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Building the application from sources

This application can be built and run under Windows 32bit and 64bit using either the MinGW compiler and environment or cygwin. It can be built natively under linux. This application uses libusb to access the hardware. Below, we describe compilation in these three scenarios as of 02/2014.

Using MinGW under Windows

Download the latest mingw-get-setup.exe from MinGW's Downloads page, in the "Installer" folder. Install MinGW with that installer and make sure to install the following: Under "Basic Setup", select mingw-developer-toolkit, mingw32-base, mingw32-gcc-g++ and msys-base. Under "All packages -> MinGW -> MinGW libraries, add mingw32-pthreads-w32. We assume here that you install to c:\MinGW. After you are done with the installation, edit c:\MinGW\msys\1.0\etc\fstab and make sure it has a line pointing to c:\MinGW for the MinGW installation. Create a link to c:\MinGW\msys\1.0\msys.bat, for example on your desktop, so that you can start the MSYS environment. Download the latest source version of libusb. Save it to c:\MinGW\MSYS\1.0\home\your_username and decompress it. Start an MSYS shell using the link to msys.bat you created. In the shell, compile libusb:

cd libusb-1.0.18/
./configure --prefix=/c/MinGW
make
make install

Download the latest release of vfg-control to c:\MinGW\MSYS\1.0\home\your_username and decompress it. Compile vfg-control:

cd vfg-control_1.0/src
make

You should now be able to run vfg-control by entering

./vfg-control

If you try to start vfg-control from outside the MSYS environment (e. g. by double-clicking on the .EXE file), it will likely fail because of missing DLLs. Copy those from the respective directories below c:\MinGW to the directory where the executable is located, and it should work.

Using cygwin under windows

This is very similar to the MinGW approach, except you won't have to compile libusb. cygwin comes with libusb. Make sure you have the required packages installed (make, gcc,bison,flex,libusb,...) and just compile by entering make in the vfg-control_1.0/src subfolder of the vfg-control distribution. If it fails, check for additional packages and libraries to install. The same issue with the DLLs applies here. If you would like to run the application from outside cygwin, copy the relevant DLLs to the directory of the executable from your c:\cygwin tree.

Building on linux

Download the latest source. Make sure you have libusb installed, a C compiler, and flex and bison. Compile by entering make in the vfg-control_1.0/src subfolder of the vfg-control distribution. If it fails, check for additional packages and libraries to install. At this point, you will have to run vfg-control as root in order to access the device. You can apply some udev voodoo documented here in order to run it as a regular user.

Building on MacOSX

Should be possible since libusb supports that platform. I have not tried yet.


Contact and support: ospelkau at users.sourceforge.net