HowTo Install the FreeBASIC Compiler into Suse / openSUSE 32 and 64 bit

HowTo Install FreeBASIC into openSUSE (32 bit and 64 bit)

Versions: the 32 bit install has been verified in 10.x and 11. The 64 bit version has been verified for 11.1 and 11.2.

Pitch: FreeBASIC is alive and very healthy. If you want to write sophisticated programs with a language that equals PHP but with standalone executables, FreeBASIC is the answer. If you don't want to spend a year learning C and C++, FreeBASIC is the answer. It's a no-brainer to choose FreeBASIC.

Installing RPMs to support the compiler: A series of libraries are required to support the FreeBASIC compiler. You install then with Yast --> Software --> Software Management. The list differs between 32 and 64 bit openSUSE. Read the left column if you have a 32 bit install and the right if you have a 64 bit install.

Install these RPM's into 32 bit openSUSE

gcc
gcc-c++
ncurses-devel
xorg-x11-libX11-devel
xorg-x11-libXext-devel
xorg-x11-libXpm-devel
xorg-x11-libXrender-devel
gtk2-devel

Install these RPM's into 64 bit openSUSE

gcc-32bit
xorg-x11-libX11-devel-32bit
xorg-x11-libXext-devel-32bit
xorg-x11-libXpm-devel-32bit
xorg-x11-libXrender-devel-32bit
ncurses-devel-32bit

Download and Install the compiler: The compiler is configured two ways with two options for installation. There's a standard version and a so-called "standalone" version. The standalone version has extra libraries in the download. You must use the standalone version for openSUSE 64. I recommend you use the standard version for openSUSE 32 bit. So read the left column if you have a 32 bit install and the right if you have a 64 bit install.

Install the compiler into 32 bit openSUSE

You can download the standard compiler for Linux-x86, including libraries, headers, etc. without docs and sources from the fbc standard download link. Unzip the FreeBASIC tar.gz file anywhere convenient.

FreeBASIC compiler, fbc, is installed by executing the shell script install.sh with this command in a terminal window:

sudo ./install.sh -i

Here's a copy of the terminal session:

tim@host:~> sudo ./install.sh -i
root's password:
===================================
FreeBASIC compiler successfully installed in /usr/local
===================================
tim@host:~>

You can uninstall the standard compiler with this command:

sudo ./install.sh -u

Install the compiler into 64 bit openSUSE

You can download the standalone compiler for Linux-x86, including libraries, headers, etc. without docs and sources from the fbc standalone download link. Unzip the FreeBASIC tar.gz file anywhere convenient.

FreeBASIC compiler, fbc, is installed by executing the shell script install-standalone.sh with this command in a terminal window:

sudo ./install-standalone.sh -i

Here's a copy of the terminal session:

tim@host:~> sudo ./install-standalone.sh -i
root's password:
===================================
FreeBASIC compiler successfully installed in /usr/share/freebasic
A link to the compiler binary has also been created as /usr/bin/fbc
===================================
tim@host:~>

You can uninstall the standalone compiler with this command:

sudo ./install-standalone.sh -u

Install Xrandr libs into 64 bit openSUSE: Do not do this for 32 bit, only for 64 bit openSUSE. The Xrandr libs can't be installed from an RPM using the Yast Software module. You can get them by fully installing FreeBASIC RPMs into openSUSE 32 bit and extracting the relevant files from directory /usr/lib. The files vary from openSUSE 11.1 to 11.2, so I've done the hard yards for you and put a zipped package of them on this site. Download below:

• Use this link for openSUSE 11.1 to download file lib32.ver111.tar.gz
[contains libXrandr.a, libXrandr.la, libXrandr.so, libXrandr.so.2 and libXrandr.so.2.1.0]
• Use this link for openSUSE 11.2 to download file lib32.ver112.tar.gz
[contains libXrandr.so(link), libXrandr.so.2(link) and libXrandr.so.2.2.0]

Unzip the files in their containing directory, lib32, and move the directory to /usr/share/freebasic so the files are in /usr/share/freebasic/lib32. Then edit the file elf_i386.x located at/usr/share/freebasic/lib/linux/elf_i386.x. Find this line:

SEARCH_DIR("/usr/local/lib"); SEARCH_DIR("/lib"); SEARCH_DIR("/usr/lib");

and add an extra search path to the lib32 directory so the line becomes this:

SEARCH_DIR("/usr/share/freebasic/lib32"); SEARCH_DIR("/usr/local/lib"); SEARCH_DIR("/lib"); SEARCH_DIR("/usr/lib");

The last is all one line. Now your 64 bit openSUSE should be good to go.

Handbook: A comprehensive handbook in Windows compressed html help file format (.chm) is available from FreeBASIC.net on this link. You can open the unzipped file, "FB-manual-etc.chm" with the KDE app KchmViewer, available on the openSUSE OSS install media. It's a KDE app but you can install it into a Gnome Desktop Environment.

First Graphics Program, test.bas: You can test the compiler with a simple graphics programme that draws a few coloured lines etc. I'll list one that I know will work if installations of the prerequisite libraries and the fbc compiler all went OK. Open your favourite text editor, Gedit, Kwrite, whatever and paste these lines of code into it, then save as "test.bas":

screen 13
print "hello world"
line (20,20) - (300,180), 3
line (140,180) - (180,120), 15, b
sleep 10000
end

Screen 13 will produce a graphics box of 320x200 px. Or 19->800x600, 20->1024x768, see "Screen (Graphics)" in the chm manual file.

Compile test.bas: To compile this (or any programme) into an executable, issue command fbc test.bas in a normal user's terminal, being sure NOT to "su" to root privileges: . Here's the terminal session:

username@suse102:~/path> fbc test.bas
/usr/share/freebasic/fbc: Symbol `ospeed' has different size in shared object, consider re-linking
username@suse102:~/path>

The warning message regarding `ospeed' is just a caution. It should be ignored. It occurs because the rt library I downloaded was compiled in Debian/Ubuntu Linux. It's not important.

Run test.bas: Just issue this shell command in a terminal: ./test and here's what you'll get: