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Mervin McDougall said on January 15th, 2008 at 11:20 pm :

I believe the problem is in the belief that MAC OS X is a standard Unix. It has Unix at its core, in the kernel, but it has been heavily modified and integrated with code from the now defunct NeXT project.

If you really want to test out an application designed for Unix you are going to need a standard Unix or Unix-like type OS. I would recommend either FreeBSD or any of the various flavours of Linux. The LD_LIBRARY_PATH is a standard environmental variable commonly found in Linux and I believe FreeBSD Unix as well.

 

admin said on January 16th, 2008 at 8:45 am :

I suppose you’re right, Mervin, but when you’re in an environment that works uniquely with Mac OS X (and they’re wonderful for the things we do) compiling becomes such a hassle and such a nightmare.

 

Sawyer said on January 22nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm :

Something I would look into if I were you is using MacPorts or Fink. They’ve got lots of Unix/Linux packages that can be installed/compiled etc, just by using a graphical interface. I use MacPorts, and installing python is as easy as typing sudo port install python

Give it a look. You’ll probably need X11 installed too. Also, your comment box doesn’t scroll in FIrefox 2.

 

Adam Yarter said on July 27th, 2009 at 5:25 pm :

LD_LIBRARY_PATH is a way to link headers and libraries that aren’t in your /usr/lib. You can create a hard link in /usr/lib to the library being called or
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=(location of library folder)
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

and that should solve your problem!

Why I hate Unix

I didn’t want to make this so dramatic but during the first day of my wonderful externship at the Music Entertainment Technology laboratory I came to one painful, painful realization: development in the Unix environment sucks.

Allow me to elaborate. I was working on compiling the source for the amazing Frets on Fire, an open-source computer-based alternative to Guitar Hero. It is Python based (which is absolutely fantastic), free, and allows for playing via your usual Guitar Hero guitar via a USB connection. So far so good. Never mind that the latest versions of Frets on Fire don’t work on Mac OS X. I downloaded the source version for 1.1.324, cracked my knuckles, and dove in.

I had Leopard running on one of the computers so I ran the XTools package out of the CD. A breeze. Next, I proceeded to the Source code guide at the FoF site and went down the list:

  1. Python? *check
  2. PyGame? Nope. Off I go to the website, to the downloads page, and then there’s a dozen files, and I pick one that looks right (the tarball looks nice) and download. python setup.py sounds right. Nope. Looks like I’m missing all the binary packages
    1. Repeat above with Numeric. Never mind the fact that Number is now Numby, and there is also a separate download for Numby, but only a previous edition. Never mind.
    2. Repeat above with PyObjC 1.3. Oops. It doesn’t install without Universal Python 2.5.
      1. Repeat above above with Universal Python 2.5
    3. Repeat above with PIL
    4. Repeat above with SDL
  3. Wonderful. Now onto item 3. PyOpenGL, which binds OpenGL to Python. Powerful stuff. Tarball or Egg file? Hm. Tarball looks nice.
    1. Woops. Missing ez_setup. Repeat above above with that.
  4. Next: the Amanith Framework, an open-source C++ framework for 2D and 3D vector graphics. Download. I have no idea what to do. Off to documentation, where it says:

    The most common problems during Amanith compilation process involve the wrong set of the $AMANITHDIR env.

    First you need an article before ‘Amaninth’ and your ‘involve’ should be ‘involves’. And where the hell is $AMANITHDIR? Then it tells me I need to qmake amanith.pro. I have no idea what qmake does but I try it. Woops, no qmake installed.

    1. The qmake webpage has a link called “Installing qmake” but no sign of a distribution or a download. I have to make a stupid Google query just to find the right page with the link (it turns out I need Qt, which has qmake)
    2. The binary distribution of Qt has problems and thus I spend an hour compiling the open-source source version.
  5. Okay, qmake installed. Looks like I can’t do qmake amaninth.pro until I change something called a LD_LIBRARY_PATH which I have no idea where it comes from or where it is located. Apparently on a Mac OS X it’s called DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to do the export command in the terminal or modify .bash_profile, login and logout, or do something else

See what I mean? I shall update this as I continue my attempts to compile Frets on Fire.

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