I've recently compiled this on two Ubuntu machines. On Ubuntu you'll need to get apt-get some extra bits and bobs (the following will install more than you need to compile the packages, but they'll probably come in handy down the line anyway). You'll need to add 'sudo' before the the following if you're not the superuser (root):
apt-get install build-essential
apt-get install g++
apt-get install xlibs-dev
If you want OpenGL then I'd apt-get the following
apt-get install freeglut3-dev
You'll then need to download the BRL-CAD source from sourceforge and untar/uncompress it. To build I used
./configure --prefix-dir=/usr/local/bin -with-x11 -with-opengland then 'make', and 'make install' (as root or prefix with 'sudo').
On one of the machines I found it necessary to use '-without-opengl' as I had a few problems with the display, so it might be worth trying this if you have problems.
I also had some problems with the paths, so 'fbclear' for example didn't work. A solution was kindly given by 'brlcad' on #brlcad on irc.freenode.net
Open src/mged/setup.c and find the following section:
#if defined(HAVE_GETENV)
/* append our own bin dir to (the end of) our search path.
* this must be performed before the Tcl interpreter is
* created, or we'll need to use Tcl_PutEnv() instead of
* setenv().
*/
{
struct bu_vls newpath;
Prefix the '{' with 'if (0)', so that the section reads:
#if defined(HAVE_GETENV)
/* append our own bin dir to (the end of) our search path.
* this must be performed before the Tcl interpreter is
* created, or we'll need to use Tcl_PutEnv() instead of
* setenv().
*/
if (0) {
struct bu_vls newpath;
Then 'make' and 'make install' from the top directory of the source and everything should be just fine.
fotter at iter1.com