HowTo:Checkout SVN

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If you're interested in an experimental version of Vega Strike, then SVN is what you'll be looking at.


Executive summary

Subversion, or SVN, is a mechanism by which developers can keep track of changes to their code and distribute these changes to the public in real time. This allows people to take advantage of software as it is being developed, between official releases.

Windows users can use an SVN client to check out the data4.x module, which contains game data and windows binaries.

Linux and Mac OS X users must use an SVN client to check out the vegastrike module as well, which contains source code for them to compile. (Note that compiling Vega Strike on Mac OS X is considered very difficult.)

What is SVN?

SVN stands for Subversion, a system similar to CVS. It allows developers to simultaneously work on a centralised project - in this case, that's Vega Strike.

Downloading ("checking out") and compiling the SVN-version often gives you access to features not included in the latest stable release of the program. SVN-based versions can be unstable and may not even work at all, but may hold advantages compared to stable versions.

Structure

Unlike a CVS repository, the top level of an SVN repository contains more than just the trunk. Vega Strike's SVN repository follows the standard layout, so the SVN root looks like this:

  • branches - Independent copies of some or all of the trunk code. A developer making major changes, such as the ogre branch or major code cleanup will usually make a branch so they can keep track of their progress without breaking the trunk code for everyone else. These changes eventually are merged back into the trunk.
  • tags - Revisions which have been marked. For instance, a tag might be made for a stable release so that svn users can update to it via the svn sw command. The VS developers like to use tags to mark milestones in the code, such as before or after a major change, so you'll see a lot of tags.
  • trunk - The main trunk code, as would be seen in the root of a CVS repository. This contains a number of modules filled with code and data.

Modules

Vega Strike's SVN repository holds several subdirectories, which can either be checked out separately or altogether. The most notable ones are included below.


The following modules are deprecated, have been removed from current revisions, and are listed for historical purposes only:

  • data - deprecated 3.x and lower data files.
  • charserver
  • vega-new-proj - even older VC6 project - don't use.
  • evilwm, ethereal, virtuanet - other projects with temporary repositories
  • mission_select - Functionality also in Launcher, and also not used often.
  • texturizer - If you can get it to compile, I believe it may still work.
  • syseditor - If you like typing in coordinates of every planet by hand in an ugly console interface, go ahead.


The Subversion tree can be browsed via a web interface: http://vegastrike.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/vegastrike/


→ See also: Development:CVS Tree

Linux Clients

Command-line svn

Website

http://subversion.tigris.org/

Description

The linux-command `svn' is the most basic Subversion client.

Using svn for downloading vs-devel

Checking out (downloading) the Vega Strike svn-modules is easy. The general syntax is 

 svn co [repo]/trunk/[module] [target-directory]

 svn co https://vegastrike.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vegastrike/trunk vegastrike

...will download the entire tree (all modules) into directory `vegastrike'. But don't do this! Such a command would download data for both the normal and ogre branches, plus Visual Studio projects for ALL supported versions and goodness knows what else.

You should really only download individual modules, and a similar syntax can be used. For example, to download the data4.x module, 

 svn co https://vegastrike.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vegastrike/trunk/data4.x data4.x

...will suffice. (Leaving off the target directory will make svn try check out into the working directory.) In order to get all the files required to compile the game, checkout the following modules:

  • data4.x
  • vegastrike

Tutorial to download, setup and run the development version

In order to run the development version of Vega Strike, the executables expect to find the data to be in certain places relative to them. This short tutorial deals with these specifics on Linux operating systems. (It also applies for Mac OS X users.)

So, let's start.

  • Create a directory where you would like your copy of the Vega Strike development version to live in. For example purposes we will create a directory called VegaStrike in our user's home-directory.
~> mkdir VegaStrike
  • Change into this newly created directory. In our case:
~> cd VegaStrike

Initial downloading (check-out)

Now we can start downloading the packages from the SVN repository. If you download them directly into your Vega Strike directory they will be just in the right place.

To save on download bandwidth, you can download a snapshot of the SVN tree, and then just update that to the current revision. One big compressed file will download much faster than having SVN get each file individually. Snapshots available here: http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6749. Also here (not sure if this second one includes the .svn directories needed to update it with svn): http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=181552&package_id=211092&release_id=463105. If you run into any problems, it will work fine to follow the instruction below, using svn to do the whole checkout.

  • Download (check-out) the source code package vegastrike, and the content package data4.x package.
~/VegaStrike> svn co https://vegastrike.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vegastrike/trunk/vegastrike
~/VegaStrike> svn co https://vegastrike.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vegastrike/trunk/data4.x

This leaves you with three new directories inside your Vega Strike directory called as the packages are.

Note: If you are having problems with SVN due to connecting via a proxy, try to solve them using the method described here: http://subversion.tigris.org/faq.html#proxy

Building

FIXME This should merged with the HowTo:Compile_from_SVN page?

The HowTo:Compile_from_SVN page has a list of some options that you can pass to ./configure

  • To build the engine, change into the source code directory vegastrike.
~/VegaStrike> cd vegastrike
  • Now start with setting up and configuring the build and finally building the engine.
~/VegaStrike/vegastrike> ./bootstrap-sh
~/VegaStrike/vegastrike> ./configure
~/VegaStrike/vegastrike> make vegastrike
~/VegaStrike/vegastrike> make soundserver

You will likely receive some error messages during any of these stages, especially during the configure part. If they tell you that your system is missing some development libraries, install them. How this is done depends strongly on your Linux distribution, but we will assist you in the Compiling Problems forums. You will be left with a file called "config.log" please attach that instead of copy-and-pasting thousands of lines of error messages. It's all in this file.

After you installed the missing libraries repeat the last (failed) step and continue. Finally, there will be two executables called vegastrike and soundserver.

Note: The configure script currently has a bug that can cause it to incorrectly report on the absence of GLUT. If you are sure you have installed glut-devel and are still seeing this error, check near the end of config.log to see if another library (such as libxmu or libxi) is the true culprit. [1]

Building the Setup program

  • You will need a GTK-1.2 development package installed on your system. GTK-2.0 will not work. Usually, it will be called something like libgtk1.2-dev, gtk1.2-devel, or some similar name. Make sure you have both the main package and the devel package installed.
  • Vssetup will be built along with vegastrike and all the tools, but only if you have the GTK-1.2 development package installed before running ./configure. If not, you must re-run ./configure and then make vssetup
  • If compilation works, you will have a vssetup binary in the vegastrike directory (note that it will not be named setup as the directory tree may suggest.

Setup

To run Vega Strike, the built executables need all the configuration and data files to be in the right place relative to them. Currently, the executables (vegstrike and soundserver) reside in the source code directory. But they have to be run out of the data4.x directory. Therefore, we will create a link.

  • Change in to the data4.x directory. (We are still in the source code directory vegastrike.)
~/VegaStrike/vegastrike> cd ../data4.x
  • Create symbolic links to the executables in the source code directory.
~/VegaStrike/data4.x> ln -s ../vegastrike/vegastrike
~/VegaStrike/data4.x> ln -s ../vegastrike/soundserver
~/VegaStrike/data4.x> ln -s ../vegastrike/vssetup
  • After that, you must run "./vssetup" inside the data4.x folder, or any folder which has the correct setup.config and vegastrike.config.

If we had made copies or moved the files instead of symbolic linking, we would have to do the procedure of copying or moving every time we build the executables from source.

Running and configuring

  • To run Vega Strike you have to start it from the data4.x directory.
~/VegaStrike/data4.x> ./vegastrike
  • Optionally you can create a short cut to this application onto your desktop or in your start menu. Simply point it to the vegastrike executable in the data4.x directory.
  • If you need to adjust screen resolutions, input devices and key-mappings, do so by editing the configuration file vegastrike.config. The default configuration file resides in the data4.x directory. You can change that or you can make your own user specific version by first copying it into your .vegastrike (hidden directory) directory in your user's home directory.

Known bugs and work-arounds

This issue has been fixed in the latest SVN versions.

In case you are using an older version (i.e. pre-10700 or so) and Vegastrike does not run (gives a "Cannot open display :0.0" error), if are willing to sacrifice some security on multi-user systems, you may have to use this command to run vegastrike: 

xhost +local:
If you do not want to compromise security, update to the latest revision.

Staying updated with the development version

As development progresses the repository changes. In order to update your working copy you need to do the following.

  • Change into the package's directory you want to update. In our example all the packages were stored in a directory called VegaStrike. Let's assume we want to update the data4.x package.
~> cd VegaStrike
~/VegaStrike> cd data4.x
  • Update from the SVN repository.
~/VegaStrike/data4.x> svn update
  • Do this for every package you want to update. Exchange data4.x with vegastrike.
  • If something changed in the data4.x package, you don't need to recompile.
  • If something changed in the source code package vegastrike. You only need to repeat the building part of this tutorial and in case you did not create symbolic links the copying or moving procedure for the executables in the setup part of this tutorial. You should not need to type "make clean", however if you experience errors like "unresolved external symbol" it may remedy that error.

Windows Clients

Note: For windows, only the data4.x module is necessary to play the game. You will find the executable program inside the "bin" folder.

If you are interested in compiling the code, you will need the vegastrike module, as well as the appropriate vega-project module for your Visual C++ version. See HowTo:VCPP_Compiling for compiling info.

Some people have problems with the latest executable relating to Visual C++ 8. If you want an older version of the executable compiled with VC7, you can browse the repository here: http://vegastrike.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/vegastrike/trunk/data4.x/bin/vegastrike.exe?view=log

Tortoise SVN

Website

http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

Description

Just like TortoiseCVS, Tortoise SVN lets you work with files under SVN version control directly from Windows Explorer. It's freely available under the GPL.

With TortoiseSVN you can directly check out modules, update, commit and see differences by right clicking on files and folders within Explorer. You can see the state of a file with overlays on top of the normal icons within Explorer. It even works from within the file open dialog.

Usage

  • Download and Install Tortoise SVN from http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org
  • Create a new folder in Windows Manager where you will download your modules (called Sandbox, SVN or similar working location name);
  • Within that folder, create another folder being the name of module you wish to checkout e.g. data4.x, vegastrike etc;
  • Right click on the folder created and select SVN Checkout. This brings up the checkout configuration screen;
  • Input the URL of the repository into the dialog box, for example data4.x will be;
  https://vegastrike.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vegastrike/trunk/data4.x
    • You may also use the built-in repository browser to select the module you wish to check out.
  • Click OK to begin checkout of the module.

[Edit - Turbo: The download is 600+ MB and will take some time. I did not have to install the program -- after downloading, run the Setup program in the BIN folder, then you can run VEGASTRIKE.EXE to play.]

Mac OS X Clients

Command Line Client

Website

http://metissian.com/projects/macosx/subversion/

(or http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/search.php?summary=svn for Fink packages.)

Footnote: metissian.com does not maintain current binaries. A better source would be (ordered from most current to most convenient):

(a) http://subversion.tigris.org/ for current source code.

(b) use Fink or MacPorts to get (usually) current source code.

(c) http://www.codingmonkeys.de/mbo/ for a (usually) current install package.

(d) XCode3 includes svn as part of the default installation (But not XCode2).

SCPlugin

Website

http://scplugin.tigris.org/

Description

"The goal of the SCPlugin project is to integrate Subversion into the Mac OS X Finder. The inspiration for this project came from the TortoiseSVN project."

Usage

Must have command line client installed.

FIXME -WRITEME

Other

Building

→ See HowTo:Compile on OSX

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