Gaming Linux® From Scratch (System V Edition) - Version #8718

Chapter 16. Miscellaneous

SDL2-2.32.8

Introduction to SDL2

The Simple DirectMedia Layer Version 2 (SDL2 for short) is a cross-platform library designed to make it easy to write multimedia software, such as games and emulators.

[Note]

Note

If you want, you can instead install SDL3 and sdl2-compat as suitable replacements for this package. Wine and ffplay from FFmpeg are known to work with sdl2-compat.

[Note]

Note

This may take a while to build. Feel free to do something else while this is building.

SDL2 Dependencies

Recommended

libxkbcommon-1.11.0, Wayland-Protocols-1.45, and Xorg Libraries (if those are not present, the corresponding modules are not built)

Optional

alsa-lib-1.2.14, ibus, libsamplerate, nasm, pipewire, PulseAudio-17.0, a window manager or desktop environment, DirectFB, fcitx, jack, and sndio

Installation of SDL2

Install SDL2 by running the following commands: 

./configure --prefix=/usr &&
make

Now, as the root user: 

make install              &&
rm -v /usr/lib/libSDL2*.a

lib32 Installation of SDL2

Install lib32-SDL2 by running the following commands: 

make distclean &&
CC="gcc -m32" CXX="g++ -m32"         \
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib32/pkgconfig \
./configure --prefix=/usr            \
            --libdir=/usr/lib32      \
            --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu &&

make

Now, as the root user: 

make DESTDIR=$PWD/DESTDIR install     &&
rm -v DESTDIR/usr/lib32/libSDL2*.a    &&
cp -vr DESTDIR/usr/lib32/* /usr/lib32 &&
rm -rf DESTDIR                        &&
ldconfig

Command Explanations

[Note]

Note

Run ./configure --help for a full list of options.

rm -v /usr/lib/libSDL2*.a: Normally static libraries can be disabled with a --disable-static option to configure, but that breaks the build in this package.

--disable-alsa-shared: This switch disables dynamically loading ALSA shared libraries.

--disable-sdl-dlopen: This switch disables using dlopen for shared object loading. Loading image backend libraries like libpng dynamically on the fly does not work.

--disable-x11-shared: This switch disables dynamically loading X11 shared libraries.

Contents

Installed Program: sdl2-config
Installed Libraries: libSDL2
Installed Directories: /usr/include/SDL2 and /usr/lib/cmake/SDL2

Short Descriptions

sdl2-config

determines the compile and linker flags that should be used to compile and link programs that use libSDL2

libSDL2

contains functions that provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, 3D hardware via OpenGL, and 2D frame buffer across multiple platforms