1 wxWidgets for X11 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 wxwin-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 wxWidgets you are
13 using (including the beta) and what compiler on what system. One
14 example: wxX11 2.8.0, gcc 2.95.4, Redhat 6.2
19 - Download wxX11-x.y.z.tgz, where x.y.z is the version number.
20 Download documentation in a preferred format, such as
21 wxWidgets-HTML.zip or wxWidgets-PDF.zip.
23 - Make a directory such as ~/wx and unarchive the files into this
26 - It is recommended that you install bison and flex; using yacc
27 and lex may require tweaking of the makefiles. You also need
28 libXpm if you want to have XPM support in wxWidgets (recommended).
30 - You can now use configure to build wxWidgets and the samples.
32 Using configure is the recommended way to build the library. If it doesn't
33 work for you for whatever reason, please report it (together with detailed
34 information about your platform and the (relevant part of) contents of
35 config.log file) to wx-dev@lists.wxwidgets.org.
37 COMPILING USING CONFIGURE
38 =========================
43 If you compile wxWidgets on Linux for the first time and don't like to read
44 install instructions just do (in the base dir):
46 > ./configure --with-x11
48 > su <type root password>
53 Afterwards you can continue with
56 > su <type root password>
61 If you want to remove wxWidgets on Unix you can do this:
63 > su <type root password>
71 If you want to do some more serious cross-platform programming with wxWidgets,
72 such as for GTK and X11, you can now build two complete libraries and use
73 them concurrently. For this end, you have to create a directory for each build
74 of wxWidgets - you may also want to create different versions of wxWidgets
75 and test them concurrently. Most typically, this would be a version configured
76 with --enable-debug_flag and one without. Note, that only one build can
77 currently be installed, so you'd have to use local version of the library for
80 For building three versions (one GTK, one X11 and a debug version of the GTK
81 source) you'd do this:
85 ../configure --with-x11
91 ../configure --with-gtk
97 ../configure --with-gtk --enable-debug_flag
101 * The simplest errors
102 ---------------------
104 You get errors during compilation: The reason is that you probably have a
105 broken compiler. GCC 2.8 and earlier versions and egcs are likely to cause
106 problems due to incomplete support for C++ and optimisation bugs. Best to use
109 You get immediate segfault when starting any sample or application: This is
110 either due to having compiled the library with different flags or options than
111 your program - typically you might have the __WXDEBUG__ option set for the
112 library but not for your program - or due to using a compiler with optimisation
115 * The simplest program
116 ----------------------
118 Now create your super-application myfoo.cpp and compile anywhere with
120 g++ myfoo.cpp `wx-config --libs --cxxflags` -o myfoo
125 The Unix variants of wxWidgets use GNU configure. If you have problems with
126 your make use GNU make instead.
128 If you have general problems with installation, see the wxWidgets website at
130 http://www.wxwidgets.org/
132 for newest information. If you still don't have any success, please send a bug
133 report to one of our mailing lists (see my homepage) INCLUDING A DESCRIPTION OF
134 YOUR SYSTEM AND YOUR PROBLEM, SUCH AS YOUR VERSION OF X, WHAT DISTRIBUTION
135 YOU USE AND WHAT ERROR WAS REPORTED. I know this has no effect, but I tried...
140 wxWidgets/X11 requires the X11 library to be installed on your system.
142 * Additional libraries
143 ----------------------
145 wxWidgets/X11 requires a thread library and X libraries known to work with
146 threads. This is the case on all commercial Unix-Variants and all
147 Linux-Versions that are based on glibc 2 except RedHat 5.0 which is broken in
148 many aspects. As of writing this, virtually all Linux distributions have
149 +correct glibc 2 support.
151 You can disable thread support by running
153 ./configure --disable-threads
155 su <type root password>
160 * Building wxX11 on OS/2
161 ------------------------
163 Please send comments and question about the OS/2 installation
164 to Stefan Neis <Stefan.Neis@t-online.de> and patches to
165 the wxWidgets mailing list.
167 In the following list, the version numbers indicate the configuration that
168 was actually used by myself, newer version should cause no problems and
169 even older ones are expected to work most of the time.
171 You'll need OS/2 Warp (4.51) or eCS(1.0), X-Free86/2 (3.3.6 or newer),
172 emx (0.9d fix 4), flex (2.5.4), yacc (1.8) or bison (1.25),
173 a Unix like shell (pdksh-5.2.14 or ash), Autoconf (2.57), GNU file
174 utilities (3.13), GNU text utilities (1.19), GNU shell utilites (1.12),
175 m4 (1.4), sed (2.05), grep (2.0), Awk (3.0.3), GNU Make (3.75).
177 Preferably, you should have Posix/2 installed and C(PLUS)_INCLUDE_PATH and
178 LIBRARY_PATH set up accordingly, however, wxGTK will even work without it.
179 Presence of Posix/2 will be auto-detected.
181 Open an OS/2 prompt and switch to the directory above.
182 Set MAKESHELL (and depending on your installation also INSTALL, for me
183 it tends to try to use the system's tcpip\pcomos\install.exe which causes
184 problems...) to a Unix like shell, e.g.
187 Be warned that depending on the precise version of your make, the
188 variable that needs to be set might be MAKE_SHELL instead of MAKESHELL.
189 If you have a really deficient version of GNU make, it might even be
190 necessary to set SHELL or even COMSPEC to a unix like shell as well.
192 Notice that the delivered configure scripts are fully OS/2 aware, so you
194 ash -c "configure --with-x11"
195 and make and possibly make install as described above.
197 To verify X11 installation, configure will try to compile a
198 sample program that requires X headers/libraries to be either
199 available via C_INCLUDE_PATH and LIBRARY_PATH or you need to
200 explicitly set CFLAGS prior to running configure.
202 * Building wxX11 on SGI
203 -----------------------
205 Using the SGI native compilers, it is recommended that you
206 also set CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS before running configure. These
210 CXXFLAGS="-mips3 -n32"
212 This is essential if you want to use the resultant binaries
213 on any other machine than the one it was compiled on. If you
214 have a 64bit machine (Octane) you should also do this to ensure
215 you don't accidently build the libraries as 64bit (which is
218 The SGI native compiler support has only been tested on Irix 6.5.
220 * Building wxX11 on Cygwin
221 --------------------------
223 The normal build instructions should work fine on Cygwin. The one difference
224 with Cygwin is that when using the "--enable-shared" configure option (which
225 is the default) the API is exported explicitly using __declspec(dllexport)
226 rather than all global symbols being available.
228 This shouldn't make a difference using the library and should be a little
229 more efficient. However if an export attribute has been missed somewhere you
230 will see linking errors. If this happens then you can work around the
231 problem by setting LDFLAGS=-Wl,--export-all-symbols. Please also let us know
232 about it on the wx-dev mailing list.
234 * Create your configuration
235 ---------------------------
238 ./configure [options]
240 If you want to use system's C and C++ compiler,
241 set environment variables CXX and CC as
245 % ./configure [options]
247 to see all the options please use:
251 The basic philosophy is that if you want to use different
252 configurations, like a debug and a release version,
253 or use the same source tree on different systems,
254 you have only to change the environment variable OSTYPE.
255 (Sadly this variable is not set by default on some systems
256 in some shells - on SGI's for example). So you will have to
257 set it there. This variable HAS to be set before starting
258 configure, so that it knows which system it tries to
261 Configure will complain if the system variable OSTYPE has
262 not been defined. And Make in some circumstances as well...
268 Given below are the commands to change the default behaviour,
269 i.e. if it says "--disable-threads" it means that threads
270 are enabled by default.
272 You have to add --with-x11 on platforms, where X11 is
273 not the default (on Linux, configure will default to GTK).
277 The following options handle the kind of library you want to build.
279 --disable-threads Compile without thread support. Threads
280 support is also required for the
283 --disable-shared Do not create shared libraries.
285 --enable-monolithic Build wxWidgets as single library instead
286 of as several smaller libraries (which is
287 the default since wxWidgets 2.5.0).
289 --disable-optimise Do not optimise the code. Can
290 sometimes be useful for debugging
291 and is required on some architectures
292 such as Sun with gcc 2.8.X which
293 would otherwise produce segvs.
295 --enable-profile Add profiling info to the object
296 files. Currently broken, I think.
298 --enable-no_rtti Enable compilation without creation of
299 C++ RTTI information in object files.
300 This will speed-up compilation and reduce
303 --enable-no_exceptions Enable compilation without creation of
304 C++ exception information in object files.
305 This will speed-up compilation and reduce
306 binary size. Also fewer crashes during the
307 actual compilation...
309 --enable-no_deps Enable compilation without creation of
310 dependency information.
312 --enable-permissive Enable compilation without checking for strict
313 ANSI conformance. Useful to prevent the build
314 dying with errors as soon as you compile with
315 Solaris' ANSI-defying headers.
317 --enable-mem_tracing Add built-in memory tracing.
319 --enable-dmalloc Use the dmalloc memory debugger.
320 Read more at www.letters.com/dmalloc/
322 --enable-debug_info Add debug info to object files and
323 executables for use with debuggers
324 such as gdb (or its many frontends).
326 --enable-debug_flag Define __DEBUG__ and __WXDEBUG__ when
327 compiling. This enable wxWidgets' very
328 useful internal debugging tricks (such
329 as automatically reporting illegal calls)
330 to work. Note that program and library
331 must be compiled with the same debug
337 Many of the configure options have been thoroughly tested
338 in wxWidgets snapshot 6, but not yet all (ODBC not).
340 When producing an executable that is linked statically with wxX11
341 you'll be surprised at its immense size. This can sometimes be
342 drastically reduced by removing features from wxWidgets that
343 are not used in your program. The most relevant such features
346 --without-libpng Disables PNG image format code.
348 --without-libjpeg Disables JPEG image format code.
350 { --without-odbc Disables ODBC code. Not yet. }
352 --without-expat Disable XML classes based on Expat parser.
354 --disable-resources Disables the use of *.wxr type
357 --disable-threads Disables threads. Will also
360 --disable-sockets Disables sockets.
362 --disable-dnd Disables Drag'n'Drop.
364 --disable-clipboard Disables Clipboard.
366 --disable-serial Disables object instance serialisation.
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
384 Please see the output of "./configure --help" for comprehensive list
385 of all configurable options.
391 The following must be done in the base directory (e.g. ~/wxX11
394 Now the makefiles are created (by configure) and you can compile
395 the library by typing:
399 make yourself some coffee, as it will take some time. On an old
400 386SX possibly two weeks. During compilation, you'll get a few
401 warning messages depending in your compiler.
403 If you want to be more selective, you can change into a specific
404 directory and type "make" there.
406 Then you may install the library and its header files under
407 /usr/local/include/wx and /usr/local/lib respectively. You
408 have to log in as root (i.e. run "su" and enter the root
413 You can remove any traces of wxWidgets by typing
417 If you want to save disk space by removing unnecessary
422 in the various directories will do the work for you.
424 * Creating a new Project
425 ------------------------
427 1) The first way uses the installed libraries and header files
428 automatically using wx-config
430 g++ myfoo.cpp `wx-config --libs` `wx-config --cxxflags` -o myfoo
432 Using this way, a make file for the minimal sample would look
438 $(CXX) -o minimal minimal.o `wx-config --libs`
440 minimal.o: minimal.cpp
441 $(CXX) `wx-config --cxxflags` -c minimal.cpp -o minimal.o
446 This is certain to become the standard way unless we decide
449 If your application uses only some of wxWidgets libraries, you can
450 specify required libraries when running wx-config. For example,
451 `wx-config --libs=html,core` will only output link command to link
452 with libraries required by core GUI classes and wxHTML classes. See
453 the manual for more information on the libraries.
455 2) The other way creates a project within the source code
456 directories of wxWidgets. For this endeavour, you'll need
457 GNU autoconf version 2.14 and add an entry to your Makefile.in
458 to the bottom of the configure.in script and run autoconf
459 and configure before you can type make.
461 * Further notes by Julian Smart
462 -------------------------------
464 - You may find the following script useful for compiling wxX11,
465 especially if installing from zips (which don't preserve file
466 permissions). Make this script executable with the command
469 -------:x-----Cut here-----:x-----
471 # Sets permissions (in case we extracted wxX11 from zip files)
473 # Call from top-level wxWidgets directory.
474 # Note that this uses standard (but commonly-used) configure options;
475 # if you're feeling brave, you may wish to compile with threads:
476 # if they're not supported by the target platform, they will be disabled
479 chmod a+x configure config.sub config.guess
480 ./configure --with-x11 --with-shared --with-debug_flag --with-debug_info --enable-debug --without-threads --without-sockets --without-odbc
482 -------:x-----Cut here-----:x-----
484 This script will build wxX11 using shared libraries. If you want to build
485 a static wxWidgets library, use --disable-shared.
490 - Solaris compilation with gcc: if the compiler has problems with the variable
491 argument functions, try putting the gcc fixinclude file paths early in the
494 - If you operator-related compile errors or strange memory problems
495 (for example in deletion of string arrays), set wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS
496 and wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING to 0 in setup.h, and recompile.
498 - If you get an internal compiler error in gcc, turn off optimisations.
500 - Some compilers, such as Sun C++, may give a lot of warnings about
501 virtual functions being hidden. Please ignore these, it's correct C++ syntax.
502 If you find any incorrect instances, though, such as a
503 missing 'const' in an overridden function, please let us know.
508 - Debugging mode is switched on by default in the makefiles, but using
509 configure will create a release build of the library by default: it's
510 recommended to use --with-debug_info and --with-debug_flag configure
511 switches while developing your application. To compile in non-debug
512 mode, remove the -D__WXDEBUG__ switch in make.env (or if using the
513 configure system, change --with-debug_flag to --without-debug_flag
514 and --with-debug_info to --without-debug_info in the makewxx11
520 Please send bug reports with a description of your environment,
521 compiler and the error message(s) to the wxwin-developers mailing list at:
523 wx-dev@lists.wxwidgets.org