Compilation Guide

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Linux
3. Windows

Overview

Flex Launcher builds natively on Linux and Windows, and features a cross-platform CMake build system. The following external dependencies are required:

• SDL ≥ 2.0.14
• SDL_image ≥ 2.0.5
• SDL_ttf ≥ 2.0.15

Linux

Flex Launcher on Linux builds with GCC. This guide assumes you already have the development tools Git, CMake, pkg-config, and GCC installed on your system. If not, consult your distro’s documentation.

First, install the dependencies. The steps to do so are dependent on your distro:

APT-based Distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Raspberry Pi OS etc.)

sudo apt install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev libinih-dev

Pacman-based Distributions (Arch, Manjaro, etc.)

sudo pacman -S sdl2 sdl2_image sdl2_ttf libinih

DNF-based Distributions (Fedora)

sudo dnf install SDL2-devel SDL2_image-devel SDL2_ttf-devel inih-devel

Building

Clone the master repo and create a build directory:

git clone https://github.com/complexlogic/flex-launcher.git
cd flex-launcher
mkdir build && cd build

Generate the Makefile:

cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

If you’re building on Raspberry Pi, it’s recommended to pass -DRPI=1 to cmake, which tweaks the default configuration to be more Pi-centric.

Build and test the program:

make
./flex-launcher

Optionally, install it into your system directories:

sudo make install

By default, this will install the program and assets with a prefix of /usr/local. If you wish to use a different prefix, re-run the cmake generation step with -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=prefix.

Windows

Flex Launcher on Windows builds with Visual Studio, and uses vcpkg to manage the dependencies. Before starting, make sure the following steps are completed:

• Visual Studio is installed. The free Community Edition is available for download from Microsoft’s website. The following tools and features for Visual Studio are required:
  • C++ core desktop features
  • Latest MSVC
  • Latest Windows SDK
  • C++ CMake tools
• Git is installed and in your Path environment variable
• CMake is installed and in your Path environment variable

Building

Clone the master repo and create a build directory:

git clone https://github.com/complexlogic/flex-launcher.git
cd flex-launcher
mkdir build
cd build

Build the dependencies and generate the Visual Studio project files:

git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg
cmake .. -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=".\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake" -DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET="x64-windows-static"

Build and test the program:

cmake --build .
.\Debug\flex-launcher.exe

Optionally, generate a clean zipped install package which may then be extracted to a directory of your choosing:

cmake --build . --config Release --target package