Installing the developer tool is pretty easy on most Linux workstations, we have only performed it on Ubuntu recently. There is no reason why it wouldn’t work on any Linux distrobution as long as it provide the required packages or you are able to compile them from source. Here we detail the setups we have performed.

Ubuntu Install

Installing the developer tools on Ubuntu is incredibly easy. Just run this one command from a terminal and it will install all the required tools at once for you.

sudo apt-get install g++ git cmake

This leaves you with compiler, tools to download our code from Github , and a way to create build scripts to simplify compilation. We use a few more tools than that in a typical day working on the Mezzanine and Catch!. To get a set of tools similar to our please run the following:

sudo apt-get install g++ gdb codeblocks qtcreator doxygen texlive-font-utils graphviz git-core pkg-config cmake-gui cmake autoconf pkg-config swig ninja-build mercurial

What Are the Tools

Most of the Tools are explained on the C++ Training and Tools page, but some we have included here because they seem to get more use on Linux workstations.

GCC — G++ — This is a C++ compiler, Clang works also but at the time of this writing created slightly less optimal results.
GCC – gdb — The debugger that works with g++.
CMake — Cmake is a tool to aid in the compiling of specially setup programs, like the configuration of the Ogre 3d library. If you are building any of the libraries that require CMake 3.2 and are using Ubuntu 14.04 you will need to get a newer version of CMake than what the default Ubuntu repos ship. The PPA https://launchpad.net/~george-edison55/+archive/ubuntu/cmake-3.x has 3.2 and some newer builds, you also have the option of building CMake from source or using another PPA.
Code::Blocks or QT Creator — Both are Integrated Development Environments IDEs that bring most of these other tools together into one friendly UI.
Doxygen — This is an tool for extracting documentation from source code. This is optional, as you can use the documentation that we have built. But if you want the latest docs you might need to built it yourself.
Graphviz — Doxygen uses thiswhen building the API documentation to draw charts and graphs.
Texlive-font-utils — Fonts used when creating PDF versions of the documentation.
Git — Git is a powerful revision control system. We use to merge our progress and be certain that we have the most recent version of the source code.
autoconf and pkg-config — These are older style tools used to create build scripts. SDL and maybe a few other libraies require these for its build process. These are only of limited use and might even be optional now that most libraries are integrated under the CMake build system.
Ninja — This is an optional faster alterative to using make. This seems to reduce build times by around 20% from the command line, and a little less from IDEs.
SWIG — Swig is used to create the bindings that connect scripting languages like Lua to the rest of the Mezzanine.
Mercurial — SDL uses this as their primary source control tool.

Getting the Source Code

Once you have the tools installed all you should have to do to get the code repository is run the following command:

git clone git://github.com/BlackToppStudios/Mezzanine.git

Preparing for Compilation

Before you can compile the Mezzanine Engine and Catch! you will need to install the libraries that the engine is built on top of. See the page on Installing Linux Engine Dependencies for more details.

What’s next

If you aren’t comfortable with your coding skills you should read about C++ Training and Tools. If you are comfortable with your coding skills and have the tools installed reading up on the Mezzanine Engine Dependencies could be useful or you could go right onto Building the Mezzanine Engine if you think already have all the software installed.