Hi, I've been reading through the posts from the past 100 days to try to get some ideas but I still have some quetions. So I thought I'd ask. I'm interested in experimenting with Mesa on Linux. I'm wondering what combination of Distro / IDE people might suggest? I'm not a Linux pro. I've only installed Mandrake on a desktop and a laptop in the past just to try out software. This is a personal learning project. But, I'd like to keep most of the learning focused on getting comfortable with compiling under Linux and experimenting with Mesa itself, so I'm thinking along the lines of an easy installing distribution. I'm also thinking of using a relatively full featured IDE becaue I'm most familiar with VC++ so I was considering Anjuta. Do Redhat and Anjuta jive well? I've noticed some people mention problems with installing Anjuta on Mandrake. And lastly, are there any 'gotchas' when developing with Mesa on any particular distributions or IDEs? Thanks in advance. I understand a lot of this is personal preference but I'm mostly looking for ease of install and compatibility between the distro, the ide and the mesa library. [edited by - ZYirAH on March 8, 2003 12:52:35 PM]

BradDaBug-- that''s cool that you mentioned it cause that brings me to another question. When I started searching around for ''Linux OpenGL programming'' I kept seeing references to Mesa. Any tutorials would say: first download Mesa and Glut ...blah blah. So what''s the story there? If I want to experiment with OpenGL on Linux do I need anything else other than say Mandrake and Anjuta?

Thanks, I''m a little confused. I figured this was a more valid question for this forum other than the OpenGL one.

Most distro''s come so that you won''t have to bother with setting up Mesa or GLUT (for GLUT you might need to install a package on the CD or online, but that''s easy to do).

For hardware accelerated OpenGL in Linux with X, the OpenGL libraries could be a number of implementations. The common open source implementation of OpenGL is Mesa, and most open source drivers use DRI. Mesa can be built to render through DRI (it''s included in the DRI source tree, so no ''seperate'' Mesa is needed). Other OpenGL library implementations (e.g., NVidia''s closed drivers) exist too.

For software rendered OpenGL in *nix with X, the OpenGL libraries will probably be a ''default'' Mesa built to render in software mode.

Null and Void-- Thanks, that helps clear it up. So basically I just need to make sure the GLUT packages get installed while installing Linux right? I''m interested in messing around with hardware accelerated OpenGL. I''ve read something about dependencies on X11 for this? Is that just another package that I should make sure gets installed with Linux? Thanks, as you can tell I''m pretty new to this. I''m taking this one step at a time. I just want to get my environment set up to the point where I can compile some OpenGL sample code under Linux then I can start working from there.

BradDaBug-- Thanks for the clarification on Anjuta. Will I be ''missing out on anything'' by using the 7.x RPMs without Glibc 2.3 ?

quote:Original post by ZYirAH
I''ve read something about dependencies on X11 for this?

X11 is also known as X or the X Window System; it''s the network transparent windowing system standard that XFree86 implements and is the most common graphics layer you''ll find in unix (and unix-like) environments. Most ''easy'' distros (as well as some others) are going to assume you want it installed and setup by default.

^^ Perfect. Thanks. That''s basically exactly what I was wondering: if x and x11 are the same thing.

Thanks again.

Go the hardcore way Slackware. Use ed for writing code, hehe

Seriously though, Slackware is the distro that suits me best. Try it on. It comes with less crap, no RPM-shit, better (IMO) organized init scripts, etc.

And on top of that I just use some text-editor (be it jed, emacs or vi) and make or the automake/autoconf/etc-suit.

Besides, installing programs from source tarballs seems easier than fiddling with those rpms... just untar it, ./configure it, make and make install (... or you just have to try to decipher the INSTALL/README file and pass ten different cryptic flags to ./configure). Uninstalling programs are, well, sometimes worse.