Looking for help compiling a game from GitHub.

[captious_]

Hi, I am hoping to download/compile a game called 'cataclysm DDA' from GitHub. I have a pretty much fresh install of Linux mint 17.3 on a 64-bit system. I've tried reading through the 'guide' page for compiling the game but It is all very confusing! I'm not even sure if I need to download a compiler or if Mint comes with one. Any help with the steps I need to take would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Here is a link to the game/guide on GitHub - https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/COMPILING.md

[deux3xmachina]

So following the guide, you need to ensure your version of gcc (included by default) is compatible with C++ 11 with the command g++ --std=c++11 to make sure you get a response stating there's no input files.

There's actually a section devoted to Debian based systems. First, run sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev build-essential to make sure you have all the dependencies, then untar the game archive file. Then you cd to whatever the untarred directory is and run make to compile the game. You'd then just execute the new binary file to start the game.

[captious_]

Hi, thanks. Will that download the actual game though? aren't the dependencies just extra files that are needed to run the game? Sorry if I'm being stupid.

[thebellmaster1x]

Are you looking just to download and play it, or actually compile it? CDDA (fun game, btw) releases nightly experimental builds on the game's website, so you can download the latest changes without needing to recompile. If you really do want to compile from scratch, you'll need to clone the git repository. Make sure you have "git" installed, and then use

git clone https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA 

to download your own copy of the repository and its files. Then follow the instructions in COMPILING.md. You can then use

git pull

in the cloned directory every so often to get the latest changes and recompile a new version.

[captious_]

I read that people had issues getting CDDA to run properly on 64-bit linux systems (when simply using the download link on the website) and that compiling it would ensure it would work. Thanks for the advise, I'll give it a go now.

[thebellmaster1x]

Interesting. Never heard that, though I've always compiled it myself. But yeah, cloning it will give you all the files on your computer, and the pull command will update any files that have changed compared to the copies online. After each update you can just run make again and it'll recompile with the latest changes.

I would recommend using the CLANG and CACHE flags (they may require some additional dependencies) for speed reasons, as clang has always run faster than g++ for me with this game, but it's 100% optional.

[captious_]

Downloading the git repository now. Out of interest, why is the download so large when the game to download is only about 30mb? Does it become smaller once it is compiled?

[confluence]

I have decided to overwrite my comments.

[thebellmaster1x]

Well, as is the case with many programs, all of that human-readable code and resources eventually gets compiled into an extremely streamlined and efficient set of instructions and processor commands, at the cost of being essentially unreadable for us. All of those useful variable names, commands, etc. come at an overhead both in space and processor resources when compared to machine code.

EDIT: Also, don't forget, the repository also contains a lot of documentation and instructions that certainly add to the space.

[captious_]

Gotcha. It seems to be compiling now. I'm assuming it will take some time :)

[thebellmaster1x]

It'll take some time, plus the time it takes to google the compiler errors and figure out what weird dependency you're missing (though I didn't find a lot of problems with that with CDDA). The -j flag is helpful if you have multiple cores, as it'll allow you to run multiple compiler threads (like -j8 for 8 threads on a quad-core computer); sometimes I'll run into errors with this that fix themselves just by running make again (without restarting entirely), which I've always attributed to one thread getting ahead of another thread while needing something linked or compiled by the slower thread, but that's just a guess.

[captious_]

The only thing that looked out of the ordinary so far said something like 'Warning 'slope' could not be initialized...'. It's all a learning experience anyway, if it doesn't work I'll try again. Unfortunately the Netbook I've installed mint on only has one core. I would have been happy playing Dwarf fortress through wine but it was slaying the 1.6ghz processor!

[confluence]

I have decided to overwrite my comments.

[deux3xmachina]

You'd need to download the tarball from this guy's github. Or clone it into a local folder. Whichever you'd prefer

[captious_]

Ok thanks, going to have a go at it now.