Building Demos on Ubuntu Linux, Mac OS, Visual Studio Expres

datamagik · Post by **datamagik** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:43 pm

I've been trying to get Irrlicht 1.2 working in XCode (used to write Mac sw 15 years ago and took the NeXT seminar so am somewhat familiar with this platform). I've gotten as far as getting the library to build in a new XCode project (had wanted to get a better understand of how the components fit together), but still can't get it to link to the Demo (also in a new XCode project).

This has lead me to try doing builds on Linux and Win XP to see how it builds in those environments. Last night I discovered that Virtual Studio Express C++ is available for free download so I am loading that on 2 PCs (one is a dual boot with Ubuntu) and in Parallels desktop on my iMac. I will assume for the moment that once I have the Microsoft Platform SDK installed that will eliminate the build errors I got trying to build the Demo in a fresh install of VS8 Express C++.

In Ubuntu Linux, once I added every dev tool I saw in the check list, will build the Demo but has a link error "cannot find -lXxf86vm" which I googled and learned this was a desktop environment library.

==> Is there some sort of path setting command I need to issue prior to the "make" command that will fix this? <===

My goal is to eventually learn more about doing builds in Linux (I've done a few things but I'm still thrashing around when it comes to UN*X command line dev tools), and try to test any changes I make to code from XCode to make sure it all builds the same under other development systems.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 8:22 am

You need some X11 packages on Ubuntu (as well as on all other distributions, simply depends on how completely you installed the development environment). However, the name of these packages is distribution dependent. So I cannot tell you which name to look for, but simply use the search function on ubuntu.org. Look for libXxf86vm.so

datamagik · Post by **datamagik** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:49 am

Will I need to do anything to tell my toolchain where to find that lib or will it figure that out once I've got it installed? THANK you very much for that answer.

Ok, installing Visual Studio Express C++ I figured out how to tell it where to find the main Windows SDK and then how to link the Direct X (Dec 2006) SDK. I'm still getting compile errors keeping me from building. The hang up seems to be a header called D3dxcore.h.

I'm trying reinstalling the DirectX SDK in case I missed something, but If someone reads this and can nudge me in the right direction I'm still within my first 24 hours playing with Visual Studio.

datamagik · Post by **datamagik** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:18 am

With a similar suggestion from someone who has built the engine on SUSE Linux I went back into Synaptic and found the libraries and X11 kits and installed them in my Ubuntu setup. The engine compiled nicely, but I had to remove IrrKlang from Demo to get that to build. It may be a lack of understand of how that ties in and perhaps I will be able to fix that later.

I am still stuck with Virtual Studio Express C++ unable to locate D3dx8.h and I don't see the SDK available on Microsofts site. I'm having Win XP search for it just in case it was in the Feb 2007 DirectX SDK and I just missed it. If anyone reads this and knows of something I should be doing to get the engine to build in that environment I will welcome your help!

Benjamin · Post by **Benjamin** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 4:37 am

I have the same problem, I've downloaded the latest SDK but I am in need of certain DirectX 8 headers and a static library.

Well, I found the headers and libs here, however when I compile I get a linker error saying "cannot open file 'd3dx8.lib'". The file definitely exists, so I don't know what the problem is.

Spintz · Post by **Spintz** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:25 pm

DX8 has not been officialy supported for, damn near 2 years now I believe. Just disable DX8, or go find and download the Dec 2004 SDK( I believe this is the last one with support for DX8 ).

You can disable DX8 by commenting out this line in IrrCompileConfig.h -

Code: Select all

#define _IRR_COMPILE_WITH_DIRECT3D_8_

You cannot simply copy DLLs and LIBs and expect DX to work. They are COM objects, and need to register themselves and other stupid crap that COM does.