Compiling under win2k

[DanBrwn]

I am having a very difficult time setting up my environment to compile the VLC sources. I have followed the suggestions at http://developers.videolan.org/vlc/Cygw ... ntRevB.pdf. I know absulutely nothing about the Cygwin environment, less about the bash shell etc... etc... I am a Windows developer so can guess my way around a lot of stuff. I am stuck now because I can't seem to create the ./bootstrap and ./configure files. Maybe? I have created what I think are correct files but when I type make at the bash prompt I get something to the effect no arguments. So I run make -f makefile.am. The makefile.am is in the svn trunk vlc-trunk. I get an error on line 153 stating "missing seperator" Stop. I am used to a lot of automated tools so am a little lost when it comes to the make file format for gcc make. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[DanBrwn]

So now I know a little more about what I think I should be doing. Please, Someone with some experience at all in using the GNU tools respond. I am trying to compile the sources with cygwin and the bash shell. I have followed the instructions above and have not had success. I get all kinds of errors. I have downloaded using subversion the vlc-trunk svn. It is installed in my working cygwin\home\myusername\vlc-trunk directory. I have all the source files. The svn server puts a series of files used by the autoconf, automake, make etc.. build tools for GNU build series. I don't know what to do with the silly files. I have tried autoconf which is supposed to take the configure.ac file in my vlc-trunk directory and create a file name configure. It does with a lot of warnings. Am I supposed to replace the configure.ac file with something else. According to the quoted instructions in my previous post, I am to create a bootstrap file and a configure file. Are they supposed to be fed to automake. At any rate, what I do not have is a make file for the source tree. All the other stuff is supposed to get me a makefile.in. I have a makefile.am but it doesn't do anything for me either. Someone help a windows handicapped man. Thanks

[zcot]

go DanBrwn go!

make sure you are using compatible sources for example if you downloaded the latest source(or even the 0.8.2 source) then you can't use the same contrib lib as listed in the CygwinCompileEnvironmentRevB.pdf file because that will be too outdated. So, make sure you have a reasonably same-dated contrib lib installed. I know for sure that the 0.8.2 source will compile with either the 20050606 or the 20050624 contribs. You have a very recent svn source.. which contrib(just to make sure since you dont want to run alot of stuff to only realize you have incompatible packages)?

here's some more general info:

..create the ./bootstrap and ./configure files

you do not do this.. actually these files are existing and you will call them through the building process. View them in the vlc-trunk they are called bootstrap and configure. The look of ./bootstrap in a configurationing script is a direct shell command meaning run the bootstrap(bootstrap) file in the current directory(./). Later you will use a similarly looking situation in no time you will be typing ./vlc to run the successfully built program.

The concept is like this. You need to "bootstrap" the environment to be able to run "configure" successfully.. otherwise various environment variable and such will not be there and you will not get very far. It's a common situation to make 1 file to achieve all this work. So you will create 1 file perhaps called "config_setup" or "my_vlc_builder_starter_upper" or whatever.. This file will contain the command calls to the existing bootstrap and configure files(supplied by the developers in the source code already) and also passing various parameters to those files. It is all alot of typing and information to run the "bootstrap" and "configure" files, so the "config-setup" is created for it.

I'm sure you are very close with all this.. create that file(like you probably already have) and have it in your cygwin\home\myusername\ directory. You are ready.. fire up cygwin and change directories to the vlc-trunk:

Code: Select all

cd vlc-trunk

now run that custom "builder_starter_upper" file which is located in the parent directory of where you are now(vlc-trunk). By the way, you put that file in the vlc parent directory so there is no need of adding files to the vlc codebase. Normally these calls to bootstrap and configuration might just be lines you directly type into the bash while in the trunk directory but in this case it's a substantial amount of needed typing so you throw it all into a file instead. So, run your "config_setup" or whatever you call it like this:

Code: Select all

../vlc-kicker-script

(if it was a file named "vlc-kicker-script". the ../ means parent directory.)

everything should go fine from that point for the next maybe 2 hours or something.. -and hey better not let your screen saver kick on or you're asking for trouble to maybe happen! -and after all this stuff you are ready to simple type:

Code: Select all

make

(with no twisted parameters)

a couple points about the situation

use the current readme.win32 source file to see how to built a good "bash-kicking-vlc-shooter-make-starter-thing" script. And don't try to configure for a debug and release version at the same time

reboot cygwin after the bootstrapped configuration session. So, don't just type make right away. I've actually found rebooting the machine is successful every time whereas sometimes I end up with the blue screen of death if I only restart cygwin, and definately it dies like clockwork if I don't even restart cygwin. This issue may be an issue with cygwin on win98 or this old machine.. who knows, but be aware of that possibility of corruption due to nothing other than the environment. I believe there is an easy environment memory fixing command listed in the cygwin FAQ. Anyway, bring cygwin up again and change directories again(you might just press the up arrow to bring up the bash history of when you typed it 2 commands ago ).

you can use a cleaning command(among others) via a developer-provided file called toolbox(in the vlc root). You can type ./toolbox --help(after you changed to the vlc directory of course) to check out some of its qualities. it's a ./bootstrap ./configure make cleaner:

Code: Select all

./toolbox --distclean

so a recap:

• *use compatible packages.
  *make a successfully-usable non-conflicting configurationing script.
  *tweak the cygwin environment(or your building process by rebooting) to raise the possibility of success.