SDL_Init command not found

SDL Development
1

Hi,
I have tried to follow the instructions to initialize SDL but without
luck. I have included the headers but whenever I do any SDL_Init
command I get “command not found”. I am using Debian Linux 4. Any help
would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

3

Hello !

I have tried to follow the instructions to initialize SDL but without
luck. I have included the headers but whenever I do any SDL_Init
command I get “command not found”. I am using Debian Linux 4. Any help
would be greatly appreciated.

You need to have the build-essentials installed, also the SDL* and the
SDL*-devel packages. Are all these packages installed on your system ?

CU

4

“command not found” sounds like a really strange message to emit from a
compiler, because the term “command” simply doesn’t exist in C (I assume you
are referring to a C tutorial). So… question is what you did, what
instructions you are referring to etc etc, i.e. a few more details.

UliOn Thursday 21 August 2008 21:38:16 Mike McKnight - OETX wrote:

I have tried to follow the instructions to initialize SDL but without
luck. I have included the headers but whenever I do any SDL_Init
command I get “command not found”. I am using Debian Linux 4. Any help
would be greatly appreciated.

5

is the header file found ? "SDL.h"On Thu, 21 Aug 2008, Ulrich Eckhardt wrote:

On Thursday 21 August 2008 21:38:16 Mike McKnight - OETX wrote:

I have tried to follow the instructions to initialize SDL but without
luck. I have included the headers but whenever I do any SDL_Init
command I get “command not found”. I am using Debian Linux 4. Any help
would be greatly appreciated.

“command not found” sounds like a really strange message to emit from a
compiler, because the term “command” simply doesn’t exist in C (I assume you
are referring to a C tutorial). So… question is what you did, what
instructions you are referring to etc etc, i.e. a few more details.

Uli

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

6

Hello !

I have tried to follow the instructions to initialize SDL but without
luck. I have included the headers but whenever I do any SDL_Init
command I get “command not found”. I am using Debian Linux 4. Any help
would be greatly appreciated.

A way you can test if your installation is correct would be :

Download the latest SDL from :

http://www.libsdl.org/release/SDL-1.2.13.tar.gz

Copy it into your homedirectory,
unpack it with tar -xzvf SDL-1.2.13.tar.gz
then cd into the newly created SDL dirctory,
cd into test and then compile the testsprite example with

gcc testsprite.c -o testsprite sdl-config --cflags --libs

Does this work for you ?

CU

7

Here’s what I’m trying to execute which somehow calls SDL:

qemu -redir tcp:2222::22 -redir tcp:9297::9297 WorldVistAEHRVOE10.qcow2

This brings me: “Cannot initialize SDL”

I then go into SDL and try to initialize manually which is where I get
the error: “command not found”

Thanks for your help!> ----- Original Message -----

From: sdl-bounces@lists.libsdl.org [mailto:sdl-bounces at lists.libsdl.org]
On Behalf Of Jesse P. Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 12:59 PM To: A list for developers using the SDL library. (includes SDL-announce) Subject: Re: [SDL] SDL_Init command not found Hi, Can you post your code? Jesse Mike McKnight - OETX wrote:

Hi,
I have tried to follow the instructions to initialize SDL but without
luck. I have included the headers but whenever I do any SDL_Init
command I get “command not found”. I am using Debian Linux 4. Any
help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

–

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

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

8

I will install the build-essentials and SDL Development packages and see
if that takes care of it. I do have SDL-1.2.13 installed.> ----- Original Message -----

From: sdl-bounces@lists.libsdl.org [mailto:sdl-bounces at lists.libsdl.org]
On Behalf Of Torsten Giebl
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 1:21 PM
To: sdl at lists.libsdl.org
Subject: Re: [SDL] SDL_Init command not found

Hello !

I have tried to follow the instructions to initialize SDL but without
luck. I have included the headers but whenever I do any SDL_Init
command I get “command not found”. I am using Debian Linux 4. Any
help would be greatly appreciated.

You need to have the build-essentials installed, also the SDL* and the
SDL*-devel packages. Are all these packages installed on your system ?

CU

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

9

I could not find an SDL development package but I did find many dev
libraries. There was supposedly an SDL devel package on the subversion
site but couldn’t find it. Of course Linux makes you go out and do 15
different things before you can do what you originally set out to do -
if you can remember what that was…> ----- Original Message -----

From: sdl-bounces@lists.libsdl.org [mailto:sdl-bounces at lists.libsdl.org]
On Behalf Of Torsten Giebl
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 1:21 PM
To: sdl at lists.libsdl.org
Subject: Re: [SDL] SDL_Init command not found

Hello !

I have tried to follow the instructions to initialize SDL but without
luck. I have included the headers but whenever I do any SDL_Init
command I get “command not found”. I am using Debian Linux 4. Any
help would be greatly appreciated.

You need to have the build-essentials installed, also the SDL* and the
SDL*-devel packages. Are all these packages installed on your system ?

CU

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

10

Yes. I do an #include “SDL.h” without error.> ----- Original Message -----

From: sdl-bounces@lists.libsdl.org [mailto:sdl-bounces at lists.libsdl.org]
On Behalf Of mattmatteh at mac.com
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 2:13 PM
To: A list for developers using the SDL library. (includes SDL-announce)
Subject: Re: [SDL] SDL_Init command not found

is the header file found ? “SDL.h”

On Thu, 21 Aug 2008, Ulrich Eckhardt wrote:

On Thursday 21 August 2008 21:38:16 Mike McKnight - OETX wrote:

I have tried to follow the instructions to initialize SDL but without

luck. I have included the headers but whenever I do any SDL_Init
command I get “command not found”. I am using Debian Linux 4. Any
help would be greatly appreciated.

“command not found” sounds like a really strange message to emit from
a compiler, because the term “command” simply doesn’t exist in C (I
assume you are referring to a C tutorial). So… question is what you

did, what instructions you are referring to etc etc, i.e. a few more
details.

Uli

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

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

11

No, tons of sprite errors. Most notable other than sprite: gcc:
sdl-config --cflags --libs: No such file or directory.

My install steps were
./configure
make
make install

Pretty straight-forward, don’t know why this should be so hard…> ----- Original Message -----

From: sdl-bounces@lists.libsdl.org [mailto:sdl-bounces at lists.libsdl.org]
On Behalf Of Torsten Giebl
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 2:27 PM
To: sdl at lists.libsdl.org
Subject: Re: [SDL] SDL_Init command not found

Hello !

I have tried to follow the instructions to initialize SDL but without
luck. I have included the headers but whenever I do any SDL_Init
command I get “command not found”. I am using Debian Linux 4. Any
help would be greatly appreciated.

A way you can test if your installation is correct would be :

Download the latest SDL from :

http://www.libsdl.org/release/SDL-1.2.13.tar.gz

Copy it into your homedirectory,
unpack it with tar -xzvf SDL-1.2.13.tar.gz then cd into the newly
created SDL dirctory, cd into test and then compile the testsprite
example with

gcc testsprite.c -o testsprite sdl-config --cflags --libs

Does this work for you ?

CU

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

12

This may be a really strange question, but the symptoms you’re reporting are
consistent with this bizarre hypothesis. Are you typing SDL_Init and
#include “SDL.h” on the command line?

JeffOn Thu August 21 2008 15:46, Mike McKnight - OETX wrote:

Yes. I do an #include “SDL.h” without error.

13

Yes. I’m new to Linux, am I doing something stupid?> ----- Original Message -----

From: sdl-bounces@lists.libsdl.org [mailto:sdl-bounces at lists.libsdl.org]
On Behalf Of Jeff
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 4:23 PM
To: A list for developers using the SDL library. (includes SDL-announce)
Subject: Re: [SDL] SDL_Init command not found

On Thu August 21 2008 15:46, Mike McKnight - OETX wrote:

Yes. I do an #include “SDL.h” without error.

This may be a really strange question, but the symptoms you’re reporting
are consistent with this bizarre hypothesis. Are you typing SDL_Init
and #include “SDL.h” on the command line?

Jeff

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

14

Well, in a word, yes. You want to have those statements in a program file to
be compiled. If you don’t know anything about programming, go buy a few
beginner level books, and try again after spending a few months learning the
basics of programming. It’s not something you can pick up quickly (except for
a few simple scripting languages). Most people take years to become merely
competent programmers. To become expert takes longer. (Some may quibble about
that, but by my definition of competent and expert, the statements are true.)

JeffOn Thu August 21 2008 16:31, Mike McKnight - OETX wrote:

Yes. I’m new to Linux, am I doing something stupid?

15

Stupid is a relative term =)

The command line is for interpreting commands, which usually are
executable programs on your file system. These are typically entered
on the keyboard by the user, but can be stored in files (often called
scripts). The C programming language is a compiled language, meaning
that the entire sequence of the program needs to be worked out in
advance. Programming in C usually involves creating a number of files,
and then invoking a separate compiler/linker program on each file to
build a new executable from these files. Once built, the new program
can then be run. On Linux, GCC is a popular C compiler/linker.

The command line, usually Bash under Linux, will not be able to run
your C code directly. You will need to write the program and then
compile it. The reason why #include appears to work is that # is the
start of a “comment” on many common command line interpreters.
Comments are ignored. When writing a script (a bunch of commands in a
sequence stored in a file) it can be useful to write descriptive text
detailing how the script works. Obviously, we don’t want the text to
be interpreted, or it would produce errors. So having a comment syntax
allows for script writers to write arbitrary text and to know that it
will not be misinterpreted by the environment. When you enter #, the
command line ignores everything else on the line after the #. Try it
yourself: write # followed by any text you want, and see what happens.

The underlying issue though is that you cannot manually initialise
SDL. SDL is initialised on a per-process basis, so even if you did
write an application in C that initialised SDL, it wouldn’t help. What
you need to do is either:

a) Get on to the Qemu authors, and ask them to produce a more
desciptive error (remind them to use the function SDL_GetError() when
building their error string).

b) Make the necessary modifications to the Qemu source yourself.

From the sounds of things, option (a) would probably be the best for
you at the moment. When we get a more descriptive error (there are
many reasons SDL_Init() can fail) we might be able to help diagnose
the problem.

Don’t worry if some of the above doesn’t make too much sense, most of
it is a very simplified overview of what is going on.On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 12:31 AM, Mike McKnight - OETX wrote:

Yes. I’m new to Linux, am I doing something stupid?

16

Thank you for taking the time to explain this. I really do know a lot
about programming but it’s all been in Progress and Oracle PL/SQL. I
got into Linux about a week ago and everything seemed to be driven by
executables derived from the ./configure, make, make install commands.
There were a few times I had to invoke gcc blah, blah, blah - but I
didn’t see anything like that here. So much for learning this on the
fly… :slight_smile:

Anyway, I think I will take option A and see if I can get anywhere with
the QEMU authors.

Thanks again,
Mike> ----- Original Message -----

From: sdl-bounces@lists.libsdl.org [mailto:sdl-bounces at lists.libsdl.org]
On Behalf Of Brian
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 4:56 PM
To: A list for developers using the SDL library. (includes SDL-announce)
Subject: Re: [SDL] SDL_Init command not found

Stupid is a relative term =)

The command line is for interpreting commands, which usually are
executable programs on your file system. These are typically entered on
the keyboard by the user, but can be stored in files (often called
scripts). The C programming language is a compiled language, meaning
that the entire sequence of the program needs to be worked out in
advance. Programming in C usually involves creating a number of files,
and then invoking a separate compiler/linker program on each file to
build a new executable from these files. Once built, the new program can
then be run. On Linux, GCC is a popular C compiler/linker.

The command line, usually Bash under Linux, will not be able to run your
C code directly. You will need to write the program and then compile it.
The reason why #include appears to work is that # is the start of a
"comment" on many common command line interpreters.
Comments are ignored. When writing a script (a bunch of commands in a
sequence stored in a file) it can be useful to write descriptive text
detailing how the script works. Obviously, we don’t want the text to be
interpreted, or it would produce errors. So having a comment syntax
allows for script writers to write arbitrary text and to know that it
will not be misinterpreted by the environment. When you enter #, the
command line ignores everything else on the line after the #. Try it
yourself: write # followed by any text you want, and see what happens.

The underlying issue though is that you cannot manually initialise SDL.
SDL is initialised on a per-process basis, so even if you did write an
application in C that initialised SDL, it wouldn’t help. What you need
to do is either:

a) Get on to the Qemu authors, and ask them to produce a more desciptive
error (remind them to use the function SDL_GetError() when building
their error string).

b) Make the necessary modifications to the Qemu source yourself.

From the sounds of things, option (a) would probably be the best for
you at the moment. When we get a more descriptive error (there are many
reasons SDL_Init() can fail) we might be able to help diagnose the
problem.

Don’t worry if some of the above doesn’t make too much sense, most of it
is a very simplified overview of what is going on.

On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 12:31 AM, Mike McKnight - OETX wrote:

Yes. I’m new to Linux, am I doing something stupid?

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