Entry

Installing PyOpenGL on Linux

Jul 17th, 2000 15:59
unknown unknown, Robin Humble, Stephen R. Figgins

Installing PyOpenGL on Linux is not easy right now.  I managed to do it,
but had to alter some of the source.  I was about to write up how I did
it when I found Robin Humble had done the same thing, and posted it to
the PyOpenGL egroup: 
  http://wxwindows.org/pipermail/wxpython-users/2000-April/001922.html
Here is the text of his post:
=====================================================================  
Hi,
First post...
These are the steps I went through to get pyOpenGL from CVS (May30)
working with RedHat 6.2. I think it'd be similar for RH6.1.
Some of these changes should probably go into CVS...
* install python-numpy-15.3-1.i386.rpm from 
  http://download.sourceforge.net/numpy/python-numpy-15.3-1.i386.rpm
* grab pyOpenGL from CVS using the instructions on
  http://www.pythonpros.com/cvs.html
* edit Setup.in to be all -lGL -lGLU (not MesaGL) and to be link
  paths of -L/usr/X11R6/bin
  - this'd be fine as a spec file patch... don't worry about CVS
* edit src/Togl-1.5/togl.c at ~line 127 to add a 8.0.5 version choice
  which is the same as the 8.0.4 version
  - probably should be in CVS as it appears to work with tk/tcl 8.0.5
* run python BUILD.py
* run python install.py -v
* edit /usr/lib/tk8.0/Togl/pkgIndex.tcl to be .so not .dll
  - there should be an OS dependant 'pkgIndex.tcl' in the support/
    directory that 'install.py' chooses depending upon whether you're 
    running Unix or Windows. Obviously .dll makes no sense under
    Unix/Linux.
* move /usr/lib/tk8.0/Togl/togl.so to be Togl.so
  - maybe if I knew what the syntax of the 'pkgIndex.tcl' file was then
    this wouldn't be necessary as 'togl.so' should be ok? Not sure...
I also have most of the demos from www.python.de working if anyone is
interested. The RawOpengl one being the exception.
I couldn't find any sensible demos from the cvs version of pyOpenGL.
Maybe I don't know the right place to look?
Please let me know if you'd like patches for any of these things and
I'll do my best to help. If the CVS gets updated then I'm happy to
contribute a .spec file and create a source and binary i386 rpm (and a
download site) if anyone is interested. Possibly also an Alpha/Linux
binary rpm.
I'm impressed by the speed and simplicity of pyOpenGL so far! About
100k+ points per frame animating smoothly and happily (software only
Mesa with Athlon700/K7V/G400Max)...
===================================================================== 
Since reading this, I found another person who says they solved some of
the MesaGL library problems by installing the Mesa 3.0 RPM from Robin 
Dunn's wxPython site:
  http://alldunn.com/wxPython/dist/others/