I, too, have been struggling with Linux & BlitzMax the past few days.
I reinstalled my old Red Hat 9 from a couple of years ago, and BlitzMax ran - no video hardware accel or sound, but it ran.
So, I downloaded RH9's successor, Fedora Core 4 (all 4 CDs worth!), and installed it. BlitzMax wouldn't even start: as in double-click on the icon and nothing happens.
So, I downloaded Ubuntu (much better at 1 CD) and installed it. BlitzMax would run, but not compile. Fortunately there are past posts on this board about that, so I was able to install what I needed to get it running. Still no hardware accel or sound yet (though Ubuntu itself has sound), but at least BlitzMax runs.
I'm currently doing fresh reinstalls to get Win 98 (for backward-compatability testing), FC 4, and Ubuntu 5.04 all coexisting on my tertiary drive, then I'll get back to improving Ubuntu. Now that I have BMX happy on Win XP and on my new Mac, I want to get it going properly under Linux, too.
I don't mind all the learning (rather enjoy it, actually), but this experience shows me that Linux is still not ready to replace Windows or Mac OS (though it's pretty good for a free, hobby OS).
I reinstalled my old Red Hat 9 from a couple of years ago, and BlitzMax ran - no video hardware accel or sound, but it ran.
So, I downloaded RH9's successor, Fedora Core 4 (all 4 CDs worth!), and installed it. BlitzMax wouldn't even start: as in double-click on the icon and nothing happens.
So, I downloaded Ubuntu (much better at 1 CD) and installed it. BlitzMax would run, but not compile. Fortunately there are past posts on this board about that, so I was able to install what I needed to get it running. Still no hardware accel or sound yet (though Ubuntu itself has sound), but at least BlitzMax runs.
I'm currently doing fresh reinstalls to get Win 98 (for backward-compatability testing), FC 4, and Ubuntu 5.04 all coexisting on my tertiary drive, then I'll get back to improving Ubuntu. Now that I have BMX happy on Win XP and on my new Mac, I want to get it going properly under Linux, too.
I don't mind all the learning (rather enjoy it, actually), but this experience shows me that Linux is still not ready to replace Windows or Mac OS (though it's pretty good for a free, hobby OS).