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Difference between revisions of "Scripted Compilation on Linux Debian/Ubuntu"

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(added release notes for 1.9.14, proposed features to add in 1.9.15)
(Launching FGCOM)
Line 181: Line 181:
cd ~/fgfs
cd ~/fgfs
sh run_fgcom.sh -cs
sh run_fgcom.sh

Revision as of 04:13, 6 April 2014

The following script takes care of downloading and compiling FlightGear from the git repositories with just one command execution for both 32-bit and 64-bit Debian based systems (Debian, Ubuntu). Pre-existing installed version (if any) of FlightGear are not touched at all since the script builds and installs everything under the directory in which it is launched. You can choose between building all or only specific tools and applications. For redhat-based systems (Fedora, CentOS) you may want to check out CentOS.

Necessary packages are installed via the apt-get system while libraries not included in the repositories are downloaded and compiled on the fly (i.e. Plib, Simgear and OSG).

For Hints on Using a RPM based distribution like CentOS, please see CentOS

Please also see Superbuild.

Cut to the Chase: for the impatient

cd  <your working directory for building flightgear>
wget download_and_compile.sh  https://www.gitorious.org/fg/fgmeta/raw/master:download_and_compile.sh
mkdir -p stable
mkdir -p next
cd stable
../download_and_compile.sh -sx
cd ../next
../download_and_compile.sh -p n -x

Change Log

Changes in 1.9.14

  1. Version bump for 2.99.9 now 3.0.0
  2. changed logging to log entire output of a sub-process rather than write individual lines of output to a logfile.
  3. logs are versioned.
  4. fix to support a change in fgdata version when fgdata is a symlink
  5. Automatic j option # of cores + 1
  6. fixed stable fgrun build
  7. stable is now 2.12.0 for fgfs & simgear, 2.12.1 for fgdata
  8. fixed broken stable build for 2.12.0
  9. Added section on setup
  10. once built, unless specifically requested by parameter OSG or PLIB: Don't rebuild OSG or plib Don't update OSG or plib sources
  11. self testing with ./download_and_compile.sh test.

Proposed changes for 1.9.15

  1. build fltk and boost libraries
  2. fgpanel support
  3. add support for: --apt-get-update --package --no-package --update --no-update --configure --no-configure
  4. add option items for options in flightgear's cmakelists.txt
  5. multiple targets and option values in the command line: support any combination of upper/lower case build targets with version numbers, branch and debug and other options. options selected would apply until overriden by another option on the command line.

for example:

../download_and_compile.sh --nodebug fltk-1.3.2 boost-1.55.0 osg-3.2.0 --branch release/3.0.0  --debug simgear flightgear fgpanel --branch master --nodebug openrti 

Disk Space Requirements

As of 02/2013, this script will by at least require 24-30 gb of disk space, note that this includes the downloaded source trees and the build files, but also the fgdata checkout (which accounts approx. for 50% of the whole thing).

List of compiled programs

The script is able to download and compile:

Note that openRTI is just another optional dependency for HLA support: http://wiki.flightgear.org/FlightGear_HLA_support_(High_Level_Architecture)

For the time being, you should be just fine building without HLA support. Eventually, the idea is for HLA to replace the existing MP system and even increasingly distribute the FlightGear architecture such that more and more components can be more easily run in separate threads or even separate processes, possibly even on different machines. So this is going to be an important feature for professional users, using several computers and screens to create a comprehensive and immersive simulation environment.

At the moment, it's probably safe to say that HLA is only of interest to developers and people willing to play with experimental features.

Updated list of programs compilation status

Keeping in mind that this script compiles bleeding edge software versions, using latest debian derivered distros, it can happen that the program that was successfully compiling last week, today does not.
This is a list of what does and does not compile as much updated as possible.
Date: 19 November 2012


You can download the script here:

This one may not work. It's a preview of what will be on master after the changes are tested. (Sometimes, the next version may even be an earlier version of the script.) Note that the next branch of the script is not needed to build the next branch of flightgear. The script on master should be able to do that for you.

The script is maintained in the FlightGear main repository. Remember to update this script whenever a new FlightGear version is released, so that you'll be able to download the latest stable revision.

There is also another option for building FlightGear and all its dependencies in an automated fashion, please refer to: http://geoffmclane.com/fg/fgfs-052.htm

Known Pitfalls

FlightGear versions <= 3.0 are known to have a cmake build system issue related to NOT automatically reconfiguring the SG/FG sources after updating the version files in in $SG_SRC and $FG_SRC, which basically means that using "git pull" to update your source trees (via the d&c script) will create the latest binaries, but they may not be looking for the right base package data, because the source trees are still using the old version files found in the cmake cache. This has been encountered by various contributors, including at least one core developer.

To work around this issue, simply switch to your SG/FG build directories and reconfigure each tree by running "cmake ." - for further info, see [1][2].


To run download_and_compile.sh, just save it in a directory called for example: ~/fgfs then execute it (no need to execute it as root).

Here is for example a sequence of commands to get the script from the master branch:

mkdir ~/fgfs
cd ~/fgfs
chmod 755 download_and_compile.sh

Depending on the level of maintenance activity on the script, the version in master may be out of date. To get the script from the next branch:

mkdir ~/fgfs
cd ~/fgfs
wget http://www.gitorious.org/fg/fgmeta/raw/19e9e62ba61c40bdbcbacc93d119320d99311e02:download_and_compile.sh
chmod 755 download_and_compile.sh

For the daring, you can try out the absolute latest development version of the script. This version usually has been tested to build or rebuild at least one variant of flightgear, probably several. However, it has not been tested by more than one user.

See: Talk:Scripted_Compilation on Linux Debian/Ubuntu for more information

You have two options now: build the latest stable FlightGear release or build the current development version (bleeding edge). After building stable or the latest, if you need to build a different version, try the instructions for Avoiding Multiple Downloads of fgdata.

Build the latest stable FlightGear release

When executing the script, use the "-s" option to build the latest stable release:

./download_and_compile.sh -s

Build the current FlightGear development version

When executing the script without any option, the latest development version is built.

Warning: The development version of Flightgear changes on an almost daily basis. It provides the latest features, but is not always guaranteed to work reliably. If you're unfamiliar with software testing, you may prefer to use the latest stable release.


Once the script is finished, you will successfully get Flightgear and Fgrun installed in the ~/fgfs directory.

Launching FlightGear

When using brisa's script, the various FG dependencies/libs are usually not installed system-wide, but in a custom location (that makes it possible, to easily use different OSG/SG/FG versions on a single system, i.e. for testing purposes - but also to have separate build trees (optimized/debug) ) - which is why you either need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH or simply use Brisa's script to run everything (something like run_fgfs.sh, which automatically sets up all environment variables according to your build settings).

To run your new git installation of FlightGear you have to launch the run_fgfs.sh command under the same folder, for example:

cd ~/fgfs
sh run_fgfs.sh

Launching Fgrun


For many users it's more comfortable having FlightGear launched by the graphical utility Fgrun which is installed as well in the same folder. You have to launch the run_fgrun.sh command, for example:

cd ~/fgfs
sh run_fgrun.sh

Launching Fgo!


This is a graphical utility written in python, You have to launch the run_fgo.sh command, for example:

cd ~/fgfs
sh run_fgo.sh

Remember that the first time you run it, you have to go to preferences and set the binary and fgdata path (Do no set the working directory, you don't need it).

Additional programs

If you wish to get all the other programs, you need to launch the script adding the "ALL" option to the command line:

./download_and_compile.sh ALL

This, will also install FGCOM, FGComGui and Atlas

Launching FGCOM

FGCOM is the system used by FlightGear to simulate radio communications between users. Launch it using the run_fgcom.sh command:

cd ~/fgfs
sh run_fgcom.sh

Launching FGComGui

FgComGui is a GUI wrapper to launch fgcom.

cd ~/fgfs  
sh run_fgcomgui.sh

Launching Atlas


Atlas provides a map for FlightGear, use it launching: run_atlas.sh

cd ~/fgfs
sh run_atlas.sh

Launching Terrasync

Your FlightGear compilation comes with the Terrasync program too, so if you want to use it:

cd ~/fgfs
sh run_terrasync.sh -S -p 5500 -d /folder/with/sceneries

Where: /folder/with/sceneries is the folder containing the sceneries data.

Then launch fgfs with the --fg-scenery=/folder/with/sceneries --atlas=socket,out,5,localhost,5500,udp option


Compilation errors

Here we are, no fear, if you wish to use programs from the cvs/svn/git repositories, you might face compilation errors that will prevent you to have a working copy of one or more of the programs provided by this script. What can be the causes that prevent us from successfully compiling? As far as I know those:

  1. Software developers introduce a new functionality with a new piece of code that prevents the compilation under your architecture, this can happen working with cvs/svn/git sources.
  2. The program refuses to compile because of a divergence in the libraries on which it depends. For example FlightGear might not compile because OSG has been modified, while OSG itself compiles fine, FG won't.
  3. One or more repositories are down and you can't get the library you need. (Both from cvs/svn/git or apt-get)

There is a simple solution to the above errors: wait and relaunch the script after some time (hours or days), if software developers repair or synchronize their code with the newly updated libraries (which generally happens eventually), your FlightGear will compile fine as if the previous error never took place.

Sometimes it happens that the script fails to compile only fgrun, fgcom or atlas, if you then see the run_fgfs.sh file it means that FlightGear installation was successful and you can safely run it.


The script by default (without any option) will only compile FlightGear and Fgrun. To make it compile all, you need to launch the script with the ALL parameter. i.e.:

./download_and_compile.sh ALL

Compiling only one program

If you wish to recompile only one of the programs you can launch the script with one of the following parameters:

  • PLIB (to compile and install only plib)
  • OSG (to compile and install only OpenSceneGraph)
  • SIMGEAR (to compile and install only Simgear)
  • FGFS (to compile and install only FlightGear)
  • DATA (to download / update only data files for FlightGear)
  • FGRUN (to compile and install only Fgrun)
  • FGO (to compile and install only Fgo!)
  • FGCOM (to compile and install only Fgcom)
  • FGCOMGUI (to compile and install only FgComGui)
  • ATLAS (to compile and install only Atlas)

Fast updating

There is a second parameter UPDATE that allows you to just update your installation. i.e.: This will only update FGFS

./download_and_compile.sh FGFS UPDATE

Compiling last stable versions (Experimental)

Even if the script fetches data and sources from bleeding edge developers repositories (which sometimes do not compile), you can still force the script to download latest known versions of the software that were compiling successfully by adding the -s option.

./download_and_compile.sh -s

How does it work? Inside the script there is a small list with latest known versions of successfully compiling revisions, it will download from svn/git those specific revisions, which have been found able to compile together.
Warning: If you run this option inside a folder where you previously compiled fgfs, it will probably fail to compile, you better run the script with this option inside an empty folder or a folder whith the same fgfs version compiled previously.

Advanced options

  • Skip download of packages using -p n option
  • Skip compilation of programs using -c n option
  • Skip retrieving software updates using -d n option
  • Skip reconfigure (make clean) using -r n option

For example, if you are a developer and wish to quickly recompile and reinstall only your own modifications for FlightGear do this:

./download_and_compile.sh -p n -d n -r n  FGFS

this will only recompile modifications and reinstall them.

Multicore Acceleration

Using the option -j x (where x is the number of your CPU-Cores you wish to assign to the job) will speed up the whole compilation process considerably.

Disk usage

Having both compiled program, source code, and data from git requires some hard disk space: It will take something like 13 GB of space. If you don't have a fast machine, it will require several hours of compilation time.

Optimus technology

If your computer has a GPU with optimus technology, you need a dedicated script in order to make FG running with the powerful GPU.

After having installed required tools (Bumblebee) you just need to run this command line in your FG installation directory (where you executed ./download_and_compile.sh) :

sed  's|\./fgfs|optirun ./fgfs|' run_fgfs.sh > run_fgfs_optirun.sh && chmod +x run_fgfs_optirun.sh

Now you can run FG with ./run_fgfs_optirun.sh

Remove warning message for DDS files

You can remove the warning message displayed when DDS files are parsed by SimGear by adding the following line just after cd "simgear/simgear" line :

	sed -i s/SG_ALERT,\ \"Image/SG_WARN,\ \"Image/g simgear/scene/model/ModelRegistry.cxx