wxPython/BUILD.unix.txt

   1 Building wxPython on Unix or Unix-like Systems
   2 ----------------------------------------------
   3
   4 NOTE:  You should probably look at the ../ README.1st.txt file for
   5 directions for how to build wxPython the "new way."  This files
   6 describes the "old way" to build on unix-like systems.  The difference
   7 is very simple:  The new way uses a private copy of wxGTK while the
   8 old way uses either an existing wxGTK that may be installed and used
   9 by other apps, or you can build a wxGTK that will be accissible by
  10 other apps.
  11
  12
  13 NOTE 2: I use a tool called SWIG (http://www.swig.org) to help
  14 generate the C++ sources used in the wxPython extension module.
  15 However you don't need to have SWIG unless you want to modify the *.i
  16 files.  I've made several modifications to and older version of SWIG
  17 that are specific to wxPython's needs and so the modified sources are
  18 included in the wx CVS at .../wxPython/wxSWIG.  But because of the
  19 size and since most people won't need it my SWIG is not included in
  20 the wxPythonSrc tarball.  You'll need to get it from CVS or a CVS
  21 snapshot.
  22
  23 If you need to modify the *.i files for wxPython then you will need to
  24 build wxswig.  Change to the .../wxPython/wxSWIG directory and run:
  25
  26       configure
  27       make
  28
  29 (Do not run "make install" as wxswig is run in-place.)  You'll then
  30 need to change a flag in the setup.py script as described below so the
  31 wxPython build process will use SWIG if needed.
  32
  33 I use the new Python Distutils tool to build wxPython.  It is included
  34 with Python 2.0, but if you want to use Python 1.5.2 or 1.6 then
  35 you'll need to download and install Distutils 1.0 from
  36 http://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/
  37
  38 Okay, now on the the fun stuff...
  39
  40
  41 1. Compile and/or install glib and gtk+
  42 ---------------------------------------
  43
  44 A. First of all, check and see if you've already got glib/gtk+ on your
  45    system, all the Linux distributions I know of come with it, at
  46    least as an option.  Look for libglib.* and libgtk.* in your system's
  47    standard library directories.  You'll also need the headers and
  48    config scripts in order to build things that use glib/gtk.  Try
  49    running gtk-config:
  50
  51            gtk-config --version
  52
  53    If you have version 1.2.7 or better then you're all set.  Otherwise
  54    either get the pacakges for your unix distribution and install them
  55    or get the sources from www.gtk.org and build and install them.
  56
  57    The best version to get is the latest 1.2.x release as the
  58    wxWindows support for GTK 2.x is still beta-level.  (Most tings
  59    work great though, and it looks real nice.)
  60
  61
  62
  63 2. Compile and/or install wxGTK
  64 -------------------------------
  65
  66 A. You can find the sources and RPMs for wxGTK at
  67    http://wxwindows.org/, just follow the download links from the
  68    navigation panel.
  69
  70    Source code for wxGTK is now included with the wxPythonSrc tarball,
  71    and is the recommended way to get released wxGTK source code if you
  72    plan on building both.
  73
  74    You can also check out a current snapshot of the sources from the
  75    CVS server.  (Some information about annonymous CVS access is at
  76    http://wxwindows.org/cvs.htm.)  The advantage of using CVS is that
  77    you can easily update as soon as the developers check in new
  78    sources or fixes.  The advantage of using a released version is
  79    that it usually has had more thorough testing done.  You can decide
  80    which method is best for you.
  81
  82
  83 B. You'll usually want to use a version of wxGTK that has the same
  84    version number as the wxPython sources you are using.  (Another
  85    advantage of using wxPythonSrc or CVS is that you'll get both at
  86    the same time.)
  87
  88
  89 C. If using the RPMs be sure to get both the wxGTK and wxGTK-devel
  90    RPMs (at a minimum) and then install them as root.
  91
  92         rpm -Uhv wxGTK-2.2.2-0.i386.rpm wxGTK-devel-2.2.2-0.i386.rpm
  93
  94
  95 D. If using the sources (either from the tarball or from CVS) then
  96    configure it like this:
  97
  98         cd wxWindows   # or whatever your top-level directory is called
  99         mkdir build
 100         cd build
 101         ../configure --with-gtk --enable-geometry
 102
 103    There are gobs and gobs of options for the configure script, run
 104    ../configure --help to see them all.  I'll describe some that I find
 105    useful here.
 106
 107    If you have OpenGL or compatible libraries installed, then add the
 108    --with-opengl flag.
 109
 110    If you are on Solaris and are using a recent version of GCC, then
 111    you'll probably want to add the --enable-permissive flag so the
 112    compiler won't barf on your broken X11 header files.
 113
 114    To make a debugging version of wxGTK, add the --enable-debug flag.
 115    This sets the -g flag for the compiler and also activates some
 116    special debugging code in wxWindows by defining the __WXDEBUG__
 117    macro.  You'll get some extra asserts, failure logging, etc.
 118
 119    If you are using GTK 2.x then you'll want to add --enable-gtk2 and
 120    probably also --enable-unicode.
 121
 122
 123 E. Now just compile and install.  You need to use GNU make, so if your
 124    system has something else get GNU make and build and install it and
 125    use it instead of your system's default make command.
 126
 127        make
 128        make install
 129
 130    The last step will probably have to be done as root.  Also, if your
 131    system needs anything done to update the dynamic loader for shared
 132    libraries, (such as running ldconfig on Linux) then do it now.
 133
 134
 135 F. You can test your build by changing to one of the directories under
 136    build/samples or build/demos, running make and then running the
 137    executable that is built.
 138
 139
 140
 141 3. Compile and install wxPython
 142 -------------------------------
 143
 144 A. You have the same options (and same advantages/disadvantages) for
 145    getting the wxPython source, either a released snapshot or from
 146    CVS.  The released version file is named wxPythonSrc-[version].tar.gz
 147    and is available at http://wxpython.org/download.php.  If you want
 148    to use CVS you'll find wxPython in the wxWindows CVS tree (see
 149    above) in the wxWindows/wxPython directory.
 150
 151
 152 B. wxPython is built with the standard Python Distutils tool and
 153    currently includes it's own snapshot of the latest version of
 154    distutils which can also be used with previous versions of Python
 155
 156    On Unix systems Distutils figures out what commands and flags to
 157    use for the compiler and linker by looking in the Makefile that was
 158    used to build Python itself.  Most of the time this works okay.  If
 159    it doesn't, there doesn't seem to be a way to override the values
 160    that Distutils uses without hacking either Distutils itself, or
 161    Python's Makefile.  (NOTE:  This has been changed with the
 162    distutilsincluded with Python 2.3 but I havn't yet looked into how
 163    best to utilize this in wxPython...)
 164
 165    While we're on the subject of how Python was built... Since
 166    wxPython is a C++ extension some platforms and/or compilers will
 167    require that the Python executable was linked with the C++ linker
 168    in order for everything to work correctly.  If you build and
 169    install Python yourself then this is easy to take care of,
 170    otherwise you may have to mess with binary packages or bribe your
 171    system administrator...
 172
 173    In my case on Solaris wxPython applications would core dump on
 174    exit.  The core file indicated that the fault happened after
 175    _exit() was called and the run-time library was trying to execute
 176    cleanup code.  After relinking the Python executable the problem
 177    went away.  To build Python to link with the C++ linker do this:
 178
 179          cd Python-2.0      # wherever the root of the source tree is
 180          rm python          # in case it's still there from an old build
 181          make LINKCC=g++    # or whatever your C++ command is
 182          make install
 183
 184    I recently built Python 2.1.3 and Python 2.2.1 on Solaris and did
 185    not have to resort to this workaround so apparently things are
 186    getting better there.  I will leave this note here though in case
 187    there are similar issues elsewhere.  However I did run into a
 188    Python build issue that affects the wxPython build when attempting
 189    to use SunCC instead of GNU gcc.  See the note below titled
 190    "Building with non-GNU compilers" if you are interested.
 191
 192
 193 C. Change to the root wxPython directory and look at the setup.py
 194    file.  This is the script that configures and defines all the
 195    information that Distutils needs to build wxPython.  There are some
 196    options near the begining of the script that you may want or need
 197    to change based on your system and what options you have selected
 198    up to this point, (sources from tar.gz or from CVS, etc.)  You can
 199    either change these flags directly in setup.py or supply them on
 200    the command-line.
 201
 202         BUILD_GLCANVAS Set to zero if you don't want to build the
 203                        Open GL canvas extension module.  If you don't
 204                        have OpenGL or compatible libraries then you'll
 205                        need to set this to zero.
 206
 207              BUILD_OGL Set to zero if you don't want to build the
 208                        Object Graphics Library extension module.
 209
 210              BUILD_STC Set to zero if you don't want to build the
 211                        wxStyledTextCtrl (the Scintilla wrapper)
 212                        extension module.
 213
 214               USE_SWIG If you have edited any of the *.i files you
 215                        will need to set this flag to non-zero so SWIG
 216                        will be executed to regenerate the wrapper C++
 217                        and shadow python files.
 218
 219                   etc.
 220
 221
 222 D. To build and install wxPython you simply need to execute the
 223    setup.py script.  If you have more than one version of Python
 224    installed, be sure to execute setup.py with the version you want to
 225    build wxPython for.  Depending on the permissions on your
 226    site-packages directory you may need to be root to run the install
 227    command.
 228
 229          python setup.py build install
 230
 231    If you need to change any of the build flags that can also be done
 232    on the setup.py command line, like this:
 233
 234          python setup.py BUILD_GLCANVAS=0 build install
 235
 236    If you are using GTK 2.x then you'll want to add these flags:
 237
 238          python setup.py WXPORT=gtk2 UNICODE=1 build install
 239
 240    If you would like to install to someplace besides the Python
 241    site-packages directory (such as to your home directory) then you
 242    can add "--root=<path>" after the "install" command.  To use
 243    wxPython like this you'll need to ensure that the directory
 244    containing wxPyrthon is contained in in the PYTHONPATH environment
 245    variable.
 246
 247
 248 E. At this point you should be able to change into the wxPython/demo
 249    directory and run the demo:
 250
 251          python demo.py
 252
 253
 254 F. If you would like to make a test build that doesn't overwrite any
 255    installed version of wxPython you can do so with this command
 256    instead of the install command above:
 257
 258          python setup.py build_ext --inplace
 259
 260    This will build the wxPython package in the local wxPython
 261    directory instead of installing it under your Python installation.
 262    To run using this test version just add the base wxPython source
 263    directory to the PYTHONPATH:
 264
 265          export PYTHONPATH=~/projects/wxWindows/wxPython
 266          # or whatever is required for your shell
 267          cd ~/projects/wxWindows/wxPython/demo
 268          python demo.py
 269
 270
 271
 272 4. Building with non-GNU compilers
 273 ----------------------------------
 274
 275 As mentioned above Python's distutils uses whatever compiler Python
 276 was compiled with to compile extension modules.  It also appears that
 277 distutils assumes that this compiler can compile C or C++ sources as
 278 distutils makes no differentiation between the two.  For builds using
 279 GNU gcc and a few other compilers this is not an issue as they will
 280 determine the type of source from the file extension.  For SunCC (and
 281 probably other compilers that came from cfront) it won't work as the C
 282 compiler (cc) is totally separate from the C++ compiler (CC).  This
 283 causes distutils to attempt to compile the wxPython sources with the C
 284 compiler, which won't work.
 285
 286 There may be better ways to get around this, but here is the
 287 workaround I devised.  I created a script that will execute either cc
 288 or CC based on the file extension given to it.  If Python uses this
 289 script for its compiler then it will also be used by extensions built
 290 with distutils and everybody will be more or less happy.  Here is a
 291 copy of the script I used.  It was a fairly quick rush job so there
 292 are probably issues with it but it worked for me.
 293
 294     #!/bin/bash
 295     #--------------------------------------------------------------
 296     # Try to determine type of file being compiled and then
 297     # launch cc for C sources or CC for C++.
 298     #
 299
 300     args=$@
 301     is_C=
 302
 303     for arg in $args; do
 304
 305         # is the arg a file that exists?
 306         if [ -e $arg ]; then
 307
 308             # does it end in ".c"?
 309             if [ "${arg:${#arg}-2}" == ".c" ]; then
 310                 is_C=yes
 311             fi
 312         fi
 313     done
 314
 315     # if the flag wasn't set then assume C++ and execute CC,
 316     # otherwise execute cc.
 317     if [ -z $is_C ]; then
 318         exec CC -w $@
 319     else
 320         exec cc -w $@
 321     fi
 322     #--------------------------------------------------------------
 323
 324 I called it pycc, put it in ${prefix}/bin and set its execute
 325 permission bit.
 326
 327 The next step is to configure and build Python such that it uses pycc
 328 as it's compiler.  You can do that by setting CC in your environment
 329 before running configure, like this in bash:
 330
 331     export CC=pycc
 332     configure
 333
 334 After making and installing Python with this configuration you should
 335 be able to build wxPython as described in the steps above.
 336
 337
 338
 339 -----------------
 340 robin@alldunn.com