[Visualpython-users] Problems with VPython 5.12 on Fedora 11 64

[Seth M. <sm...@ps...>]

Hello all,

First, I would like to thank you very much for your time.

I am having some issues with the installation of VPython on Fedora 11 
(64 bit).

So that you know what I have done so far, I have installed 
gtkglextmm-devel and libglademm24-devel, as well as tkinter, so I don't 
believe I am running into issues due to dependencies.  I also added '# 
include <boost/type_traits/add_reference.hpp>' in 
/usr/include/boost/python/detail/translate_exception.hpp as prescribed.  
I also made the soft link from libboost_thread-mt.so.1.37.0 to 
libboost_thread.so in /usr/lib64 so that make could link properly (it 
might be helpful to add this to INSTALL.txt).

In order to get VPython to properly compile, I had to make this change 
in Makefile and src/Makefile:  In the definition of PYTHON_INCLUDES, 
'${prefix}/lib' was changed to '/usr/lib64/'.  Without this change, make 
did not know where to search for numpy.

Additionally, in Makefile, at line 305, I had to unindent the line 
"@list='$(bin_SCRIPTS)'; for p in $$list; do \" in the definition of 
install_binSCRIPTS.  I'm not really sure why this was necessary (it was 
stumbled upon by accident), but without this there was an error in the 
final step of installation, around where it prints 'test -z 
"/amphome/smm553/.vpython/bin" || mkdir -p -- 
"/amphome/smm553/.vpython/bin"' to the screen.

When we were still running Fedora 10, VPython installed and ran fine 
after making these changes.  However, now that we have upgraded to 
Fedora 11, VPython appears to install properly, but when I try to run a 
script I get this error:

VPython ***CRITICAL ERROR***: 
../../Download/applications/visual-5.12_release/src/gtk2/render_surface.cpp:88: 
render_surface: failed to initialize any OpenGL configuration, Aborting.

The only thing that I can see that is different between Fedora 10 and 11 
here is that the boost library that I had to link to in Fedora 10 was 
libboost_thread-mt.so.1.34.0, not libboost_thread-mt.so.1.37.0.  I have 
also tried installing VPython using the Fedora 11 rpm from this link: 
http://www.users.csbsju.edu/~jcross/vpython/.  Again, it successfully 
installs but gives the same error at run time as when I install from 
source.

Is this an error that anyone has seen before?  If so, what can I do to 
get VPython to run?
Thank you for your time.

Seth Morton
Chemistry Graduate Student, Penn State University