Compiling FB on Linux
 

Building FB on Linux is fairly easy because usually the GNU/Linux distributions provide all the needed development packages and they can be installed easily, at least for native builds. Since 64bit support was added to FB, a native build should always be possible, no matter whether you have a 32bit x86 or 64bit x86_64 system. Cross-compiling the 32bit x86 version of FB on a 64bit x86_64 system (or vice-versa) and building for other architectures such as ARM is also possible.

Generally, compiling FB-linux requires the following packages:

  • an existing, working FreeBASIC setup for bootstrapping the new compiler
  • gcc
  • make
  • ncurses development headers & libraries (actually only its libtinfo part)
  • gpm development headers & libraries (general purpose mouse)
  • X11 development headers & libraries (including X11, Xext, Xpm, Xrandr, Xrender)
  • OpenGL development headers & libraries (typically from the Mesa project)
  • libffi development headers & libraries

Native build

Getting the FB source code

To compile a new version of FB, you first need to get the FB source code. The following assumes that you have a directory called fbc, containing the latest FB source code.

Getting an existing FB-linux setup for bootstrapping

We will need a working FB-linux installation to bootstrap the new FB compiler. If you do not have a native version of FB installed yet, download the latest FreeBASIC-X.XX.X-linux release for your system (32bit x86, 64bit x86_64, ARM, etc.) from FB's download site, then extract and install it:

$ tar xf FreeBASIC-X.XX.X-linux.tar.gz
$ cd FreeBASIC-X.XX.X-linux
$ sudo ./install.sh -i

It is possible that you can get working FB setups from other sources besides the fbc project. For example, some distros may provide freebasic packages out-of-the-box.

Installing development packages

The following lists show the packages you have to install for some common GNU/Linux distributions. The exact package names can be different depending on which distro (or which version of it) you use.

Debian-based systems (including Ubuntu, Mint etc.):
  • gcc
  • make
  • libncurses5-dev
  • libgpm-dev
  • libx11-dev
  • libxext-dev
  • libxpm-dev
  • libxrandr-dev
  • libxrender-dev
  • libgl1-mesa-dev
  • libffi-dev

OpenSUSE:
  • gcc
  • make
  • ncurses-devel
  • gpm-devel
  • libX11-devel
  • libXext-devel
  • libXpm-devel
  • libXrandr-devel
  • libXrender-devel
  • Mesa-libGL-devel
  • libffi48-devel

Fedora:
  • gcc
  • make
  • ncurses-devel
  • gpm-devel
  • libX11-devel
  • libXext-devel
  • libXpm-devel
  • libXrandr-devel
  • libXrender-devel
  • mesa-libGL-devel
  • libffi-devel

Compiling FB

Compiling FB natively is as simple as running "make" in the fbc source code directory. This will build a native FB setup matching the system architecture, assuming that the existing fbc installed on the system produces native programs.

$ cd fbc
$ make

This should have produced the bin/fbc compiler and the libraries in lib\freebasic\linux-[architecture]\.

Afterwards, you can install the new fbc build into /usr/local by running "make install", and overwrite the old FB installation:

$ sudo make install

Compiling 32bit FB on a 64bit system with existing 32bit FB

Besides native builds, you can also make non-native builds, such as compiling the 32bit version of FB on a 64bit system, using an existing 32bit FB build to bootstrap. This was very common before 64bit support was added to FB. It requires a slightly different procedure than a native build.

  • Get the FB source code.
  • Install a 32bit version of FB for bootstrapping (instead of a native 64bit version).
  • Install 32bit development packages (not just the native 64bit ones).
64bit Debian/Ubuntu example:
      • gcc-multilib
      • make
      • lib32ncurses5-dev
      • libx11-dev:i386
      • libxext-dev:i386
      • libxpm-dev:i386
      • libxrandr-dev:i386
      • libxrender-dev:i386
      • libgl1-mesa-dev
      • libgpm-dev
      • lib32ffi-dev
64bit OpenSUSE example:
      • gcc-32bit
      • make
      • ncurses-devel-32bit
      • gpm-devel
      • libX11-devel-32bit
      • libXext-devel-32bit
      • libXpm-devel-32bit
      • libXrandr-devel-32bit
      • libXrender-devel-32bit
      • Mesa-libGL-devel-32bit
      • libffi48-devel-32bit
  • Add the following config.mk file to the fbc source tree (next to the FB makefile):
CC = gcc -m32
TARGET_ARCH = x86
This tells the FB makefile to build for 32bit instead of the 64bit default.

Setting CC to gcc -m32 instead of gcc causes all C code to be compiled for 32bit rather than the default 64bit.

Assuming that the existing installed fbc is a 32bit one, it will already default to compiling to 32bit, so setting FBC to fbc -arch 32 instead of fbc is not needed (and older 32bit-only fbc versions did not even have the -arch 32 option anyways).

Setting the TARGET_ARCH to x86 is necessary to override the FB makefile's uname -m check (because that returns x86_64 on 64bit). This allows the FB makefile to select the proper x86 rtlib/gfxlib2 modules and to use the correct directory layout for x86.
  • Run "make" and let it compile FB:
$ cd ~/fbc
$ make
  • Optionally, install the newly built 32bit FB setup into /usr/local:
$ sudo make install