If you want accelerated SDL2 graphics when on the console, e.g. on Raspbian Lite you don’t want to use X11. You could get away with just installing SDL2 from the repository, but my SDL2 version had problems regarding touch screens, so I needed to recompile. Also if you install any of the libsdl2* libraries a lot of unnecessary dependencies (e.g. X11) are pulled in, so it makes sense to compile SDL2 and all of SDL_image / SDL_mixer / SDL_ttf etc. yourself.
This is a walkthrough, but as always ymmv…
Uninstall all of the system-provided libraries
sudo apt remove -y libsdl2*
sudo apt autoremove -y
sudo apt autoclean
Install build tools
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends build-essential autoconf automake libtool
Build and install SDL2
Install missing dependencies for SDL2 itself:
sudo apt install libasound2-dev libudev-dev libdbus-1-dev
If you want touch screen support through tslib, make sure you install:
sudo apt install libts-dev
Download and unpack SDL 2.0.18:
wget https://www.libsdl.org/release/SDL2-2.0.18.tar.gz tar zxf SDL2-2.0.18.tar.gz rm SDL2-2.0.18.tar.gz
and configure it (some suggest the configure option “–disable-mir”, but it seems to be removed):
cd SDL2-2.0.18 ./autogen.sh ./configure --disable-pulseaudio --disable-esd --disable-video-wayland --disable-video-opengl --disable-video-x11
This is for the RPi 1 / Zero. If you have a RPi 2 / 3 / 4 you might want to enable ARM NEON for blitters by adding “–enable-arm-neon”.
Now compile and install it. This may take some time:
make -j $(grep -c '^processor' /proc/cpuinfo 2>/dev/null) sudo make install cd ..
Build and install SDL_image
Install missing dependencies for SDL2_image:
sudo apt install libpng-dev libjpeg-dev
Download and unpack SDL_image 2.0.5:
wget https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/release/SDL2_image-2.0.5.tar.gz tar zxf SDL2_image-2.0.5.tar.gz rm SDL2_image-2.0.5.tar.gz
and configure it (here, only with JPG and PNG support and dynamic TIFF and WEBP support):
cd SDL2_image-2.0.5 ./autogen.sh ./configure --disable-bmp --disable-gif --disable-lbm --disable-pcx --disable-pnm --disable-svg --disable-tga --disable-tif --disable-xcf --disable-xpm --disable-xv --disable-webp
Now compile and install it. This may take some time:
make -j $(grep -c '^processor' /proc/cpuinfo 2>/dev/null) sudo make install cd ..
Build and install SDL_ttf
Install missing dependencies for SDL2_ttf:
sudo apt install libfreetype6-dev
Download and unpack SDL2_ttf 2.0.15:
wget https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_ttf/release/SDL2_ttf-2.0.15.tar.gz tar zxf SDL2_ttf-2.0.15.tar.gz rm SDL2_ttf-2.0.15.tar.gz
and configure it (here, only with JPG and PNG support and dynamic TIFF and WEBP support):
cd SDL2_ttf-2.0.15 ./autogen.sh ./configure --without-x
Now compile and install it. This may take some time:
make -j $(grep -c '^processor' /proc/cpuinfo 2>/dev/null) sudo make install cd ..
Build and install SDL_mixer
Install missing dependencies for SDL2_mixer:
sudo apt install libflac-dev libogg-dev libmpg123-dev libmodplug-dev
Download and unpack SDL_mixer 2.0.5:
wget https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/release/SDL2_mixer-2.0.5.tar.gz tar zxf SDL2_mixer-2.0.5.tar.gz rm SDL2_mixer-2.0.5.tar.gz
Or clone it from the SDL2 GitHub mirror if you need the most recent version:
git clone https://github.com/SDL-mirror/SDL_mixer
Configure it (here, only with FLAC, MOD, MP3, OGG support):
cd SDL2_mixer-2.0.5 ./autogen.sh ./configure --disable-music-midi --disable-music-opus
Now compile and install it. This may take some time:
make -j $(grep -c '^processor' /proc/cpuinfo 2>/dev/null) sudo make install cd ..
Uninstalling -dev packages
If you are happy with the results, you can uninstall the -dev packages for SDL2:
sudo apt remove libasound2-dev libudev-dev libdbus-1-dev libts-dev libpng-dev libjpeg-dev libfreetype6-dev libflac-dev libogg-dev libmpg123-dev libmodplug-dev
Compile programs using the new libraries
The libraries will be installed to “/usr/local/lib”. As this is not the standard path for libraries from the repositories you might get error complaining about missing .so files when you run your program. To fix that either compile normally and set run your program using:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib && <YOUR_PROGRAM>
or make the library path known system-wide somehow.
Another option is specifying the path when compiling your program using the “-rpath /urs/local/lib” linker option in GCC. If you use CMake, add the following to your CMakeLists.txt before add_executable():
# Add /usr/local/lib to the linker paths (-rpath for GCC)
# so self-compiled SDL2 libraries are found
set(CMAKE_BUILD_WITH_INSTALL_RPATH TRUE) set(CMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH_USE_LINK_PATH TRUE) set(CMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH "/usr/local/lib")
After that you define your executable like you usually would. Here is a complete example CMakeLists.txt:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.1)
project(myproject)
aux_source_directory(. SRC_LIST)
include_directories(.)
# C++11, add "-g" if you want to debug
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -std=c++11")
# add /usr/local/lib to the linker paths (-rpath for GCC)
# so self-compiled SDL2 libraries are found
set(CMAKE_BUILD_WITH_INSTALL_RPATH TRUE)
set(CMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH_USE_LINK_PATH TRUE)
set(CMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH "/usr/local/lib")
# Add myproject executable to project
add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} ${SRC_LIST})
# Add SDL2 includes and libraries
include(FindPkgConfig)
pkg_search_module(SDL2 REQUIRED sdl2)
pkg_search_module(SDL2IMAGE REQUIRED SDL2_image>=2.0.0)
pkg_search_module(SDL2MIXER REQUIRED SDL2_mixer>=2.0.0)
pkg_search_module(SDL2TTF REQUIRED SDL2_ttf>=2.0.0)
include_directories(${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS} ${SDL2IMAGE_INCLUDE_DIRS} ${SDL2MIXER_INCLUDE_DIRS} ${SDL2TTF_INCLUDE_DIRS})
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} ${SDL2_LIBRARIES} ${SDL2IMAGE_LIBRARIES} ${SDL2MIXER_LIBRARIES} ${SDL2TTF_LIBRARIES})
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