GPL Software Installation Instructions

You can write the GPL project on windows, linux, or OSX.  If you already use linux, I suggest you use linux.  If you are a windows user, I suggest you use windows.  While linux tends to be much faster, the time it would take to install and get use to linux is non-trivial.

IMPORTANT: You must use the GNU compiler.  You cannot use any other compiler (Visual C++, Borland C++, etc).

You will need the following software:
  1. GNU's C++ compiler, called g++ (version 4.1 or higher on Linux, 3.4.4 or higher on Cygwin)
  2. OpenGL (comes with windows and linux)
  3. freeglut (library for OpenGL, version 3.8)
  4. bison (compiler compiler, version 2.3)
  5. flex (lexigraphical analyzer, version 2.5.4)
  6. make
  7. gdb (GNU's debugger for g++)
Linux Installation

All the above components come with standard Linux distribution.  The only thing you might have to install is the FreeGLUT library (GLUT stands for openGL Utility Toolkit).  If you are using Fedora you can use www.rpmfind.net to find a recent rpm for FreeGLUT, otherwise find it on the Web.

When installing GLUT, the file glut.h must live in /usr/include/GL.  If you are using FreeGLUT, glut.h is a wrapper for freeglut_std.h.

You also will need the glut library.   Depending on the version, it will have a name like libglut.so.3.8.0 and should be in /usr/lib.  If your install script does not create one for you, you will need a symbolic link from libglut.so to the actual library (e.g. libglut.so.3.8.0).

OSX installation

OpenGL and Glut should already be installed.

Some students report that makedepend is already installed.  Some say it isn't.  One student send me the following link:

                    http://llg.cubic.org/docs/makedepend.zip

Another student said:

makedepend isn't installed by default on all machines.

makedepend is part of Apple's port of the X11 system/library, which  is not installed by default on any machine. Users using OS X 10.4  (Tiger), can install it from the system DVD that shipped with their  machines. Users using OS X 10.3 (Panther), can download it from  Apple's site:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/x11formacosx.html


Cygwin Installation (do this if you want to use windows)

If you choose to use windows, you will need to download the cygwin UNIX emulator.  Cygwin allows you to open UNIX-like windows on your PC running XP, ME, 2000, NT.  It will allow you to write your entire program on your computer and then copy it to the department machines for final testing and to turn it in.

Here are the steps for installing Cygwin on your windows machine

  1. Using windows explorer reate a directory c:\cygwin
  2. Go to http://www.cygwin.com and download setup.exe to c:\cygwin
  3. Run c:\cygwin.exe 
  4. Choose "Installation from Internet"
  5. press <next> button
  6. Type "c:\cygwin" as the root directory
  7. Leave the "all Users" and "Unix/binary" buttons checked
  8. press <next> button
  9. Use c:\cygwin as the package directory (this should be the default)
  10. press <next button>
  11. Leave the "Direct Connection" button checked
  12. press <next> button
  13. select a web-site to download from.  Usually mirrors.xmission.com works for me... but not always.
  14. press <next> button and wait
  15. You should now see a menu of items to select for download.  When you click on a "+" it opens the sub-directory.  
    1. from the Devel menu select
      1. bison
      2. ddd
      3. flex
      4. gcc
      5. g++
      6. gdb
      7. make
    2. from the editors menu select
      1. gvim
      2. nano
    3. from the graphics menu select
      1. freeglut
      2. opengl
    4. from the Utils menu select
      1. cygutils
    5. from the Net menu select
      1. openssh
  16. press the next button and wait for all of cygwin to install
  17. I suggest you leave the "create icon on desktop" and "add icon to start menu" boxes checked and press finish.
Potential Problem:

Cygwin will create a home directory for you based on your current Window's username.  If you don't like either the name or location of this directory, you can try the following (Cygwin has changed since I last installed it, so if this does not work, let me know)

  1. Using window's explorer, create a directory that Cygwin can use as your home directory.  I use C:\tyson
  2. Using window's notepad create a file named "profile" in the directory C:\cygwin\etc put in the following text but use the home directory and username you chose.  Make sure you see the "." after the PATH=  :
export PATH=.:/cygdrive/c/cygwin/bin:$PATH
export USER=tyson
export HOME=/cygdrive/c/tyson
cd $HOME

Note:  type "which makedepend" at the cygwin command prompt.  You should see "/usr/X11R6/bin/makedepend.exe"  Let me know if you get a "Command not found." message.