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Quickstart for Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04)
You can use my repository which includes a .deb package of the Vision Egg, integrated with the Ubuntu repositories for dependencies. See the "Ubuntu packages" instructions on the motmot wiki. (This wiki is generally about other software I wrote, but you can skip steps 8-10 and install python-visionegg instead.) Note that this package only installs the Vision Egg library. To get the demos or documentation, download the source package -- AndrewStraw
More general instructions
Here are the all the steps in detail required to get the Vision Egg to run on your linux system.
This page details the build-from-source approach. Your linux distribution probably has these packages available to your package manager.
OpenGL
OpenGL is probably already installed on your system. If you're running linux, the tricky part may be getting hardware acceleration. This is accomplished by getting your X Windows server into hardware accelerated mode. This is beyond the scope of this document, but there are many good documents on the internet.
Installing Python
Python installation is straightforward, with ample documentation. Your particular distribution of linux probably comes with Python installed, but in case it doesn't, or if the Vision Egg doesn't work with your distribution's version of Python, these instructions detail building Python from the C source. These instructions were written for Python 2.1.1, but Python 2.2.1 is nearly identical.
The Python website is http://www.python.org
To build from source, unpack using the usual gunzip and tar routine. In the expanded Python source directory run ''./configure''. Then type ''make''. You can test Python by running ''make test''. If all goes well, type ''make install''.
By default, building from the source does not compile Tkinter support. Tkinter is very useful for creating GUIs in Python, and the Vision Egg, especially a few demo programs, uses it. The core functionality of the Vision Egg will work without Tkinter, but it's best to get it working at this stage. Edit the Modules/Setup file in the Python source directory, look for ''_tkinter'', and uncomment the various lines needed to get it to compile. Run ''make'' again in the root of the source directory to get _tkinter to compile and then ''make install'' (again) to install it.
Installing Python packages
Installing Numeric Python
The Numeric Python website is http://numpy.sourceforge.net
For Numeric-21.0, run ''python setup.py install''
For Numeric-20.0, make sure to run ''setup_all.py''. In addition to the basic Numeric modules, this command makes the FFT and other libraries, which are very useful, but not needed by the Vision Egg. (These extra modules are made by default in release 21.)
Installing Python Imaging Library (PIL)
The PIL download area is http://www.secretlabs.com/downloads/index.htm#pil
Imaging-1.1.2 was used for development.
Unfortunately, PIL can be tricky to install. The detailed instructions in the README are pretty good, but this package can be a bit tricky to install.
The shell commands I use to build the Imaging packages are:
cd Imaging-1.1.2/libImaging/ ./configure make cd .. make -f Makefile.pre.in boot make
If you have errors with the ''make'' step that say something like ''tk8.0'' not found, open ''Makefile'' and change ''tk8.0'' to ''tk8.3'' and ''tcl8.0'' to ''tcl8.3''. Of course this assumes you have version 8.3 of tk and tcl. If you don't have tcl, open the ''Setup'' file and comment out the ''_imagingtk'' lines.
If you have errors with the ''make'' step that say something like ''can't locate file: -ljpeg'', download and install those libraries or comment out the appropriate lines in ''Setup''. I've had trouble trying to build with those lines removed from the ''Setup'' file, so I just downloaded and installed the libraries. These libraries are very easy to compile and install. Just run ''./configure'' and ''make install''. Under Mac OS X, I couldn't get a static or shared library to compile from the sources, so I used the version that fink installed for me.
If you have to edit ''Setup'', you'll have to run ''make -f Makefile.pre.in boot'' and ''make'' again.
Now, Imaging is compiled, and you must copy the files to Python's local package directory. (How to find out what it is? It's usually ''/usr/lib/python2.1/site-packages'' or ''/usr/local/lib/python2.1/site-packages''.)
cp PIL.pth /usr/lib/python2.1/site-packages mkdir /usr/lib/python2.1/site-packages/PIL cp *.so PIL/* /usr/lib/python2.1/site-packages/PIL
Installing PyOpenGL
PyOpenGL installation is well documented and straightforward in my experience in linux. (Not necessarily so with other platforms!) I've had trouble getting the GL/ARB/texture_compression.i file to compile with the OpenGL headers that came with my nVidia card. I have a patch that fixes this problem, if you're interested.
Installing pygame
The Vision Egg uses pygame as a Python binding to SDL. SDL is used to initialize an OpenGL window in a cross platform way. I have always had good fortune with distribution installed SDL, although building from source has always worked as well.
Once SDL is installed, installation of pygame is straightforward using the Python distutils. Just type ''python setup.py install'' from the pygame source directory.
Install the Vision Egg
Install vision egg by changing to the base visionegg directory and execute ''python setup.py install''. You will need appropriate privileges on your system to install.
Check your installation with the ''check-config.py'' program. Also run this script if you run into any installation errors.