-I. GENERAL LINUX INSTRUCTIONS
+Installing FlightGear on Linux
==============================
-This is a short description of the things that need to be done to get
-FlightGear up and running under Linux.
-
-1. Prerequisites:
-
-- You need to understand the concepts of 3D acceleration under Linux
- and the needed libraries. You will need to install and configure
- accelerated drivers for your specific video card. It is beyond the
- scope of this document to describe the process for your specific
- video card.
-
- More and more distributions are coming out with pre-packaged drivers
- so look around (just in case) before you go out and build software
- yourself.
-
- Here are some potentially useful sites, but be careful and find the
- specific instructions for your specific video card and distribution:
-
- http://www.thedukeofurl.org/reviews/misc/3dlinux/
- http://www.linux3d.net/
- http://dri.sourceforge.net/
- http://www.nvidia.com
- http://glide.xxedgexx.com/
-
- Without accelerated 3d rendering, FlightGear could never run at
- decent frame rates, even on the fastest CPU's.
-
-- You will need the GLUT library version 3.7 (or greater, aka
- GameGLUT) installed.
-
- Grab it at:
-
- http://reality.sgi.com/opengl/glut3/glut3.html
-
- Note: glut-3.7 is included with Mesa 3.x so if you've already
- grabbed the latest version of mesa, you should have everything you
- need.
-
- Alternatively, you can use the 3D-stuff that came along with your
- Linux distribution. At least RedHat (5.3 and later) and S.u.S.E. 6.0
- (or later) may contain all the things you need depending again on
- your video card.
-
-- Steve Baker's plib library. Get it from:
-
- http://plib.sf.net
-
- ... and follow the instructions there to install it.
-
-- SimGear. Get it from:
-
- http://www.simgear.org
-
- ... and follow the instructions there to install it.
-
-
-2. Build FlightGear:
-
- You will need the following files:
-
- FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz (source code)
-
- which can be found under:
-
- ftp://flightgear.sourceforge.net/pub/flightgear/Source
-
- and the base package located at:
-
- ftp://flightgear.sourceforge.net/pub/flightgear/Shared/
-
- the file is called
-
- fgfs-base-x.xx.tar.gz (data files)
-
- Ok, now that you got all the stuff, let's proceed towards installation.
-
- Unpack FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz using :
-
- tar xvfz FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz
-
- and cd info FlightGear-x.xx. Run:
-
- ./configure
-
- and wait a few minutes. configure knows about a lot of
- options. Have a look at the file INSTALL in the FlightGear source
- directory to learn about them. If run without options, configure
- assumes that you will install the data files under
- /usr/local/share/FlightGear. Assuming configure finished
- successfully, simply run
-
- make
-
- and wait for the make process to finish. Now become root (for
- example by using the su command) and type
-
- make install
-
- This will install the binaries in /usr/local/bin. Notice that the
- name of the FlightGear binary is "fgfs".
-
-
-3. Install the data files
-
- Change to /usr/local/lib
-
- tar xvfz WHERE_YOU_DOWNLOADED_THE_FILES/fgfs-base-x.xx.tar.gz
-
- That's it...
-
-
-4. Fly!
-
- If everything went ok, simply type
-
- runfgfs
-
- at the prompt. You should see the FlightGear splash-screen and a
- few seconds later you'll find youself somewhere in the desert,
- ready for take-off.
-
-5. Strange things happen...
-
- We have mailing lists set up for specific FlightGear problems,
- bugs, and questions. Please see the flightgear web page for
- details.
-
-
-6. Conclusion
-
- I hope this document provides some help. If it does, send
- virtual/real beer to me, if not flame me!
-
- Bernhard H. Buckel
- <buckel@wmad95.mathematik.uni-wuerzburg.de>
-
- Updated by Curtis Olson <http://www.flightgear.org/~curt> 6/26/2001
-
-
-II. RedHat Linux Notes
-=======================
-
-Summary: There are known problems with the versions of libstdc++ that
-ships with both RedHat-5.1 and RedHat-5.2. You need to upgrade your
-libstdc++ before attempting to build flight gear on a RedHat system.
-
-Raymond de Vries <vries@per.nl> writes: I ran into [this] problem on
-my RedHat 5.2 system (brand new). After some searching I found out
-that it's got to do with a 'bug' in the stdlibc++ libraries. I picked
-up libstdc++-2.9.0-2.i386.rpm, installed it and FGFS compiled just
-fine. However, some other packages must have the libstdc++-2.8
-libraries....
-
-BTW I also solved it with the 2.8 libraries by including
-/usr/include/g++/std/bastring.cc into the example programs. I believe
-this can be done since it's a template, correct me if I'm wrong.
-
-
-III. Linux/AXP Notes
-====================
-
-As of 2/19/99 I'm not aware of any glide port to Linux/AXP so it's
-software rendering only for now. :-(
-
-This following information is contributed by "Daniel J. Frasnelli"
-<dfrasnel@csee.wvu.edu>
-
-1) Mesa was not built correctly by default. I had to add the "-mieee"
-flag to the Make-config for Mesa-3.1beta1 to fix the problem. After
-building and installation, all of the problems I had previously with
-GL programs under AlphaLinux disappeared.
-
-2) I also had to set the '-mieee' flag in $CFLAGS before configuring
-and building FGFS. The -mieee switch fixes floating point exception
-handling.
-
-I heavily optimized both Mesa and FGFS, using the libffm "fast math
-library for Alpha" in preference over the default libm, sticking all
-sorts of strange flags in $CFLAGS, etc. These flags should be
-adjusted for your specific architecture:
-
- export CFLAGS="-mieee -mcpu=ev56 -Wa,-m21164a -pipe -g"
- export CXXFLAGS="-mieee -mcpu=ev56 -Wa,-m21164a -pipe -g"
- ./configure
-
-
+Binary packages
+---------------
+Several major Linux distributions offer FlightGear binary packages in their
+official repositories; this is usually the quickest and easiest way to
+install FlightGear, but may not be the latest version.
+
+There are also a number of unofficial repositories offering more frequently
+updated binary packages (some including development versions, which have
+the very latest features but are also more likely to have major bugs);
+see http://www.flightgear.org/download/main-program/ for details.
+
+Compiling from source
+---------------------
+See the general instructions (README.cmake in the directory above this).
+You will need the -dev version of all the prerequisites,
+e.g. libopenscenegraph-dev, libplib-dev.
+
+Graphics drivers
+----------------
+If you experience unusably low frame rates (~1/sec), this may mean that your
+graphics drivers do not support 3D acceleration, or that it is not enabled.
+To check for this problem run:
+ glxinfo | grep render