Linux development...

For Beginners

Started by MARS_999 March 31, 2014 05:17 AM

14 comments, last by MARS_999 10 years ago

9,461

March 31, 2014 05:32 PM

I need some recommendations for IDE under Linux.

QtCreator? If I remember right the UI wasn't to friendly to get a simple C++ project working....

I think you're probably mistaken. Try it.

How do I install the latest drivers for this GPU? From what I can tell the latest don't support the X1300?

I don;t know much about Mint, but they'll have the command line available to you from which you can just do an "sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade" and that will make sure the latest tested drivers are installed. I strongly recommend using drivers that have not been tested and packaged in the Ubuntu archives, that's a good way to brick your system if you're not an expert.

What is X11? Do I need it?

X11 in this context is the display server: it's the software responsible to drawing everything to your video screen. You don't need it: most servers run without video displays. If you want to make graphical games, however, you will probably want it.

I would like to use Irrlicht also but couldn't get that working either.

That's a little vague. Perhaps there are errors or something?

So I am not liking the experience so far... Not trouble free at all....

Here's quick rule of thumb: get everything from your distro unless they don't have it. If they don't have it, as a beginner, you probably don't need it yet.

Hope to overcome the sour taste of this and enjoy coding on Linux but need some serious help!!!

Welcome to the dark side. We have the answers.

Stephen M. Webb
Professional Free Software Developer

MARS_999

1,627

Author

March 31, 2014 06:17 PM

Wow thanks for all the support so far!

I will comment later today I am in a hurry now, but will post more info later and reply to posts that need asked for answers.

thanks!

OH btw how are you all finding these libs to add to the development kits? I am lost on these...

package manager (apt-get irrlicht-dev)

i have no idea on these commnads and HATE not having a list of libs and their names to know what I want to use or need to get to develop with...

that is the starting problem here in some regards.

kop0113

2,466

March 31, 2014 07:15 PM

You can generally use the tools provided on your Linux distribution to track down the library required. Some tools can even tell you the exact package name you need to install for a given file. I believe apt-get can do that.

I personally use *BSD so my "package" system is a tad different but looking around at Debian based distros, the package you need is libirrlicht. Since you are looking at developing for it, you will also need the development header files (which is the *-dev package). Mint should have this in the repositories.

It may seem a little confusing now but the good news is that this system is consistent so unlike Windows or Mac OS X, once you have learnt how this works, it won't really change whereas to use many libraries in Windows development, the process is very different for each library and you often have to build them yourself (for your current version of Microsoft C++).

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Bregma

9,461

March 31, 2014 07:43 PM

OH btw how are you all finding these libs to add to the development kits? I am lost on these...

package manager (apt-get irrlicht-dev)

You're using Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, which is a Debian derivative. Debian uses the "deb" package format -- a standard way of packaging software and declaring all the necessary dependencies.

Unlike, say, Windows in which there is no such thing as a standardized way of distributing software, most Linux distributions stick to providing all software in a single way (although different distros use different ways -- there is no "there" there in GNU/Linux).

On a Debian-derived system, the package is the "deb" and there are several tools to use debs. The most fundamental one is "apt" and you'll see instructions for downloading and installing packages from the command line using the "apt-get" command. The apt-get command will select a named package from your configured sources and download that package and all other packages required to make it work, and install them. If you always use this tool, your system will never get in to a broken state.

If you start up your Mint system, open a terminal, and type "sudo apt-get install libirrlicht-dev" the system will find, download, and install the Irrlicht development package (which contains header files and link libraries) and the libirrlicht1.8 package (the runtime DSOs, or shared libraries) required to develop against Irrlicht. You can see more information on that package by using the command "apt-cache show libirrlicht-dev", and you can see what files were installed using the command "dpkg -L libirrlicht-dev".

The installation command must be run as the superuser (a privileged administrative user) because it installs the packages system-wide. That's what the 'sudo' command does.

These are all basic commands you just need to learn. There is a learning curve for any system, including the one(s) you already know. It's no harder to do things on a GNU/Linux system than on any other system, don't let your prejudgement fool you.

Tip: to find other development packages, for example, the SDL2 packages, use "apt-cache search libsdl2" to search. The standard Debian naming convention is to prefix a library package with "lib" and suffix a development package with "-dev".

Stephen M. Webb
Professional Free Software Developer

SimonForsman

7,644

March 31, 2014 07:45 PM

You can generally use the tools provided on your Linux distribution to track down the library required. Some tools can even tell you the exact package name you need to install for a given file. I believe apt-get can do that.

I personally use *BSD so my "package" system is a tad different but looking around at Debian based distros, the package you need is libirrlicht. Since you are looking at developing for it, you will also need the development header files (which is the *-dev package). Mint should have this in the repositories.

It may seem a little confusing now but the good news is that this system is consistent so unlike Windows or Mac OS X, once you have learnt how this works, it won't really change whereas to use many libraries in Windows development, the process is very different for each library and you often have to build them yourself (for your current version of Microsoft C++).

indeed, as a rule of thumb with Linux (Atleast debian based distros like Mint), Never use google to find free software or libraries unless you want to test unfinished products, the latest stable version of virtually everything is in the repositories.

If you absolutely want to search on the web you should try this first: http://community.linuxmint.com/software/search

just click the install button on the stuff you want and the system sorts it all out for you.

Oh, and you don't have to use the commandline either, you can just open the menu and click on software manager to get a nice graphical interface to add and remove applications from.

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MARS_999

1,627

Author

April 01, 2014 08:54 AM

OH btw how are you all finding these libs to add to the development kits? I am lost on these...

package manager (apt-get irrlicht-dev)

You're using Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, which is a Debian derivative. Debian uses the "deb" package format -- a standard way of packaging software and declaring all the necessary dependencies.

Unlike, say, Windows in which there is no such thing as a standardized way of distributing software, most Linux distributions stick to providing all software in a single way (although different distros use different ways -- there is no "there" there in GNU/Linux).

On a Debian-derived system, the package is the "deb" and there are several tools to use debs. The most fundamental one is "apt" and you'll see instructions for downloading and installing packages from the command line using the "apt-get" command. The apt-get command will select a named package from your configured sources and download that package and all other packages required to make it work, and install them. If you always use this tool, your system will never get in to a broken state.

If you start up your Mint system, open a terminal, and type "sudo apt-get install libirrlicht-dev" the system will find, download, and install the Irrlicht development package (which contains header files and link libraries) and the libirrlicht1.8 package (the runtime DSOs, or shared libraries) required to develop against Irrlicht. You can see more information on that package by using the command "apt-cache show libirrlicht-dev", and you can see what files were installed using the command "dpkg -L libirrlicht-dev".

The installation command must be run as the superuser (a privileged administrative user) because it installs the packages system-wide. That's what the 'sudo' command does.

These are all basic commands you just need to learn. There is a learning curve for any system, including the one(s) you already know. It's no harder to do things on a GNU/Linux system than on any other system, don't let your prejudgement fool you.

Tip: to find other development packages, for example, the SDL2 packages, use "apt-cache search libsdl2" to search. The standard Debian naming convention is to prefix a library package with "lib" and suffix a development package with "-dev".

Oh wow thanks for the very informative post!!! I agree there is a learning curve and I just need to over come it. Just pressed for time but getting a bit warmer to it now that you posted some tips! Got anymore like these post them greatly appreciated! So far yeah I like Linux just hope to get good with it as I would like to ditch Windows altogether!!!

So yeah I welcome the darkside! :)

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