wxPython/BUILD.unix.txt

   1 Building wxPython on Unix or Unix-like Systems
   2 ----------------------------------------------
   3
   4 The basic steps for building wxPython for Unix or Unix-like systems
   5 are:
   6
   7      1. Compile and/or install glib and gtk+
   8      2. Compile and/or install wxGTK
   9      3. Compile and install wxPython
  10
  11 We'll go into more detail of each of these steps below, but first a
  12 few bits of background information on tools.
  13
  14 I use a tool called SWIG (http://www.swig.org) to help generate the
  15 C++ sources used in the wxPython extension module.  However you don't
  16 need to have SWIG unless you want to modify the *.i files.  I've made
  17 several modifications to SWIG specific to wxPython's needs and so the
  18 modified sources are included in the wx CVS at .../wxPython/wxSWIG.
  19 If you need to modify the *.i files for wxPython then change to this
  20 directory and run:
  21
  22       configure
  23       make
  24
  25 (Do not run "make install" as wxswig is run in-place.)  You'll then
  26 need to change a flag in the setup.py script as described below so the
  27 wxPython build process will use SWIG if needed.
  28
  29 I use the new Python Distutils tool to build wxPython.  It is included
  30 with Python 2.0, but if you want to use Python 1.5.2 or 1.6 then
  31 you'll need to download and install Distutils 1.0 from
  32 http://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/
  33
  34 Okay, now on the the fun stuff...
  35
  36
  37 1. Compile and/or install glib and gtk+
  38 ---------------------------------------
  39
  40 A. First of all, check and see if you've already got glib/gtk+ on your
  41    system, all the Linux distributions I know of come with it, at
  42    least as an option.  Look for libglib.* and libgtk.* in your system's
  43    standard library directories.  You'll also need the headers and
  44    config scripts in order to build things that use glib/gtk.  Try
  45    running gtk-config:
  46
  47            gtk-config --version
  48
  49    If you have version 1.2.5 or better then you're all set.  You can
  50    skip to step #2.
  51
  52 B. If your system has a binary package mechanism, (RPMs, debs,
  53    whatever...) check and see if binaries for glib abd gtk+ are
  54    available.  Be sure to get the runtime library package as well as
  55    the development package, if they are separate.  Install them with
  56    your package tool, and skip to step #2.
  57
  58 C. If all else fails, you can get the source code for glib and gtk+ at
  59    http://www.gtk.org/.  Fetch the latest of each in the 1.2.x
  60    series.  Compile and install each of them like this:
  61
  62             gzip -d [package].tar.gz | tar xvf -
  63             cd [package]
  64             ./configure
  65             make
  66             make install
  67
  68    The last step will probably have to be done as root.  Also, if your
  69    system needs anything done to update the dynamic loader for shared
  70    libraries, (such as running ldconfig on Linux) then do it after
  71    each library is installed.
  72
  73
  74
  75 2. Compile and/or install wxGTK
  76 -------------------------------
  77
  78 A. You can find the sources and RPMs for wxGTK at
  79    http://wxwindows.org/, just follow the download links from the
  80    nevigation panel.  You can also check out a current snapshot of the
  81    sources from the CVS server.  (Some information about annonymous
  82    CVS access is at http://wxwindows.org/cvs.htm.)  The advantage of
  83    using CVS is that you can easily update as soon as the developers
  84    check in new sources or fixes.  The advantage of using a released
  85    version is that it usually has had more thorough testing done.  You
  86    can decide which method is best for you.
  87
  88 B. You'll usually want to use a version of wxGTK that has the same
  89    version number as the wxPython sources you are using.  (Another
  90    advantage of using CVS is that you'll get both at the same time.)
  91
  92 C. If using the RPMs be sure to get both the wxGTK and wxGTK-devel
  93    RPMs (at a minimum) and then install them as root.
  94
  95         rpm -Uhv wxGTK-2.2.2-0.i386.rpm wxGTK-devel-2.2.2-0.i386.rpm
  96
  97 D. If using the sources (either from the tarball or from CVS) then
  98    configure it like this:
  99
 100         cd wxWindows   # or whatever your top-level directory is called
 101         mkdir build
 102         cd build
 103         ../configure --with-gtk
 104
 105    There are gobs and gobs of options for the configure script, run
 106    ../configure --help to see them all.  I'll describe some that I find
 107    useful here.
 108
 109    If you have OpenGL or compatible libraries installed, then add the
 110    --with-opengl flag.
 111
 112    If you are on Solaris and are using a recent version of GCC, then
 113    you'll probably want to add the --enable-permissive flag so the
 114    compiler won't barf on your broken X11 header files.
 115
 116    To make a debugging version of wxGTK, add the --enable-debug flag.
 117    This sets the -g flag for the compiler and also activates some
 118    special debugging code in wxWindows by defining the __WXDEBUG__
 119    macro.  You'll get some extra asserts, failure logging, etc.
 120
 121    To make a static library and not make a shared library, use the
 122    --disable-shared and --enable-static flags.
 123
 124    NOTE: There is a potential type mismatch between Python and wxGTK.
 125    This happens if Python defines some flags that turn on 64-bit file
 126    offset support and wxGTK does not.  This causes some basic types,
 127    like off_t, to be typedef'd differently causing the C++ method
 128    signatures to be incompatible and giving link errors at runtime.
 129    If you get errors upon running a wxPython script that looks
 130    something like this:
 131
 132      SeekI_13wxInputStream10wxSeekMode: referenced symbol not found
 133
 134    then that is probably the issue.  This can be fixed in the current
 135    code by predefining these flags before wxGTK's configure is run,
 136    for example:
 137
 138      export CFLAGS="-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -DHAVE_LARGEFILE_SUPPORT"
 139      export CXXFLAGS=$CFLAGS
 140      ../configure --with-gtk --with-opengl --enable-debug
 141
 142    In the 2.3.3 final release there will be a real configure flag for
 143    it, and it should be enabled by default.  You will be able to use
 144    --enable-largefile or --disable-largefile to control it.  If you
 145    still get this or a similar error with 2.3.3 then try disabling
 146    largefile support in GTK.
 147
 148 E. Now just compile and install.  You need to use GNU make, so if your
 149    system has something else get GNU make and build and install it and
 150    use it instead of your system's default make command.
 151
 152        make
 153        make install
 154
 155    The last step will probably have to be done as root.  Also, if your
 156    system needs anything done to update the dynamic loader for shared
 157    libraries, (such as running ldconfig on Linux) then do it now.
 158
 159 F. You can test your build by changing to one of the directories under
 160    build/samples or build/demos, running make and then running the
 161    executable that is built.
 162
 163
 164
 165 3. Compile and install wxPython
 166 -------------------------------
 167
 168 A. You have the same options (and same advantages/disadvantages) for
 169    getting the wxPython source, either a released snapshot or from
 170    CVS.  The released version file is named wxPython-[version].tar.gz
 171    and is available at http://wxpython.org/download.php.  If you want
 172    to use CVS you'll find wxPython in the wxWindows CVS tree (see
 173    above) in the wxWindows/wxPython directory.
 174
 175 B. As mentioned previouslly, wxPython is built with the standard
 176    Python Distutils tool.  If you are using Python 2.0 or later you
 177    are all set, otherwise you need to download and install Distutils
 178    1.0 from http://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/.
 179
 180    On Unix systems Distutils figures out what commands and flags to
 181    use for the compiler and linker by looking in the Makefile that was
 182    used to build Python itself.  Most of the time this works okay.  If
 183    it doesn't, there doesn't seem to be a way to override the values
 184    that Distutils uses without hacking either Distutils itself, or
 185    Python's Makefile.  (Complain to the distutils-sig about this
 186    please.)  For example, on a Solaris system I had to edit
 187    /usr/local/lib/python1.5/config/Makefile and replace
 188
 189          LDSHARED=ld -G
 190
 191    with
 192
 193          LDSHARED=gcc -G
 194
 195    This particular problem has been fixed in Python 1.6 and beyond,
 196    but there may be similar issues on other platforms.
 197
 198    While we're on the subject of how Python was built... Since
 199    wxPython is a C++ extension some platforms and/or compilers will
 200    require that the Python executable was linked with the C++ linker
 201    in order for everything to work correctly.  If you build and
 202    install Python yourself then this is easy to take care of,
 203    otherwise you may have to mess with binary packages or bribe your
 204    system administrator...
 205
 206    In my case on Solaris wxPython applications would core dump on
 207    exit.  The core file indicated that the fault happened after
 208    _exit() was called and the run-time library was trying to execute
 209    cleanup code.  After relinking the Python executable the problem
 210    went away.  To build Python to link with the C++ linker do this:
 211
 212          cd Python-2.0      # wherever the root of the source tree is
 213          rm python          # in case it's still there from an old build
 214          make LINKCC=g++    # or whatever your C++ command is
 215          make install
 216
 217    I recently built Python 2.1.3 and Python 2.2.1 on Solaris and did
 218    not have to resort to this workaround so apparently thigns are
 219    getting better there.  I will leave this note here though in case
 220    there are similar issues elsewhere.  However I did run into a
 221    Python build issue that affects the wxPython build when attempting
 222    to use SunCC instead of GNU gcc.  See the note below titled
 223    "Building with non-GNU compilers" if you are interested.
 224
 225 C. Change to the root wxPython directory and look at the setup.py
 226    file.  This is the script that configures and defines all the
 227    information that Distutils needs to build wxPython.  There are some
 228    options near the begining of the script that you may want or need
 229    to change based on your system and what options you have selected
 230    up to this point, (sources from tar.gz or from CVS, etc.)  You can
 231    either change these flags directly in setup.py or supply them on
 232    the command-line.
 233
 234         BUILD_GLCANVAS Set to zero if you don't want to build the
 235                        Open GL canvas extension module.  If you don't
 236                        have OpenGL or compatible libraries then you'll
 237                        need to set this to zero.
 238
 239              BUILD_OGL Set to zero if you don't want to build the
 240                        Object Graphics Library extension module.
 241
 242              BUILD_STC Set to zero if you don't want to build the
 243                        wxStyledTextCtrl (the Scintilla wrapper)
 244                        extension module.
 245
 246               USE_SWIG If you have edited any of the *.i files you
 247                        will need to set this flag to non-zero so SWIG
 248                        will be executed to regenerate the wrapper C++
 249                        and shadow python files.
 250
 251            IN_CVS_TREE If you are using the CVS version of the
 252                        wxWindows and wxPython sources then you will
 253                        need to set this flag to non-zero.  This is
 254                        needed because some source files from the
 255                        wxWindows tree are copied to be under the
 256                        wxPython tree in order to keep Distutils happy.
 257                        With this flag set then setup.py will
 258                        automatically keep these copied sources up to
 259                        date if the original version is ever updated.
 260                        If you are using the tar.gz version of the
 261                        Python sources then these copied sources are
 262                        already present in your source tree.
 263
 264
 265 D. To build and install wxPython you simply need to execute the
 266    setup.py script.  If you have more than one version of Python
 267    installed, be sure to execute setup.py with the version you want to
 268    build wxPython for.  Depending on the permissions on your
 269    site-packages directory you may need to be root to run the install
 270    command.
 271
 272          python setup.py build
 273          python setup.py install
 274
 275 E. At this point you should be able to change into the wxPython/demo
 276    directory and run the demo:
 277
 278          python demo.py
 279
 280 F. If you would like to make a test build that doesn't overwrite the
 281    installed version of wxPython you can do so with this command
 282    instead of the install command above:
 283
 284          python setup.py build_ext --inplace
 285
 286    This will build the wxPython package in the local wxPython
 287    directory instead of installing it under your Python installation.
 288    To run using this test version just add the base wxPython source
 289    directory to the PYTHONPATH:
 290
 291          export PYTHONPATH=~/projects/wxWindows/wxPython
 292          # or whatever is required for your shell
 293          cd ~/projects/wxWindows/wxPython/demo
 294          python demo.py
 295
 296
 297
 298 4. Building with non-GNU compilers
 299 ----------------------------------
 300
 301 As mentioned above Python's distutils uses whatever compiler Python
 302 was compiled with to compile extension modules.  It also appears that
 303 distutils assumes that this compiler can compile C or C++ sources as
 304 distutils makes no differentiation between the two.  For builds using
 305 GNU gcc and a few other compilers this is not an issue as they will
 306 determine the type of source from the file extension.  For SunCC (and
 307 probably other compilers that came from cfront) it won't work as the C
 308 compiler (cc) is totally separate from the C++ compiler (CC).  This
 309 causes distutils to attempt to compile the wxPython sources with the C
 310 compiler, which won't work.
 311
 312 There may be better ways to get around this, but here is the
 313 workaround I devised.  I created a script that will execute either cc
 314 or CC based on the file extension given to it.  If Python uses this
 315 script for its compiler then it will also be used by extensions built
 316 with distutils and everybody will be more or less happy.  Here is a
 317 copy of the script I used.  It was a fairly quick rush job so there
 318 are probably issues with it but it worked for me.
 319
 320     #!/bin/bash
 321     #--------------------------------------------------------------
 322     # Try to determine type of file being compiled and then
 323     # launch cc for C sources or CC for C++.
 324     #
 325
 326     args=$@
 327     is_C=
 328
 329     for arg in $args; do
 330
 331         # is the arg a file that exists?
 332         if [ -e $arg ]; then
 333
 334             # does it end in ".c"?
 335             if [ "${arg:${#arg}-2}" == ".c" ]; then
 336                 is_C=yes
 337             fi
 338         fi
 339     done
 340
 341     # if the flag wasn't set then assume C++ and execute CC,
 342     # otherwise execute cc.
 343     if [ -z $is_C ]; then
 344         exec CC -w $@
 345     else
 346         exec cc -w $@
 347     fi
 348     #--------------------------------------------------------------
 349
 350 I called it pycc, put it in ${prefix}/bin and set its execute
 351 permission bit.
 352
 353 The next step is to configure and build Python such that it uses pycc
 354 as it's compiler.  You can do that by setting CC in your environment
 355 before running configure, like this in bash:
 356
 357     export CC=pycc
 358     configure
 359
 360 After making and installing Python with this configuration you should
 361 be able to build wxPython as described in the steps above.
 362
 363 -----------------
 364 robin@alldunn.com