4 This is a short description of the things I had to do to get
5 FlightGear up and running under Linux.
9 Linux (of any Flavour), a 3DFX-card (Voodoo1 in my case). 3D
10 operations without hardware support can force even the fastest PII to
11 its knees.... To make use of the accelerator board you need
13 - the GLIDE library installed. Grab it at:
15 http://www.3dfx.com/software/download_glidel.html
17 and install. There is even an install script contained that will do
18 things for you. The canonical place for GLIDE is /usr/local/glide, if
19 you prefer another location, you'll have to edit the Makefile for
20 FlightGear by hand. Be sure to read and understand the file
21 /usr/local/glide/README.
23 - the MESA library version 2.6 (or greater) installed. I used 3.0 to
24 be on the safer side...
28 ftp://iris.ssec.wisc.edu/pub/Mesa
30 unpack it and run "make linux-glide" in the Mesa directory. Follow the
31 instructions in the README file, take a close look at README.3DFX and
32 play with the demo programs. Relax, rejoice :-)
34 - the GLUT library version 3.7 (or greater, aka GameGLUT) installed.
38 http://reality.sgi.com/opengl/glut3/glut3.html
40 Note: glut-3.7 is included with Mesa 3.0 so if you've already
41 grabbed the latest version of mesa, you should have everything you
46 You will need the following files:
48 FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz (source code)
49 base-x.xx.tar.gz (data files)
51 Unpack FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz using :
53 tar xvfz FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz
55 and cd info FlightGear-x.xx. Run:
59 and wait a few minutes. configure knows about a lot of options. Have a
60 look at the file INSTALL in the FlightGear source directory to learn
61 about them. If run without options, configure assumes that you will
62 install the data files under /usr/local/lib/FlightGear. Assuming
63 configure finished successfully, simply run
67 and wait for the make process to finish. Now become root (for example
68 by using the su command) and type
72 This will install the binaries in /usr/local/bin. Notice that the name
73 of the FlightGear binary is "fgfs".
75 Another problem with Linux/Glide is permission-related. All programs
76 accessing the Accelerator board need root permissions. The solution is
77 either to play as root or make the /usr/local/bin/fgfs binary "setuid
78 root", i.e. when this binary is run root priviledges are given. Do
79 this by issuing (as root)
81 chmod +s /usr/local/bin/fgfs
83 A solution for this problem is upcoming, keep an eye on the 3Dfx
86 3. Install the data files
88 Change to /usr/local/lib/FlightGear and unpack the data files:
90 tar xvfz WHERE_YOU DOWNLOADED_THE_FILES/base-x.xx.tar.gz
91 tar xvfz WHERE_YOU DOWNLOADED_THE_FILES/textures-x.xx.tar.gz
97 If everything went ok, simply type
101 at the prompt. You should see the FlightGear splash-screen and a few
102 seconds later you'll find youself somewhere in the desert, ready for
105 5. Strange things happen...
107 A note on the behaviour of Voodoo boards:
109 Your card comes packaged with a loop-through-cable. If you have only
110 one monitor, then the Voodoo will take it over when used. This means
111 that all the applications on your desktop will continue running but
112 you'll only see the FlightGear screen. If your window manager uses a
113 focus-follows-mouse policy, don't move the mouse. If you lose the
114 focus, there's no way to shut down FlightGear graciously! Better
115 solution: Use two monitors, one for your desktop, connect the other
116 one to your accelerator. You'll then get a window on your desktop
117 which manages all keyboard events and you're still able to see your
124 I hope this document provides some help. If it does, send virtual/real
125 beer to me, if not flame me!
128 <buckel@wmad95.mathematik.uni-wuerzburg.de>