx.com/

  Without accelerated 3d rendering, FlightGear could never run at
  decent frame rates, even on the fastest CPU's.

- You will need 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.x so if you've already
  grabbed the latest version of mesa, you should have everything you
  need.

  Alternatively, you can use the 3D-stuff that came along with your
  Linux distribution. At least RedHat (5.3 and later) and S.u.S.E. 6.0
  (or later) may contain all the things you need depending again on
  your video card.

- Steve Baker's plib library.  Get it from:

    http://plib.sf.net

  ... and follow the instructions there to install it.

- SimGear.  Get it from:

    http://www.simgear.org

  ... and follow the instructions there to install it.


2. Build FlightGear:

   You will need the following files:

     FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz (source code)

   which can be found under:

     ftp://flightgear.sourceforge.net/pub/flightgear/Source

   and the base package located at:

     ftp://flightgear.sourceforge.net/pub/flightgear/Shared/

   the file is called 

	fgfs-base-x.xx.tar.gz       (data files)

   Ok, now that you got all the stuff, let's proceed towards installation.

   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".


3. Install the data files

   Change to /usr/local/lib

	tar xvfz WHERE_YOU_DOWNLOADED_THE_FILES/fgfs-base-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...

   We have mailing lists set up for specific FlightGear problems,
   bugs, and questions.  Please see the flightgear web page for
   details.


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>

    Updated by Curtis Olson <curt@flightgear.org> 6/26/2001


II.  RedHat Linux Notes
=======================

Summary: There are known problems with the versions of libstdc++ that
ships with both RedHat-5.1 and RedHat-5.2.  You need to upgrade your
libstdc++ before attempting to build flight gear on a RedHat system.

Raymond de Vries <vries@per.nl> writes: I ran into [this] problem on
my RedHat 5.2 system (brand new). After some searching I found out
that it's got to do with a 'bug' in the stdlibc++ libraries. I picked
up libstdc++-2.9.0-2.i386.rpm, installed it and FGFS compiled just
fine. However, some other packages must have the libstdc++-2.8
libraries....

BTW I also solved it with the 2.8 libraries by including
/usr/include/g++/std/bastring.cc into the example programs. I believe
this can be done since it's a template, correct me if I'm wrong.


III.  Linux/AXP Notes
====================

As of 2/19/99 I'm not aware of any glide port to Linux/AXP so it's
software rendering only for now.  :-(

This following information is contributed by "Daniel J. Frasnelli"
<dfrasnel@csee.wvu.edu>

1) Mesa was not built correctly by default.  I had to add the "-mieee"
flag to the Make-config for Mesa-3.1beta1 to fix the problem.  After
building and installation, all of the problems I had previously with
GL programs under AlphaLinux disappeared.

2) I also had to set the '-mieee' flag in $CFLAGS before configuring
and building FGFS.  The -mieee switch fixes floating point exception
handling.

I heavily optimized both Mesa and FGFS, using the libffm "fast math
library for Alpha" in preference over the default libm, sticking all
sorts of strange flags in $CFLAGS, etc.  These flags should be
adjusted for your specific architecture:

    export CFLAGS="-mieee -mcpu=ev56 -Wa,-m21164a -pipe -g"
    export CXXFLAGS="-mieee -mcpu=ev56 -Wa,-m21164a -pipe -g"
    ./configure