Cannot compile SDL on Raspberry Pi

[project-owner]

Hi, I'm trying to compile SDL on Raspberry Pi OS using the script simple2d.sh:

./simple2d.sh install --sdl

it fails with messages:

checking for FT2... yes
checking for SDL... no
checking for sdl2-config... no
checking for SDL - version >= 2.0.8... no
*** The sdl2-config script installed by SDL could not be found
*** If SDL was installed in PREFIX, make sure PREFIX/bin is in
*** your path, or set the SDL2_CONFIG environment variable to the
*** full path to sdl2-config.
configure: error: *** SDL version 2.0.8 not found!

==> Compiling

make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.

==> Installing

make: *** No rule to make target 'install'.  Stop.

==> Checking for SDL2... no
==> Checking for SDL2_image... no
==> Checking for SDL2_mixer... no
==> Checking for SDL2_ttf... no
Error: SDL libraries did not install correctly

Is it possible to fix that?
Thanks!

[Dolphindalt]

I also happen to be trying to compile SDL using the simple2d.sh script on a raspberry pi and have encountered the same error. I have determined that the installation is failing because SDL fails to compile during the installation process due to a compile error.

/tmp/SDL2-2.0.10/src/video/SDL_egl.c: In function 'SDL_EGL_LoadLibrary':
/tmp/SDL2-2.0.10/src/video/SDL_egl.c:268:26: warning: implicit declaration of function 'access'; did you mean 'Success'? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
  268 |     SDL_bool vc4 = (0 == access("/sys/module/vc4/", F_OK));
      |                          ^~~~~~
      |                          Success
/tmp/SDL2-2.0.10/src/video/SDL_egl.c:268:53: error: 'F_OK' undeclared (first use in this function)
  268 |     SDL_bool vc4 = (0 == access("/sys/module/vc4/", F_OK));
      |                                                     ^~~~
/tmp/SDL2-2.0.10/src/video/SDL_egl.c:268:53: note: each undeclared identifier is reported only
once for each function it appears in
make: *** [Makefile:530: build/SDL_egl.lo] Error 1

==> Installing

/bin/bash build-scripts/updaterev.sh
  CC     build/SDL_egl.lo
/tmp/SDL2-2.0.10/src/video/SDL_egl.c: In function 'SDL_EGL_LoadLibrary':
/tmp/SDL2-2.0.10/src/video/SDL_egl.c:268:26: warning: implicit declaration of function 'access'; did you mean 'Success'? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
  268 |     SDL_bool vc4 = (0 == access("/sys/module/vc4/", F_OK));
      |                          ^~~~~~
      |                          Success
/tmp/SDL2-2.0.10/src/video/SDL_egl.c:268:53: error: 'F_OK' undeclared (first use in this function)
  268 |     SDL_bool vc4 = (0 == access("/sys/module/vc4/", F_OK));
      |                                                     ^~~~
/tmp/SDL2-2.0.10/src/video/SDL_egl.c:268:53: note: each undeclared identifier is reported only
once for each function it appears in
make: *** [Makefile:530: build/SDL_egl.lo] Error 1

There is a bug tracking thread where others are having a similar issue when trying to compile SDL for the raspberry pi.

This issue on Github claims to have fixed the issue by including unistd.h in SDL_egl.c, because unistd.h includes the definitions of access and F_OK.

Perhaps the simplest way to resolve this is to compile a more recent version of SDL that includes the patches made from both of the previous links. Any SDL release after November of 2021 should suffice.

I used the most recent version 2.0.22 by changing one line in the simple2d.sh script:

sdl_fname="SDL2-2.0.22"
sdl_url="${libsdl_url}/release/${sdl_fname}.tar.gz"

This change compiled SDL successfully without the previous error.

SDL_Mixer also does not compile with the error.

music.c:43:10: fatal error: native_midi/native_midi.h: No such file or directory
   43 | #include "native_midi/native_midi.h"
      |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
make: *** [Makefile:149: build/music.lo] Error 1

I changed to a more recent SDL_Mixer version to solve this one as there was no documentation of others having this issue. The simple2d.sh script pulls all SDL releases from https://www.libsdl.org, but new releases for SDL_Mixer are no longer posted there, so I pulled from the Github repository instead.

If libsdl.org is no longer including the most recent releases, perhaps it is time to use the Github releases for the script.