Compiling FlightGear 2.4.0 for Ubuntu Linux 10.04 (Lucid)

Update 2011-08-26: If you are using Ubuntu 11.04 or later, it looks like this is now packaged as a .deb by PlayDeb. This post may still be of interest to those using earlier versions of Ubuntu.

I recently had cause to install FlightGear 2.4.0 on Ubuntu 10.04. It’s not packaged in the form of a deb yet, so I’ve documented the commands I used. No guarantees this’ll work for you, as I haven’t tested them rigorously; and I’m assuming some Linux and command-line knowledge.

sudo apt-get install libboost-graph-dev libopenal-dev libalut-dev libopenscenegraph-dev libjpeg62-dev libplib-dev zlib1g-dev
./configure --with-jpeg-factory ; make -j10 ; sudo checkinstall
./configure ; make -j10 ; sudo checkinstall
ls -1 /usr/local/share/flightgear/
AI
Aircraft
Airports
Astro
ATC
AUTHORS
etc...

Comments

I may try this method with other flight simulators as well. flightsimulatordownloadd.org
Thanks you. Compiling FlightGear Download is working well for me so far,
Is flightgear available for Linux Mint 12 LXE 64bit yet
I've walked away from FlightGear for a year, hoping for improvement. When I gave up Windows in 1999 for Linux, I started missing having a flight simulator. I still do. The Linux experience is second-class. When we're fortunate enough to find packages, they don't include a GUI. And getting it as a second package and spending an hour working out environment variables isn't an answer. The planes work, mostly. I'm still selecting aircraft from the command line, COMPLETELY unaware of all the work that's been done on radios and autopilot, I'm just happy to get in the air at all. My joystick's very standard...Logitech Extreme 3d. But I fly with the stick 1/3 up, no controls on the stick make sense...no one ever worked any of this out. I'm no programmer. Most Mac people aren't either. And I don't see anyone on Windows using a flight simulator fiddling with a joystick definition when they can just steal another program and fly it, instead. I've spend many, many hours *just* to get to the basic flight, with trim-tabs, flaps and the HAT selector to work. I shouldn't have to do that *every* release. So tell me. Has there been any movement in the last year on _really_ improving user experience?
Builds and installs perkect with Ubuntu 11.04 (Linux 2.6.38-8-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux) "thumb up" Packages from playdeb do not work stable on my machine, this HOWTO solved this issue! thank you very much! tracy
You can also download a precompiled version of FG 2.4 for Ubuntu from http://www.unitedfreeworld.com/downloads-pre-compiled-packages-linux-ubuntu/ This was a much easier choice for me.. Good luck
Jonny, thanks, I've added that to the list.
From an essentially fresh install of 10.04.3 I also had to install package zlib1g-dev. Thanks for keeping it simple.
Thank you very much! It also works perfectly in my Ubuntu 11.10 (oneric) installation. ;)
Thanks a lot! Note, please, that it have to be done in userspace, f.e. ~/TMP/
Hope this works, I'm still using 10.04.3. Thanks in advance!
Hunt around for them in the archives? Tell me you're not serious. That's a real help.
How do I run on Ubuntu 11.10?
:P :(
:(
I could not download FlightGear 2.4.0 >:(
Thanks to pollux for the mirror... I'd been trying to download from flightgear ftp for over two weeks and the download always failed. Now I got the file!
actually, needed openscenegraph 3.0.1 also, that takes a while to build and install...still going
And I meant to say, THANKS Very Much! for the clear install instructions and dependencies list, that list got all that I needed.
Installing simgear required to manually create two directories, then it successfully installed. Not sure why, it complained, I manually added and reran checkinstall. sudo mkdir /usr/local/include/simgear sudo mkdir /usr/local/include/simgear/scene
Thanks much for this. I saw that PlayDeb supposedly had the 2.4 debs, but for some reason, it kept deferring to the 2.0 debs in the repos. Oh well, compiling went well, and reminded me of my Gentoo days ;) Kudos, Dave
Hello, To anyone that cares, if you happen to receive a seg fault upon fgfs execution, you probably used to play with an earlier version of the build. Try renaming your existing FG_HOME directory (e.g. /home/your_user_name/.fgfs) so the new version can recreate the directory appropriately.
Guille, thanks. I've updated the list of dependencies.
Hi, Thanks a lot for this guide. I am compiling right now in Ubuntu 10.04. Previously I installed FGFS1.9.1 via the Package Manager, and uninstalled before I compile this. I would like to add that I also had to install "libjpeg62-dev" in order to compile SimGear2.4.0 and "libplib-dev" for FlightGear2.4.0
Had some hard times with downloading 2.4.0 Base Package, here an efficient link : http://ftp.linux.kiev.ua/pub/mirrors/ftp.flightgear.org/flightgear/Shared/
It's /usr/local/share/flightgear.
Also, is it "/usr/share/local/flightgear" or "/usr/local/share/flightgear", and why there not /usr/games (or is this so V2.0 and V2.4 can co exist)?
Dennis, thanks for the clarification. I already had that package installed - have added it to the list.
I was installing on Ubuntu 11.04 - not many games here - and had to: sudo apt-get install libopenscenegraph-dev
Thanks you very much! :-) This was very helpful, though I compiled mine on OpenSUSE 11.4 Tumbleweed. The only headache was finding analogues of dependencies, though figured out in few mins.
There is a FG GUI tolunch the flightgear: the FGRUN. I found the .deb package