FAQ update? SDL error: No video devices available

SDL Development
1

Hi there,

After much googling and apt-file searching, including trying to understand the human-unreadble ./configure script (man who wrote that? Skynet?), I finally found out the root of a problem I had:

I have several machines running different versions of Ubuntu linux. One a vanilla 9.04 installation and one ol’ upgraded to 8.10 who have pretty much everything installed (ok, slight exaggeration). Of course when I tried to ./configure, make, make install SDL on the 9.04 and make/run my small test application (made on the 8.10), it bombed with the SDL error “No video devices available”.

The FAQ did not quite give me the straight forward help I’d liked. The FAQ states “make sure that you have the X11 development libraries installed”. It would have saved me quite some time to know more specifically which one it was - as I am not a hard core linux hacker who instictively know these things. Now I know that on Ubuntu/Debian they are called libx11-dev and nothing else. Perhaps the FAQ could be updated with this information?

Cheers!
/ Daniel_________________________________________________________________
V?rk?nslor och pirr i magen? Hitta din dr?mpartner h?r!
http://dejting.se.msn.com/channel/index.aspx?trackingid=1002952

2

What I installed was:

“libgl1-mesa-dev”, “libglu1-mesa-dev” and “xorg-dev”, plus all dependencies.

I recommend you also get the libgl1/libglu1 packages for OpenGL support.

I also agree this should be in the FAQ, or better yet, in the INSTALL file :wink:

Pat________________________________
From: vild.vacker@hotmail.com (Daniel Johansson)
To: SDL
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 4:14:00 PM
Subject: [SDL] FAQ update? SDL error: No video devices available

Hi there,

After much googling and apt-file searching, including trying to understand the human-unreadble ./configure script (man who wrote that? Skynet?), I finally found out the root of a problem I had:

I have several machines running different versions of Ubuntu linux. One a vanilla 9.04 installation and one ol’ upgraded to 8.10 who have pretty much everything installed (ok, slight exaggeration). Of course when I tried to ./configure, make, make install SDL on the 9.04 and make/run my small test application (made on the 8.10), it bombed with the SDL error “No video devices available”.

The FAQ did not quite give me the straight forward help I’d liked. The FAQ states “make sure that you have the X11 development libraries installed”. It would have saved me quite some time to know more specifically which one it was - as I am not a hard core linux hacker who instictively know these things. Now I know that on Ubuntu/Debian they are called libx11-dev and nothing else. Perhaps the FAQ could be updated with this information?

Cheers!
/ Daniel

Dela foton p? ett smidigt s?tt med Windows LiveT Photos. Dra och sl?pp

3

Why not use ubuntu package ? Unless you are trying the newest version of
sdl.

I just configured sdl 1.2.13 on gentoo and it does not print a summary of
what was found, there is some detail in the configure output though. Perhaps a
summery should be added stating what was found, where it looked, how to
add ?

There is also ./configure --help

Then you would see:
–with-x use the X Window System

And run with ./configure --with-x, and if that fails, configure will fail
telling you it can not find it. Then you can tell configure where it is.

–x-includes=DIR X include files are in DIR
–x-libraries=DIR X library files are in DIR

mattOn Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Daniel Johansson wrote:

Hi there,

After much googling and apt-file searching, including trying to understand the human-unreadble ./configure script (man who wrote that? Skynet?), I finally found out the root of a problem I had:

I have several machines running different versions of Ubuntu linux. One a vanilla 9.04 installation and one ol’ upgraded to 8.10 who have pretty much everything installed (ok, slight exaggeration). Of course when I tried to ./configure, make, make install SDL on the 9.04 and make/run my small test application (made on the 8.10), it bombed with the SDL error “No video devices available”.

The FAQ did not quite give me the straight forward help I’d liked. The FAQ states “make sure that you have the X11 development libraries installed”. It would have saved me quite some time to know more specifically which one it was - as I am not a hard core linux hacker who instictively know these things. Now I know that on Ubuntu/Debian they are called libx11-dev and nothing else. Perhaps the FAQ could be updated with this information?

Cheers!
/ Daniel

4

Lots of reasons to compile your own. I had to because I wanted to test 1.3 from SVN :stuck_out_tongue:

Also had the same problem, and while it didn’t take me too much time, it would have taken less with a note in INSTALL :wink:

@Daniel: BTW, not Skynet, lol.
It’s an autoconf script:

Quite cryptic, but it’s pretty standard in Linux.> ----- Original Message -----

From: “mattmatteh at mac.com”
To: A list for developers using the SDL library. (includes SDL-announyour ce)
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 5:53:29 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] FAQ update? SDL error: No video devices available

Why not use ubuntu package ? Unless you are trying the newest version of sdl.

I just configured sdl 1.2.13 on gentoo and it does not print a summary of what
was found, there is some detail in the configure output though. Perhaps a
summery should be added stating what was found, where it looked, how to add ?

There is also ./configure --help

Then you would see:
–with-x use the X Window System

And run with ./configure --with-x, and if that fails, configure will fail
telling you it can not find it. Then you can tell configure where it is.

–x-includes=DIR X include files are in DIR
–x-libraries=DIR X library files are in DIR

matt

On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Daniel Johansson wrote:

Hi there,

After much googling and apt-file searching, including trying to understand
the human-unreadble ./configure script (man who wrote that? Skynet?), I finally
found out the root of a problem I had:

I have several machines running different versions of Ubuntu linux. One a
vanilla 9.04 installation and one ol’ upgraded to 8.10 who have pretty much
everything installed (ok, slight exaggeration). Of course when I tried to
./configure, make, make install SDL on the 9.04 and make/run my small test
application (made on the 8.10), it bombed with the SDL error “No video devices
available”.

The FAQ did not quite give me the straight forward help I’d liked. The FAQ
states “make sure that you have the X11 development libraries installed”. It
would have saved me quite some time to know more specifically which one it was -
as I am not a hard core linux hacker who instictively know these things. Now I
know that on Ubuntu/Debian they are called libx11-dev and nothing else. Perhaps
the FAQ could be updated with this information?

Cheers!
/ Daniel

SDL mailing list
SDL at lists.libsdl.org
http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

5

Hello Matt,

Then you would see:
–with-x use the X Window System

And run with ./configure --with-x, and if that fails, configure will fail
telling you it can not find it. Then you can tell configure where it is.

–x-includes=DIR X include files are in DIR
–x-libraries=DIR X library files are in DIR

I figured from some googling that it was the X window support that failed; and that was correct, configure reported something like “have X … no” while running. I did not have this development package installed, so there was nowhere to point configure to…

Why not use ubuntu package ? Unless you are trying the newest version of
sdl.

As I said - I’m no linux hacker. Didn’t even know there was such a package until I checked now… blush
…ahem… it will of course make next install easier… :slight_smile: Well. At least I got some linux hacking experience from it…

Still a list of dependencies would never harm in the FAQ or INSTALL notes. There will always be people like me who does it the hard way.

Cheers!
/ Daniel_________________________________________________________________
Vi vet vem du passar ihop med! Klicka h?r f?r att f? veta!
http://dejting.se.msn.com/channel/index.aspx?trackingid=1002952

6

Hello Pat,

Yes, somewhere a list of dependencies would be good.

I got away with nvidia-glx-180-dev, libglu1-mesa-dev and libx11-dev. Might have accidently got something else right when I also installed xserver-xorg-dev, but I doubt it. By the way - I have no xorg-dev package available as far as I can see.

Anyway, it now works!

Cheers!
/ DanielDate: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:40:50 -0700
From: pbratkowski@yahoo.com
To: sdl at lists.libsdl.org
Subject: Re: [SDL] FAQ update? SDL error: No video devices available

What I installed was:

“libgl1-mesa-dev”, “libglu1-mesa-dev” and “xorg-dev”, plus all dependencies.

I recommend you also get the libgl1/libglu1 packages for OpenGL support.

I also agree this should be in the FAQ, or better yet, in the INSTALL file :wink:

Pat

From: @Daniel_Johansson (Daniel Johansson)
To: SDL
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 4:14:00 PM
Subject: [SDL] FAQ update? SDL error: No video devices available

Hi there,

After much googling and apt-file searching, including trying to understand the human-unreadble ./configure script (man who wrote that? Skynet?), I finally found out the root of a problem I had:

I have several machines running different versions of Ubuntu linux. One a vanilla 9.04 installation and one ol’ upgraded to 8.10 who have pretty much everything installed (ok, slight exaggeration). Of course when I tried to ./configure, make, make install SDL on the 9.04 and make/run my small test application (made on the 8.10), it bombed with the SDL error “No video devices available”.

The FAQ did not quite give me the straight forward help I’d liked. The FAQ states “make sure that you have the X11 development libraries installed”. It would have saved me quite some time to know more specifically which one it was - as I am not a hard core linux hacker who instictively know these things. Now I know
that on Ubuntu/Debian they are called libx11-dev and nothing else. Perhaps the FAQ could be updated with this information?

Cheers!
/ Daniel

Dela foton p? ett smidigt s?tt med Windows LiveT Photos. Dra och sl?pp

Hitta k?rleken nu i v?r!
http://dejting.se.msn.com/channel/index.aspx?trackingid=1002952

7

Daniel Johansson wrote:

Yes, somewhere a list of dependencies would be good.

You could do:

$ apt-get build-dep libsdl1.2

This will get everything needed to build the SDL 1.2 package, which is
quite likely to be most of what’s needed to build 1.3.

8

Daniel Johansson wrote:

Hi there,

After much googling and apt-file searching, including trying to
understand the human-unreadble ./configure script (man who wrote that?
Skynet?), I finally found out the root of a problem I had:
The configure scripts for the vast majority of GNU software and a
substantial number of open source applications with a “Linux” persuasion
are generated by autotools (autoconf, automake, libtool) based on files
like configure.in and Makefile.am. There are full manuals for these
available on the GNU website. However, an autoconf con

9

That’s wonderful :smiley:

Definitely makes compiling SDL Image, Mixer and TTF a piece of cake :slight_smile:

Thanks!> ----- Original Message -----

From: Tim Angus
To: A list for developers using the SDL library. (includes SDL-announce)
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 5:15:02 AM
Subject: Re: [SDL] FAQ update? SDL error: No video devices available

Daniel Johansson wrote:

Yes, somewhere a list of dependencies would be good.

You could do:

$ apt-get build-dep libsdl1.2

This will get everything needed to build the SDL 1.2 package, which is quite
likely to be most of what’s needed to build 1.3.

SDL mailing list
SDL at lists.libsdl.org
http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org