OpenSUSE 10.1 10.2

There is a HOWTO for OpenSuse 10.3 at OpenSuse 10.3 HOWTO.

Foreword

Revision Febr. 2007

OpenSUSE 10.2 
OpenSUSE 10.1 stuff deleted (no need to use 10.1 anymore)

A) This article is written by an absolute Linux n00b to give some advice to other beginners on OpenSUSE 10.2

B) If anything is missing or not clear, please use the FG user mailing list to ask (or just tell what is lacking to get it fixed)

C) The system: AMD64, OpenSUSE x86_64 10.2, KDE Desktop, NVIDIA graphic card

D) There are actually 2 FlightGear CVS branches - PLIB and OSG. Although OSG is FlightGears graphic system for the future, it is still under development, lacking some important features, actually (Febr. 07) working bad on my PC and a little more difficult to compile. This is why I am only reporting about building the PLIB FlightGear system. Once you are familiar with the building process, it should be no problem to build a separate (parallel) OSG system on your PC. Have a look on this wiki for further information.

How get a working FlightGear system on OpenSUSE 10.2

1. Prerequisites

1.1.2 Further improvement of the YAST Updater Add more servers:

FTP:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/%2fopensuse/10.2
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/update/10.2

HTTP:
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.2/repo/oss/
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.2/repo/non-oss/

NVIDIA 3D
FTP:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/%2fopensuse/10.2

These may take some time to update!

1.2 Updating the kernel is necessary to get the NVIDIA drivers installed. One has to install the NVidia drivers with YAST (as recommended by NVidia). This is a litte "tricky" for a Linux newbee as the x11-video-nvidia file is unproblematic but the nvidia-gfx-kmp-xxx is for the new "default" kernel (something like 2.6.16.21-x) and the kernel from the installation disk is still 2.6.16.13-4 - so you have to *update* the kernel with YAST. After that, all NVidia drivers can be installed without a dependency complaint.

2. Creating the development system

You have to install this software with YAST (and also possible other packages for dependency reasons, YAST will tell you).

> Software Management --> Package Groups --> Development

> Software Management --> Search "xxxxx"

Install:
# some of these will not be necessary
# but I cannot remember what is essential
# better some more than some lacking :-)
glibc
glibc-32bit
glibc-devel
glibc-devel-32bit
glibc-i18ndata
glibc-locale
glibc-locale-32bit
glibc-obsolete
cpp
cpp41
gcc
gcc41
gcc41-32bit
gcc-c++
libgcc41
libgcc41-32bit
gdb
libjpeg
libjpeg-32bit
libjpeg-devel
make
automake
usermake
autoconf
cvs
zlib
zlib-32bit
zlib-devel
zlib-devel-32bit
openal
openal-32bit
openal-devel
openal-debuginfo (necessary?)
freealut
freealut-devel
Mesa
Mesa-32bit 
Mesa-devel
Mesa-devel-32bit
Mesa-devel-static
MesaGLw
MesaGLw-devel

3. Installing the TARs

I downloaded freealut-1.1.0.tar.gz and created a folder usr/local/src/tar to where I moved freealut-1.1.0.tar.gz Then open a terminal-session in this folder and give this command

tar -xzf /usr/local/src/tar/freealut-1.1.0.tar.gz

Do the same with openal-0.0.8.tar.gz.

4. Getting the CVS-Source

Create subfolders in /usr/local/scr, ie fg-cvs, plib-cvs, SimGear-cvs

4.1 Getting plib CVS source code

Plib now uses SVN, but you still can use PLIB CVS. I had to use the CVS to get plib compiled, the prebuild stuff (plib 1.8.4) did not compile. New: plib-1.8.5-rc1 works, so you can plib-1.8.5-rc1.tar.gz if you don't want to use the plib CVS system as described here.

PLIB CVS: Navigate into your plib folder, ie /usr/local/src/plib-cvs and open a terminal session:

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@plib.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/plib login
NO password, simply press [ENTER]
IF THIS MESSAGE POPS UP, IGNORE IT: "cvs login: warning: failed to open /home/XXX/.cvspass for reading:"
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@plib.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/plib co plib

4.2 Getting the Source for the PLIB versions

FlightGear actually has two branches, the newer OSG still unfinished one and the stable PLIB one. The future of FlightGEar is with OSG but due to display problems on my system I will only describe how to compile the PLIB branch:

4.3.1 Getting SimGear CVS source code

cvs -d :pserver:cvsguest@cvs.simgear.org:/var/cvs/SimGear-0.3 login
password is "guest"
cvs -d :pserver:cvsguest@cvs.simgear.org:/var/cvs/SimGear-0.3 co source
#do not forget to change the directory here!
cd source
cvs up -rPRE_OSG_PLIB_20061029

4.3.2 Getting FlightGear CVS source code

cvs -d :pserver:cvsguest@cvs.flightgear.org:/var/cvs/FlightGear-0.9 login
password is "guest"
cvs -d :pserver:cvsguest@cvs.flightgear.org:/var/cvs/FlightGear-0.9 co source
#do not forget to change the directory here!
cd source
cvs up -rPRE_OSG_PLIB_20061029

5. Compiling

5.1 Compiling and Installing FreeAlut and OpenAL

5.1.1 Compiling OpenAL

As far as I remember, only use
./autogen.sh
./configure
make 
make install

5.1.2 Compiling FreeAlut

As far as I remember, only use
./configure
make 
make install

5.2 .. 5.4 Compiling and Installing PLIB, SimGear, FlightGear

The process is always the same except "./autogen.sh", I can't remember whether you need it for plib but it does not hurt if the command is given: Sequence:

 ./autogen.sh
 #./configure with Prefix "XXXX": set the path where YOUR FlightGear system should be build, ie /usr/local/FlightGear
 ./configure --prefix=XXXXX
 make
 make install

BTW: A file config.log is created during the process, you might have a look into it if there are any errors - or just if you are curious.

5.2 Compiling plib ("Go into" means: navigate with Konqueror and open the aimed folder, then open a terminal session from Konqueror with F4 or the specific Konqueror menu command) Go into the plib folder and give all the above commands (5)

5.3 Compiling SimGear Go into the SimGear/source folder and give all the above commands (5)

5.4 Compiling FlightGear Go into the FlightGear/source folder and give all the above commands (5). This may take a long time depending on the speed of your system.

6. Getting the DATA

Go into your FlightGear folder ie. /usr/local/FlightGear.

Open a terminal session:

cvs -d :pserver:cvsguest@cvs.flightgear.org:/var/cvs/FlightGear-0.9 login
password is "guest"
cvs -d :pserver:cvsguest@cvs.flightgear.org:/var/cvs/FlightGear-0.9 co data

(if you should only update later you have to go into the data-folder and would only write "cvs update -dP")

At the moment there is no difference between the OSG and PLIB data. This might change. Then you have to download the PLIB data branch with

...
cd data
cvs up -rPRE_OSG_PLIB_20061029

7. Giving user rights

It might be that some or all of the files in the FlightGear folder are only with root rights. I solved this by going to the folder where the FlightGear folder is installed in with Konqueror, opening a terminal with F4, typing in su and then the administrator/root password. Then, if your username is XXXX, you can change the rights with the command

chown -R XXXX *

8. Configure Sound

Although al OpenAl drivers were installed correctly, this was necessary to get sound with FlightGear:

1. Create File ~/.openalrc 
2. Content (only this line):
(define devices '(native alsa sdl esd arts null))

9. Running FG on OpenSuse 10.2

You might also compile FGRun (the launcher program). As the author is using his own launcher (FGTools) he did not do this step and cannot give you any advice. But there might be an article about that in this Wiki or anyone else may complete this part.

Good luck! Have fun.