Jeff DeMaagd 1999/3/12

Linux OpenGL Basics v0.1


What is OpenGL?

Why OpenGL?

How?

How to make Mesa work:

Download it from mesa3d.org or mirrors. The latest version is 3.0, and you should download both the library source and the demos. Having the source code is important if you want to program OpenGL (no *.debs or *.rpms - they may not include source and not be optimized to your system!).

unzip and untar:
go to your /usr/src directory and run:
gzip -dc Mesa* | tar xv

Quick way:
cd Mesa-3.0,type make, find the target that you want. in my case, make linux-alpha-elf works, but the 'typical' Linux person would run make linux-386-elf or some variation of that.

Expert way:
edit Make-config, search for your target and edit the flags to suit your system, then run the proper make target, as explained above. You may also want to edit the Makefiles in the book, demos, xdemos, samples direcories, then run 'make' with the proper options.

Either way:
You will need to manually install the libraries into its proper location. Read the README.X11 file so that any OpenGL app can run on your system. After installing the libraries, run 'ldconfig' as root.

Test:
With X running, go into the book, demos or samples directory and run a program. Favorites of mine are 'reflect' and 'gears' in the 'demos' directory. If they run, good for you, but if they don't I have no idea how I can help you.

Programming:
util/glutskel.c is a good base for all OpenGL programming. Just add code. SGI has information on the OpenGL specification, even man pages. I managed to find postscript versions on Digital's FTP site.

Resources

OpenGL(R) Programming Guide, 2nd ed, OpenGL Architecture Review Board, M. Woo, J Neider, Tom Davis.