Mesa may be compiled in several different ways:
To compile stand-alone Mesa type make in the top-level directory. You'll see a list of supported system configurations. Choose one from the list (such as linux-x86), and type:
make linux-x86
This will produce libGL.so and several other libraries
Prerequisites:
DRM kernel modules and header files from the DRI project.
If you don't already have the DRM file, you can get the sources from CVS by doing:
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/dri co drm
See the DRI Building Instructions for the steps to build the DRM modules. Mesa 6.5 requires at least libdrm 2.0.1 or greater.
You can verify that the DRM files have been properly installed by
running pkg-config --modversion libdrm
You'll need this if you get any errors about _GLXvop_BindTexImageEXT being undefined.
Download/install the glproto module from X.org git, or grab the glxproto.h file and put it in the Mesa/include/GL/ directory.
Build Mesa and the DRI hardware drivers by running
make linux-dri
There are also linux-dri-x86, linux-dri-x86-64,
and linux-ppc configurations which are optimized for those
architectures.
Later, if you want to rebuild for a different configuration run
make realclean before rebuilding.
When compilation has finished, look in the top-level lib/
(or lib64/) directory.
You'll see a set of library files similar to this:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 brian users 10 Mar 26 07:53 libGL.so -> libGL.so.1* lrwxrwxrwx 1 brian users 19 Mar 26 07:53 libGL.so.1 -> libGL.so.1.5.060100* -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 3375861 Mar 26 07:53 libGL.so.1.5.060100* lrwxrwxrwx 1 brian users 11 Mar 26 07:53 libGLU.so -> libGLU.so.1* lrwxrwxrwx 1 brian users 20 Mar 26 07:53 libGLU.so.1 -> libGLU.so.1.3.060100* -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 549269 Mar 26 07:53 libGLU.so.1.3.060100* lrwxrwxrwx 1 brian users 12 Mar 26 07:53 libglut.so -> libglut.so.3* lrwxrwxrwx 1 brian users 16 Mar 26 07:53 libglut.so.3 -> libglut.so.3.7.1* -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 597754 Mar 26 07:53 libglut.so.3.7.1* lrwxrwxrwx 1 brian users 11 Mar 26 08:04 libGLw.so -> libGLw.so.1* lrwxrwxrwx 1 brian users 15 Mar 26 08:04 libGLw.so.1 -> libGLw.so.1.0.0* -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 20750 Mar 26 08:04 libGLw.so.1.0.0* lrwxrwxrwx 1 brian users 14 Mar 26 07:53 libOSMesa.so -> libOSMesa.so.6* lrwxrwxrwx 1 brian users 23 Mar 26 07:53 libOSMesa.so.6 -> libOSMesa.so.6.1.060100* -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 23871 Mar 26 07:53 libOSMesa.so.6.1.060100*
libGL is the main OpenGL library (i.e. Mesa).
libGLU is the OpenGL Utility library.
libglut is the GLUT library.
libGLw is the Xt/Motif OpenGL drawing area widget library.
libOSMesa is the OSMesa (Off-Screen) interface library.
If you built the DRI hardware drivers, you'll also see the DRI drivers:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 15607851 Jul 21 12:11 ffb_dri.so* -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 15148747 Jul 21 12:11 i810_dri.so* -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 14497814 Jul 21 12:11 i830_dri.so* -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 16895413 Jul 21 12:11 i915_dri.so* -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 11320803 Jul 21 12:11 mach64_dri.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 11418014 Jul 21 12:12 mga_dri.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 11064426 Jul 21 12:12 r128_dri.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 11849858 Jul 21 12:12 r200_dri.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 16050488 Jul 21 12:11 r300_dri.so* -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 11757388 Jul 21 12:12 radeon_dri.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 11232304 Jul 21 12:13 s3v_dri.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 11062970 Jul 21 12:13 savage_dri.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 11214212 Jul 21 12:13 sis_dri.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 11368736 Jul 21 12:13 tdfx_dri.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 10598868 Jul 21 12:13 trident_dri.so -rwxr-xr-x 1 brian users 10997120 Jul 21 12:13 unichrome_dri.so
If you downloaded/unpacked the MesaDemos-x.y.z.tar.gz archive or obtained Mesa from CVS, the progs/ directory will contain a bunch of demonstration programs.
Before running a demo, you may have to set an environment variable (such as LD_LIBRARY_PATH on Linux) to indicate where the libraries are located. For example:
cd into the Mesa lib/ directory.
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH ${cwd} (if using csh or tcsh shell)
or,
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${PWD} (if using bash or sh shell)
Next, change to the Mesa/demos/ directory:
cd ../progs/demos
Run a demo such as gears:
./gears
If this doesn't work, try the Mesa/progs/xdemos/glxinfo program and see that it prints the expected Mesa version number.
If you're using Linux or a similar OS, verify that the demo program is being linked with the proper library files:
ldd gears
You should see something like this:
libglut.so.3 => /home/brian/Mesa/lib/libglut.so.3 (0x40013000)
libGLU.so.1 => /home/brian/Mesa/lib/libGLU.so.1 (0x40051000)
libGL.so.1 => /home/brian/Mesa/lib/libGL.so.1 (0x400e0000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/i686/libc.so.6 (0x42000000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/i686/libm.so.6 (0x403da000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x403fc000)
libXmu.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libXmu.so.6 (0x404da000)
libXt.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libXt.so.6 (0x404f1000)
libXi.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libXi.so.6 (0x40543000)
libstdc++.so.5 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 (0x4054b000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x405fd000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x40605000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i686/libpthread.so.0 (0x40613000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x40644000)
libSM.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libSM.so.6 (0x40647000)
libICE.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libICE.so.6 (0x40650000)
Retrace your steps if this doesn't look right.
The standard location for the OpenGL header files on Unix-type systems is
in /usr/include/GL/.
The standard location for the libraries is /usr/lib/.
For more information see, the
Linux/OpenGL ABI specification.
If you'd like Mesa to co-exist with another implementation of OpenGL that's
already installed, you'll have to choose different directories, like
/usr/local/include/GL/ and /usr/local/lib/.
To install Mesa's headers and libraries, run make install.
But first, check the Mesa/configs/default file and examine the values
of the INSTALL_DIR and DRI_DRIVER_INSTALL_DIR variables.
Change them if needed, then run make install.
The variable
DESTDIR may also be used to install the contents to a temporary
staging directory.
This can be useful for package management.
For example: make install DESTDIR=/somepath/
Note: at runtime you can use the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable (on Linux at least) to switch between the Mesa libraries and other vendor's libraries whenever you want. This is a handy way to compare multiple OpenGL implementations.
Running make install will install package configuration files
for the pkg-config utility.
When compiling your OpenGL application you can use pkg-config to determine the proper compiler and linker flags.
For example, compiling and linking a GLUT application can be done with:
gcc `pkg-config --cflags --libs glut` mydemo.c -o mydemo
Please see the README.WIN32 file.
Please see the README.VMS file.
Documentation for other environments (some may be very out of date):