A Brief Guid to Install MiniGUI V1.6.x on A Linux PC Box

Before installation

Please download the following tarballs from http://www.minigui.org:

• libminigui-1.6.x.tar.gz: the source of MiniGUI libraries, including libminigui, libmgext, and libvcongui.
• minigui-res-1.6.x.tar.gz: the resource used by MiniGUI, including basic fonts, icons, bitmaps, cursors, and imetables.
• mde-1.6.x.tar.gz: the demos for MiniGUI Version 1.6.x.
• mg-samples-1.6.x.tar.gz: the samples for MiniGUI Version 1.6.x.

MiniGUI can run on Linux console with FrameBuffer activated. If you video chip is VESA 2.0 compliant (most video chips support VESA 2.0), you can active Linux kernel's VESA FrameBuffer by add a boot option 'vga=0x0317'. This option will use VESA BIOS to enter a 1024x768-16bpp display mode. Please make sure that your display can support this mode.

You can also run MiniGUI on a virtual Frame Buffer. Currently, MiniGUI V1.6.10 can run on Qt Virtual Frame Buffer (QVFB). Please download qvfb-1.1.tar.gz tarball from the download zone of this site and install qvfb first.

Installing resource files of MiniGUI

We must install resource files of MiniGUI first. Please follow the steps below to do it:

        1) Use `tar' to extract minigui-res-1.6.x.tar.gz. You can use
           the following command:

           $ tar zxf minigui-res-1.6.x.tar.gz

        2) Change to new directory and run `make' as a super user:

           $ su -c make install

Configure and compile MiniGUI

MiniGUI uses `automake' and `autoconf', so configuration and compilation of MiniGUI are very easy:

        1) Use `tar' to extract `libminigui-1.6.x.tar.gz' to a new directory:

           $ tar zxf libminigui-1.6.x.tar.gz

        2) Change to the new directory and run `./configure':

           $ ./configure

        3) Run the following commands to compile and install MiniGUI:

           $ make; su -c 'make install';

        4) By default, libraries of MiniGUI will be installed in
           `/usr/local/lib'. You should make sure that this directory
           is listed in `/etc/ld.so.conf' file. And after having installed
           them, you should run the following command to update the cache
           of shared library system:

           $ su -c ldconfig

        5) If you want to specify which features MiniGUI provides, you
           can run

           $ ./configure --help

           to see the complete configuration options listed, then disable or
           enable some features by using command line switches. For example,
           if you do not want MiniGUI to load JPEG pictures via the function
           LoadBitmap, you can use

           $ ./configure --disable-jpgsupport

        6) Note that some features of MiniGUI depend on other libraries.
           Please make sure that you have installed them.

Run demos of MiniGUI

If you have installed MiniGUI version 1.6.x or later, you should use our new demo system called `MDE'. 'MDE' is a comprehensive demostration environment for MiniGUI version 1.6.x, more pretty and useful.

Before running the demo programs, you should extract these tarballs and compile them:

        1) Extract the tarball to a new directory by using `tar' command.

        2) Run `./configure' and `make' to compile the demos.

            $ ./configure
            $ make

        3) Try to run demos and applications. For example, you can go to
           `mde-1.6.x/same/' to run `same':

            $ cd same
            $ ./same

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