many problems installing/running FrogComPosBand

[backwardsEric]

I should have asked for what 'ls -lR /usr/local/etc/frogcomposband /usr/local/share/frogcomposband /usr/local/var/games/frogcomposband' report. Since the installation elsewhere doesn't work, the installation program on your system detected by configure, "checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/ginstall -c", is a likely culprit. You could use the install-sh packaged with frogcomposband instead:

./configure INSTALL="`pwd`/install-sh -c" NCURSES_CONFIG=`which ncursesw6-config` --enable-sdl --enable-sdl-mixer'

[darwin]

I highly doubt there are permissions problems as I didn't change any these. After I reconfigured with '--with-no-install' I was able to run the game, but in future I'll want to run it from a system-wide installation.

drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 Feb 11 02:44 /usr/
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 4096 Jan 20 22:58 /usr/local/
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 Jan 20 22:57 /usr/local/etc/
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 Jan 20 22:57 /usr/local/etc/
drwxr-xr-x 34 root root 4096 Jan 20 22:57 /usr/local/share/
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Jan 20 22:58 /usr/local/var/
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Jan 20 22:58 /usr/local/var/games/
/usr/local/var/games/frogcomposband:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 20 22:58 user/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 20 22:58 save/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 20 22:58 data/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 20 22:58 apex/

/usr/local/share/frogcomposband:
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Feb  2 21:45 xtra/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb  8 22:37 help/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Feb  2 21:45 FrogComposband/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb  8 22:37 fonts/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb  8 22:37 file/

/usr/local/etc/frogcomposband:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb  8 22:37 pref/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb  8 22:37 edit/

[backwardsEric]

With regards to the original error report, when you ran src/frogcomposband, did you do that after running 'make install' or between running 'make' and 'make install'? The latter will not work unless there happened to be previously installed files present or you override the file locations by supplying a number of -d options to src/frogcomposband. I can't speak for Sideways, but I would regard that behavior as "working as expected". If it was configured without --with-no-install and installation hasn't been finished, then running src/frogcomposband will, in general, require -d options to have the executable use the files present in the source directories.

Running src/frogcomposband after running 'make' and 'make install' should work. Since you said 'make install' ran without errors, a possible cause of src/frogcomposband failing is the permissions on the installed files. What does 'ls -ld /usr /usr/local, /usr/local/etc /usr/local/etc /usr/local/share /usr/local/var /usr/local/var/games' and 'ls -lr /usr/local/etc/frogcomposband /usr/local/share/frogcomposband /usr/local/var/games/frogcomposband' report? From the installation rules in mk/buildsys.mk.in, I would not expect the permissions to be a problem unless whatever ${INSTALL} expands to in mk/buildsys.mk silently ignores -m options.

The behavior of using /usr/local as the default installation prefix is set by autoconf. There could be additional logic in configure.ac to set a more appropriate default, but that would require more information: what is the better default for systems like yours and can that be tested for without breaking how things work elsewhere.

If you're only interested in getting the game running and not interested in testing configure with the default installation options, then Gwarl's suggestion of using Makefile.std or using configure with --with-no-install will be easier.

[darwin]

I didn't do anything out of the ordinary we hadn't already discussed, so there's not much/anything else to see, but okay. Default isn't 'run in place' rather than system-wide installation, as you'll see from below configure output (and most/all other Angband/variants... 'run in place' requires an additional argument/flag/switch beyond default)... this installation type is also used to build UNIX/GNU/Linux Angband/variant packages any those OS use.

'./autogen.sh'
'./configure NCURSES_CONFIG=`which ncursesw6-config` --enable-sdl --enable-sdl-mixer'
'make'
'make install' (more usually non-root wheel user as 'sudo make install')
configure output:
checking build system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking target system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking for tput... /usr/bin/tput
configure: touching .deps files
Note: You have chosen to compile for installation, with data files
in standard locations. For development, you may wish to consider using
--with-no-install which will leave the game to run from the directory
into which it was extracted and compiled.

checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking for suffix of executables...
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to enable C11 features... none needed
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether ln -s works... yes
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/ginstall -c
checking for a race-free mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
checking for windres... windres
checking for rm... /usr/bin/rm
checking for mv... /usr/bin/mv
checking for cp... /usr/bin/cp
checking for dirent.h that defines DIR... yes
checking for library containing opendir... none required
checking for stdio.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking for fcntl.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... (cached) yes
checking for _Bool... yes
checking for stdbool.h that conforms to C99 or later... yes
checking for an ANSI C-conforming const... yes
checking return type of signal handlers... void
checking for mkdir... yes
checking for setresgid... yes
checking for setegid... yes
checking for stat... yes
checking for mkstemp... yes
checking for usleep... yes
checking if gcc supports -Wno-missing-field-initializers... yes
checking if make supports SysV-style inclusion... yes
checking for make silent include syntax... gnu
checking for ncursesw5-config... /usr/bin/ncursesw6-config
checking for ncurses - wide char support... yes
checking for mvwaddnwstr... yes
checking for use_default_colors... yes
checking for can_change_color... yes
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for X... libraries , headers
checking for gethostbyname... yes
checking for connect... yes
checking for remove... yes
checking for shmat... yes
checking for IceConnectionNumber in -lICE... yes
checking for sdl-config... /usr/bin/sdl-config
checking for SDL - version >= 1.2.10... yes
checking for IMG_LoadPNG_RW in -lSDL_image... yes
checking for TTF_Init in -lSDL_ttf... yes
checking for Mix_OpenAudio in -lSDL_mixer... yes
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating mk/buildsys.mk
config.status: creating mk/extra.mk
config.status: creating mk/sinclude.mk
config.status: creating src/autoconf.h
config.status: src/autoconf.h is unchanged

Configuration:

Install path: /usr/local
binary path: /usr/local/games
config path: /usr/local/etc/frogcomposband/
lib path: /usr/local/share/frogcomposband/
doc path: /usr/local/share/doc/frogcomposband/
var path: (not used)
(with private save and score files in ~/.angband/FrogComposband/)

-- Frontends --
- Curses Yes
- X11 Yes
- SDL Yes
- Windows Disabled
- Test No
- Stats No

- SDL sound Yes
- Limit colours to 16 No

The make and make install commands ran successfully with no errors and I have make output also. I've been trying the stable version of FrogComPosBand which needed the curses configuration option but can also retry a git commit (which doesn't need curses configuration option).

[backwardsEric]

I've been programming (since 1993 and on) on UNIX/GNU/Linux since 1997 and use root daily--doesn't change anything. Clearly if I wasn't root it wouldn't have been installed so wouldn't even run to get a failure screen. I'm waiting to hear what went wrong or debug.

Okay. If you do not tell us what steps you used to configure, build, and install, we have to guess at what you did and that unnecessarily prolongs working out what went wrong. The output from configure would also be helpful.

[Gwarl]

you can do

cd src
make -f Makefile.std

As an alternative to autconf and --with-no-install. Edit z-config.h (or maybe config.h? in some variants) for options instead of using flags. The default is to run in-place, in-place being ~/games/frogcomposband or similar rather than ~/games/frogcomposband/src where the binary will be built.

[darwin]

If you do not want to use --with-no-install, the default installation directories are typically only writable by a super-user [...]

I've been programming (since 1993 and on) on UNIX/GNU/Linux since 1997 and use root daily--doesn't change anything. Clearly if I wasn't root it wouldn't have been installed so wouldn't even run to get a failure screen. I'm waiting to hear what went wrong or debug.

[backwardsEric]

If you want to run the executable in the src directory, as you stated in your original post, do this to configure and build:

./configure --with-no-install [the other configuration options you want here]
make

If you do not want to use --with-no-install, the default installation directories are typically only writable by a super-user so running "make install" will require super-user privileges. There's several options to configure that can change where things are installed; --prefix=some_directory_name sets the base directory where things are installed. This,

./configure --prefix="$HOME/frogcomposband" [the other configure options you want here]
make
make install

, would install the game in the ~/frogcomposband directory. The executable is ~/frogcomposband/games/frogcomposband.

[darwin]

Failure screens happen even if I install--I don't try to run it in place since that required special option.

[Gwarl]

Again this sounds like you need to use --with-no-install when compiling

[darwin]

Of course I know that: curses & X11 versions show the above 'failed' screen, and SDL version says 'frogcomposband: Cannot find required file: /usr/local/share/frogcomposband/xtra/font/8x8xb.fon'.

[backwardsEric]

FrogComPosBand, after compiling, doesn't run in src directory (but should) and needs /usr/local/var/games which doesn't exist on some UNIX/GNU/Linux such as what I use ('make install' needs to 'mkdir -p' that).

Did you use the --with-no-install option when you ran configure? That is necessary to get an executable that you can run in place.

After I create that and try to run curses version, instead I get a graphical version that looks like the below.

When you ran frogcomposband did you specify the frontend to use with the -m option (i.e. src/frogcomposband -mgcu for the curses frontend)? If you did not, it runs the first frontend that was built, and the SDL and X11 frontends are tried first before the curses one. The end of the output from configure should tell you which frontends were configured. Here's what it looks like on macOS after I told it how to find curses:

-- Frontends --
- Curses                                  Yes
- X11                                     No; missing libraries
- SDL                                     Disabled
- Windows                                 Disabled
- Test                                    No
- Stats                                   No

- SDL sound                               Disabled
- Limit colours to 16                     No

[darwin]

FrogComPosBand, after compiling, doesn't run in src directory (but should) and needs /usr/local/var/games which doesn't exist on some UNIX/GNU/Linux such as what I use ('make install' needs to 'mkdir -p' that). After I create that and try to run curses version, instead I get a graphical version that looks like the below.

Failed!























[Updating help files - please wait...]

Did FrogComPosBand's original source, ComPosBand, also come from PosChengBand?