MesaLib-4.0.1.tar.gz
MesaDemos-4.0.1.tar.gz
http://mesa3d.sourceforge.net/
Mesa is the library that provides the foundation for the 3D support included in XFree86. Originally, Mesa
included a software-only libGL that only claims to be "similar to that of OpenGL." Mesa now
also supports hardware acceleration for a growing number of cards (see their site for details).
The Mesa package also includes an implementation of the libGLU Utility library and the libglut
GL Utility Toolkit library. Some versions of XFree86 only included the libGL from Mesa and
some header files. With recent releases of XFree86, like 4.2.0, more has been added
from Mesa, like libGLU and the manual pages. libglut may still be missing from your XFree86
distribution, so you may still like to get it from the Mesa distribution or from the GLUT
distribution directly.
As shipped, XFree86 will support software OpenGL rendering (painfully slow) using the Mesa libGL.
It may also support hardware accelerated OpenGL for some cards that have a fully open source
driver. But for NVIDIA, the subject of this document, there is no fully open sourced
hardware accelerated OpenGL driver included in XFree86. The NVIDIA GLX/OpenGL driver we download
from NVIDIA.com is a binary, closed source driver
that is a drop-in hardware accelerated replacement for the Mesa libGL.so file.
libGLU is a library built on top of libGL to provide some higher-level functions for applications.
OpenGL itself, libGL, is considered a low-level library. GLU is a standard part of most OpenGL
installations and many programs make use of it.
MesaDemos provides many OpenGL demo programs and, more importantly, the
GL Utility Toolkit
(libglut) library. GLUT provides a window system independent interface between OpenGL
and any supported window system. For instance, on the X Window System, it
hides the details of using glX functions to setup a window. Programmers
can write code once and can compile it to work on MS Windows or X, etc
provided that a GLUT library is available on the target platform. Like libGLU, libglut
is a standard part of most OpenGL installations and is required by many programs.
While GLUT is bundled with MesaDemos, it is also available as separate packages:
glut-3.7.tar.gz
glut_data-3.7.tar.gz
from http://www.opengl.org/developers/documentation/glut/index.html
You may use either the GLUT included with MesaDemos (preferred and easier) or the GLUT from its
project website. Don't install both! It's recommended at this time to go with the GLUT
packaged with MesaDemos, but instructions on how to install the other GLUT are still provided
in the next section as an option. Note that MesaDemos does not include the glut manpages, so
you may want to download the project GLUT package just to install its man pages.
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