wxWidgets on Linux — Newbie Installation and First Program

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---> WxWiki - wxWidgets on Linux [If unavailable, try this archive]
---> IBM developerWorks article [If unavailable, try this archive]

wxWidgets on Linux — Newbie Installation and First Program

January 16th, 2008

This web page serves to document my first attempt at using the wxWidgets C++ library.

This is not a precise “how-to guide,” unless you happen to have a PC that is set up exactly like mine, with exactly the same libraries and permissions, etc.

My experience during wxWidgets installation is a very limited and a very specific experience. I acquired the wxWidgets files using the CD-ROM that accompanies the book “Cross-Platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets.” I compiled a “flavor” of wxWidgets that will be used to compile Linux applications using GTK+ 2.

If you are using the same book (ISBN 0-13-147381-6), and you are using Linux and GTK+ 2, then this “guide” might help you a lot.

Otherwise, this might help you a little.

If you are not using the book or are not using Linux, then I will make an educated guess that you have arrived at this page after performing a Google search for one of the errors that I mention. Hopefully this page will help you overcome those errors.

(By the way, I do net yet feel ready to give a full review of the GUI Programming wxWidgets book. I do like the book so far, but I have only read chapters 1 through 6.)

Steps I performed to install and use wxWidgets:

1. Got this book: ISBN 0-13-147381-6

2. Inserted the CD-ROM from the book, then copied the following from the cd to my hard drive:

/media/cdrom0/wxWidgets/
(The wxWidgets 2.6.1 distribution.)

3. (Again, I’m on linux.) Got rid of all files in that folder with extensions:

txt
zip
exe

4. That leaves only:

wxWidgets/wxBase-2.6.1.tar.gz
wxWidgets/wxGTK-2.6.1.tar.gz
wxWidgets/wxMac-2.6.1.tar.gz
wxWidgets/wxMGL-2.6.1.tar.gz
wxWidgets/wxMotif-2.6.1.tar.gz
wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1-HTB.tar.gz
wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1-HTML.tar.gz
wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1-PDF.tar.gz
wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1.tar.gz
wxWidgets/wxX11-2.6.1.tar.gz

5. un-gzip, un-tar all that. that only gives you 7 folders:

(The HTB, HTML, and PDF stuff all ends up in “wxWidgets-2.6.1/”)

wxWidgets/wxBase-2.6.1
wxWidgets/wxGTK-2.6.1
wxWidgets/wxMac-2.6.1
wxWidgets/wxMGL-2.6.1
wxWidgets/wxMotif-2.6.1
wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1
wxWidgets/wxX11-2.6.1

6. navigated into the directory wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1/

7. created a new directory:
wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1/buildGTK26ud/

8. ran the "configure" script. (may or may not need to be root. The need — or choice — to use “su” or “sudo” depends on you and your scenario.)

localhost:wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1/buildGTK26ud# ../configure --with-gtk=2 --enable-unicode --enable-debug --disable-shared --disable-monolithic

9. ran make. (may or may not need to be root. The need — or choice — to use “su” or “sudo” depends on you and your scenario.)

localhost:wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1/buildGTK26ud# make

10. make install. (may or may not need to be root. The need — or choice — to use “su” or “sudo” depends on you and your scenario.)

localhost:wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1/buildGTK26ud# make install

11. ldconfig. (may or may not need to be root. The need — or choice — to use “su” or “sudo” depends on you and your scenario.)

localhost:wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1/buildGTK26ud# ldconfig

(not necessary? maybe not necessary since we compiled wxWidgets with “--disable-shared” ….? I am unsure.)

12. After completing all the above steps, I noticed that there are many new files created for me in various subdirectories of “usr/local/”

New inside “/usr/local/lib/”

directory wx/

lib/libwx_baseud-2.6.a
lib/libwx_baseud_net-2.6.a
lib/libwx_baseud_xml-2.6.a
lib/libwx_gtk2ud_adv-2.6.a
lib/libwx_gtk2ud_core-2.6.a
lib/libwx_gtk2ud_html-2.6.a
lib/libwx_gtk2ud_media-2.6.a
lib/libwx_gtk2ud_qa-2.6.a
lib/libwx_gtk2ud_xrc-2.6.a
lib/libwxjpegd-2.6.a
lib/libwxpngd-2.6.a
lib/libwxregexud-2.6.a
lib/libwxtiffd-2.6.a

New inside “/usr/local/bin/”
	lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root       54 2008-01-16 09:38 wx-config -> /usr/local/lib/wx/config/gtk2-unicode-debug-static-2.6
	lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root        8 2008-01-16 09:38 wxrc -> wxrc-2.6
	-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  7580651 2008-01-16 09:38 wxrc-2.6
New inside “/usr/local/include”

/usr/local/include/wx-2.6/wx/ (bunch of header files)

13. Now it is time to test whether we can compile some sample code that was provided with wxWidgets. Go to directory buildGTK26ud/samples/minimal/

localhost:wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1/buildGTK26ud/samples/minimal# make

localhost:wxWidgets/wxWidgets-2.6.1/buildGTK26ud/samples/minimal# ./minimal

14. Now it is time to create my own program. I need to know whether g++ can find the wxWidgets library no matter where I put my source code, so I will create a sample cpp file in my home directory. Create a program:
//********************************************

// WARNING:  THIS IS AN IDIOTIC EXAMPLE.
//    THIS PROGRAM WILL RUN INDEFINITELY
//    UNTIL YOU MANUALLY KILL IT.

#include "wx/wx.h"

class FirstOne : public wxApp
{

public:
	virtual bool OnInit();

};

DECLARE_APP(FirstOne)

IMPLEMENT_APP(FirstOne)

bool FirstOne::OnInit()
{

	return true;
}

//********************************************

15. You can’t just run g++ on that! You need lots and lots of flags to pass to g++16. To successfully use gcc/g++ to compile a wxWidgets program (on Linux), the easiest thing you can do is use [/usr/local/bin/wx-config]

16. Here is how you can use wx-config to view a list of flags that you will need in order to compile your program:

localhost# /usr/local/bin/wx-config --cxx --cppflags

returns this:

g++
-I/usr/local/lib/wx/include/gtk2-unicode-debug-static-2.6 -I/usr/local/include/wx-2.6 -D__WXDEBUG__ -D__WXGTK__ -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGE_FILES -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE=1

17. Here is how you can use wx-config to view a list of library parameters that you will need to pass to g++ so that it knows how to find the libraries it needs for compiling your wxWidgets program:

localhost# /usr/local/bin/wx-config --libs

returns this:

-L/usr/local/lib -pthread -L/usr/X11R6/lib /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2ud_xrc-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2ud_qa-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2ud_html-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2ud_adv-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2ud_core-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_baseud_xml-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_baseud_net-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_baseud-2.6.a -Wl,--export-dynamic -pthread -lgtk-x11-2.0 -lgdk-x11-2.0 -latk-1.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lpangoxft-1.0 -lpangox-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lglib-2.0 -lXinerama -lXxf86vm -lexpat -lwxregexud-2.6 -lwxtiffd-2.6 -lwxjpegd-2.6 -lwxpngd-2.6 -lz -ldl -lm

18. Now you will use the information you learned in the previous two steps in order to call g++ correctly.

my file is: “FirstOne.cpp”

instead of this:

g++ FirstOne.cpp -o FirstOne

you need ALL OF THIS:

g++ -I/usr/local/lib/wx/include/gtk2-unicode-debug-static-2.6 -I/usr/local/include/wx-2.6 -D__WXDEBUG__ -D__WXGTK__ -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGE_FILES -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE=1 FirstOne.cpp -o FirstOne -L/usr/local/lib -pthread -L/usr/X11R6/lib /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2ud_xrc-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2ud_qa-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2ud_html-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2ud_adv-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_gtk2ud_core-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_baseud_xml-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_baseud_net-2.6.a /usr/local/lib/libwx_baseud-2.6.a -Wl,--export-dynamic -pthread -lgtk-x11-2.0 -lgdk-x11-2.0 -latk-1.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lpangoxft-1.0 -lpangox-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lglib-2.0 -lXinerama -lXxf86vm -lexpat -lwxregexud-2.6 -lwxtiffd-2.6 -lwxjpegd-2.6 -lwxpngd-2.6 -lz -ldl -lm