How to install RUDL

Linux

Like other extensions:

ruby extconf.rb

should create a makefile, or complain. If it says it can't find things, it will point to a URL that contains the wanted libraries. RUDL doesn't need everything, just SDL actually, but it will be severely handicapped without all libraries. If it complains, and you wished it would say a little more, you can edit extconf.rb and uncomment the DEBUG-flag.

make

And now, as root:

make install

That's it.

Windows

Don't trust this chapter, this is changing rapidly.

Source

Source is now compiled with the Microsoft Visual C 6 command line tools. They need to be set up with the "vcvars32" batchfile in VC's bin directory.

This could be useful for creating a smaller RUDL library, depending on less libraries.

What is needed is the header files and libraries that RUDL wants to link with. These are available on request since I'm too lazy to package them :) The rest looks like unix: "ruby extconf.rb" "nmake" "nmake install"

Binary

This explains how to get RUDL installed on Windows. Developers are advised to create a package with their program, SDL, and RUDL in it so average users won't have to install RUDL seperately.

Starting with 0.6, there will be binary versions. These binaries don't work with the Cygwin based Ruby installer (Ruby 1.6.5 is the last version to be Cygwin based).

Grab One Click Ruby 1.7.x Installer. Install it. It might be necessary to reboot.
Alternatively, grab U. Nakamura's Visual C Ruby. It is reported to work.
Grab the latest binary RUDL setup.
Unzip RUDL to a place you like.
Run install-on-windows.rb. I suggest copying the dll's to the Ruby bin dir when it asks for that.
Try one of the samples in the RUDL/samples directory.

If you decided that Ruby 1.7 is too unstable and you downloaded 1.6 instead, you'll get trouble using RUDL. This can be solved by downloading a lib only 1.6 RUDL. You can put the RUDL.so in the directory where you unpacked the RUDL setup and rerun install-on-windows.

If it doesn't run, contact me.