1 wxWindows 2.5 for Motif installation
2 ------------------------------------
6 If you experience problems installing, please re-read these
7 instructions and other related files (todo.txt, bugs.txt and
8 osname.txt for your platform if it exists) carefully before
9 mailing wx-users or the author. Preferably, try to fix the
10 problem first and then send a patch to the author.
12 When sending bug reports tell us what version of wxWindows you are
13 using (including the beta) and what compiler on what system. One
14 example: wxMotif 2.5.0, gcc 2.95.4, Redhat 6.1
19 - Prerequisites: Motif 1.2 or above, or Lesstif. Motif 2.0 and
20 above may also be suitable.
22 - Download wxX11-x.y.z.tgz, where x.y.z is the version number.
23 (wxMotif is included in the wxX11 distribution).
24 Download documentation in a preferred format, such as
25 wxWindows-HTML.zip or wxWindows-PDF.zip.
27 - Make a directory such as ~/wx and unarchive the files into this
30 - It is recommended that you install bison and flex; using yacc
31 and lex may require tweaking of the makefiles. You also need
32 libXpm (see comments in the Notes section below) if you want to have
33 XPM support in wxWindows (recommended).
35 - You can now use configure to build wxWindows and the samples.
37 Using configure is the only way to build the library. If it doesn't
38 work for you for whatever reason, please report it (together with detailed
39 information about your platform and the (relevant part of) contents of
40 config.log file) to wx-dev@lists.wxwindows.org.
43 COMPILING USING CONFIGURE
44 =========================
49 If you compile wxWindows on Linux for the first time and don't like to read
50 install instructions just do (in the base dir):
52 > ./configure --with-motif
54 > su <type root password>
59 Afterwards you can continue with
62 > su <type root password>
67 If you want to remove wxWindows on Unix you can do this:
69 > su <type root password>
77 If you want to do some more serious cross-platform programming with wxWindows,
78 such as for GTK and Motif, you can now build two complete libraries and use
79 them concurrently. For this end, you have to create a directory for each build
80 of wxWindows - you may also want to create different versions of wxWindows
81 and test them concurrently. Most typically, this would be a version configured
82 with --enable-debug and one without. Note, that only one build can
83 currently be installed, so you'd have to use local version of the library for
84 that purpose. For building three versions (one GTK, one Motif and a debug
85 version of the GTK source) you'd do this:
89 ../configure --with-motif
95 ../configure --with-gtk
101 ../configure --with-gtk --enable-debug
105 * The simplest errors
106 ---------------------
108 You get errors during compilation: The reason is that you probably have a
109 broken compiler. GCC 2.8 and earlier versions and egcs are likely to cause
110 problems due to incomplete support for C++ and optimisation bugs. Best to use
113 You get immediate segfault when starting any sample or application: This is
114 either due to having compiled the library with different flags or options than
115 your program - typically you might have the __WXDEBUG__ option set for the
116 library but not for your program - or due to using a compiler with optimisation
119 * The simplest program
120 ----------------------
122 Now create your super-application myfoo.app and compile anywhere with
124 g++ myfoo.cpp `wx-config --libs --cxxflags` -o myfoo
129 The Unix variants of wxWindows use GNU configure. If you have problems with
130 your make use GNU make instead.
132 If you have general problems with installation, see the wxWindows website at
134 http://www.wxwindows.org/
136 for newest information. If you still don't have any success, please send a bug
137 report to one of our mailing lists (see my homepage) INCLUDING A DESCRIPTION OF
138 YOUR SYSTEM AND YOUR PROBLEM, SUCH AS YOUR VERSION OF MOTIF, WXMOTIF, WHAT
139 DISTRIBUTION YOU USE AND WHAT ERROR WAS REPORTED. I know this has no effect,
145 wxWindows/Motif requires the Motif library to be installed on your system. As
146 an alternative, you may also use the free library "lesstif" which implements
147 most of the Motif API without the licence restrictions of Motif.
149 You can get the newest version of the Lesstif from the lesstif homepage at:
151 http://www.lesstif.org/
153 * Additional libraries
154 ----------------------
156 wxWindows/Motif requires a thread library and X libraries known to work with
157 threads. This is the case on all commercial Unix-Variants and all
158 Linux-Versions that are based on glibc 2 except RedHat 5.0 which is broken in
159 many aspects. As of writing this, these Linux distributions have correct glibc
168 You can disable thread support by running
170 ./configure --disable-threads
172 su <type root password>
177 * Building wxMotif on OS/2
178 --------------------------
180 Please send comments and question about the OS/2 installation
181 to Andrea Venturoli <a.ventu@flashnet.it> and patches to
182 the wxWindows mailing list.
184 You'll need OS/2 Warp (4.00FP#6), X-Free86/2 (3.3.3 or newer),
185 Lesstif (0.89.1 or newer), emx (0.9d fix 1), flex (2.5.4),
186 yacc (1.8), unix like shell, e.g. korn shell (5.2.13),
187 Autoconf (2.13), GNU file utilities (3.6),
188 GNU text utilities (1.3), GNU shell utilites (1.12), m4 (1.4),
189 sed (2.05), grep (2.0), Awk (3.0.3), GNU Make (3.76.1).
191 Open an OS/2 prompt and switch to the directory above.
192 First set some global environment variables we need:
194 SET CXXFLAGS=-Zmtd -D__ST_MT_ERRNO__
195 SET CFLAGS=-Zmtd -D__ST_MT_ERRNO__
199 Notice you can choose whatever you want, if you don't like OS2X.
201 Now, run autoconf in the main directory and in the samples, demos
202 and utils subdirectory. This will generate the OS/2 specific
203 versions of the configure scripts. Now run
204 configure --with-motif
207 To verify Lesstif installation, configure will try to compile a
208 sample program that requires X headers/libraries to be either
209 available via C_INCLUDE_PATH and LIBRARY_PATH or you need to
210 explicitly set CFLAGS prior to running configure.
212 If you have pthreads library installed, it will be autodetected
213 and the library will be compiled with thread-support.
215 Note that configure assumes your flex will generate files named
216 "lexyy.c", not "lex.yy.c". If you have a version which does
217 generate "lex.yy.c", you need to manually change the generated
220 * Building wxMotif on SGI
221 -------------------------
223 Using the SGI native compilers, it is recommended that you
224 also set CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS before running configure. These
228 CXXFLAGS="-mips3 -n32"
230 This is essential if you want to use the resultant binaries
231 on any other machine than the one it was compiled on. If you
232 have a 64bit machine (Octane) you should also do this to ensure
233 you don't accidently build the libraries as 64bit (which is
236 The SGI native compiler support has only been tested on Irix 6.5.
238 * Create your configuration
239 ---------------------------
242 ./configure [options]
244 If you want to use system's C and C++ compiler,
245 set environment variables CXX and CC as
249 % ./configure options
251 to see all the options please use:
255 The basic philosophy is that if you want to use different
256 configurations, like a debug and a release version,
257 or use the same source tree on different systems,
258 you have only to change the environment variable OSTYPE.
259 (Sadly this variable is not set by default on some systems
260 in some shells - on SGI's for example). So you will have to
261 set it there. This variable HAS to be set before starting
262 configure, so that it knows which system it tries to
265 Configure will complain if the system variable OSTYPE has
266 not been defined. And Make in some circumstances as well...
272 Given below are the commands to change the default behaviour,
273 i.e. if it says "--disable-threads" it means that threads
274 are enabled by default.
276 Many of the configure options have been thoroughly tested
277 in wxWindows snapshot 6, but not yet all (ODBC not).
279 You have to add --with-motif on platforms, where Motif is
280 not the default (on Linux, configure will default to GTK).
282 --with-motif Use either Motif or Lesstif
283 Configure will look for both.
285 The following options handle the kind of library you want to build.
287 --disable-threads Compile without thread support. Threads
288 support is also required for the
291 --disable-shared Do not create shared libraries.
293 --disable-optimise Do not optimise the code. Can
294 sometimes be useful for debugging
295 and is required on some architectures
296 such as Sun with gcc 2.8.X which
297 would otherwise produce segvs.
299 --enable-profile Add profiling info to the object
300 files. Currently broken, I think.
302 --enable-no_rtti Enable compilation without creation of
303 C++ RTTI information in object files.
304 This will speed-up compilation and reduce
307 --enable-no_exceptions Enable compilation without creation of
308 C++ exception information in object files.
309 This will speed-up compilation and reduce
310 binary size. Also fewer crashes during the
311 actual compilation...
313 --enable-no_deps Enable compilation without creation of
314 dependency information.
316 --enable-permissive Enable compilation without checking for strict
317 ANSI conformance. Useful to prevent the build
318 dying with errors as soon as you compile with
319 Solaris' ANSI-defying headers.
321 --enable-mem_tracing Add built-in memory tracing.
323 --enable-dmalloc Use the dmalloc memory debugger.
324 Read more at www.letters.com/dmalloc/
326 --enable-debug Equivalent to --enable-debug_info plus
329 --enable-debug_info Add debug info to object files and
330 executables for use with debuggers
331 such as gdb (or its many frontends).
333 --enable-debug_flag Define __DEBUG__ and __WXDEBUG__ when
334 compiling. This enable wxWindows' very
335 useful internal debugging tricks (such
336 as automatically reporting illegal calls)
337 to work. Note that program and library
338 must be compiled with the same debug
344 Many of the configure options have been thoroughly tested
345 in wxWindows snapshot 6, but not yet all (ODBC not).
347 When producing an executable that is linked statically with wxGTK
348 you'll be surprised at its immense size. This can sometimes be
349 drastically reduced by removing features from wxWindows that
350 are not used in your program. The most relevant such features
353 --without-libpng Disables PNG image format code.
355 --without-libjpeg Disables JPEG image format code.
357 --without-odbc Disables ODBC code.
359 --disable-threads Disables threads. Will also
362 --disable-sockets Disables sockets.
364 --disable-dnd Disables Drag'n'Drop.
366 --disable-clipboard Disables Clipboard.
368 --disable-streams Disables the wxStream classes.
370 --disable-file Disables the wxFile class.
372 --disable-textfile Disables the wxTextFile class.
374 --disable-intl Disables the internationalisation.
376 --disable-validators Disables validators.
378 --disable-accel Disables accel.
380 Apart from disabling certain features you can very often "strip"
381 the program of its debugging information resulting in a significant
387 The following must be done in the base directory (e.g. ~/wxMotif
388 or ~/wxWin or whatever)
390 Now the makefiles are created (by configure) and you can compile
391 the library by typing:
395 make yourself some coffee, as it will take some time. On an old
396 Pentium 200 around 40 minutes. During compilation, you may get a few
397 warning messages depending in your compiler.
399 If you want to be more selective, you can change into a specific
400 directory and type "make" there.
402 Then you may install the library and its header files under
403 /usr/local/include/wx and /usr/local/lib respectively. You
404 have to log in as root (i.e. run "su" and enter the root
409 You can remove any traces of wxWindows by typing
413 If you want to save disk space by removing unnecessary
418 in the various directories will do the work for you.
420 * Creating a new Project
421 ------------------------
423 1) The first way uses the installed libraries and header files
424 automatically using wx-config
426 g++ myfoo.cpp `wx-config --libs` `wx-config --cxxflags` -o myfoo
428 Using this way, a make file for the minimal sample would look
434 $(CXX) -o minimal minimal.o `wx-config --libs`
436 minimal.o: minimal.cpp mondrian.xpm
437 $(CXX) `wx-config --cxxflags` -c minimal.cpp -o minimal.o
442 This is certain to become the standard way unless we decide
445 2) The other way creates a project within the source code
446 directories of wxWindows. For this endeavour, you'll need
447 GNU autoconf version 2.14 and add an entry to your Makefile.in
448 to the bottom of the configure.in script and run autoconf
449 and configure before you can type make.
451 * Further notes by Julian Smart
452 ---------------------------------
454 - You may find the following script useful for compiling wxMotif,
455 especially if installing from zips (which don't preserve file
456 permissions). Make this script executable with the command
457 chmod a+x makewxmotif.
459 -------:x-----Cut here-----:x-----
461 # Sets permissions (in case we extracted wxMotif from zip files)
463 # Call from top-level wxWindows directory.
464 # Note that this uses standard (but commonly-used) configure options;
465 # if you're feeling brave, you may wish to compile with threads:
466 # if they're not supported by the target platform, they will be disabled
469 chmod a+x configure config.sub config.guess
470 ./configure --with-shared --with-motif --with-debug_flag --with-debug_info --enable-debug --without-threads --without-sockets --without-odbc
472 -------:x-----Cut here-----:x-----
474 This script will build wxMotif using shared libraries. If you want to build
475 a static wxWindows library, use --disable-shared.
480 - Solaris compilation with gcc: if the compiler has problems with the variable
481 argument functions, try putting the gcc fixinclude file paths early in the
484 - If you operator-related compile errors or strange memory problems
485 (for example in deletion of string arrays), set wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS
486 and wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING to 0 in setup.h, and recompile.
488 - If you get an internal compiler error in gcc, turn off optimisations.
490 - Problems with XtDestroyWidget crashing in ~wxWindow have been
491 reported on SGI IRIX 6.4. This has not yet been resolved, so
492 any advice here would be very welcome. See bugs.txt for a
493 possible temporary workaround (comment out the final
494 XtDestroyWidget from ~wxWindow in window.cpp).
496 - Some compilers, such as Sun C++, may give a lot of warnings about
497 virtual functions being hidden. Please ignore these, it's correct C++ syntax.
498 If you find any incorrect instances, though, such as a
499 missing 'const' in an overridden function, please let us know.
504 - Using configure will create a release build of the library by
505 default: it's recommended to use --enable-debug configure switch
506 while developing your application. To compile in non-debug mode, use
507 --disable-debug configure switch.
512 Please send bug reports with a description of your environment,
513 compiler and the error message(s) to the wxwin-developers mailing list at:
515 wx-dev@lists.wxwindows.org
517 Julian Smart, Robert Roebling and Vadim Zeitlin, November 1999.