Compiling and Installing GTKWave

Unix and Linux Operating Systems

Compiling GTKWave on Unix or Linux operating systems should be a relatively straightforward process as GTKWave was developed under both Linux and AIX. External software packages required are GTK (http://www.gtk.org) with versions 1.3 or 2.x (3.x not yet supported), and gperf (for RTLBrowse) which can be downloaded from the GNU website (http://www.gnu.org). The compression libraries libz (zlib) and libbz2 (bzip2) are not required to be installed on a target system as their source code is already included in the GTKWave tarball, however the system ones will be used if located.

Compiling and Installing

Un-tar the source code into any temporary directory then change directory into it. After doing this, invoke the configure script. Note that if you wish to change the install point, use the double dash –prefix option to point to the absolute pathname. For example, to install in /usr, type ./configure –prefix=/usr.

1 :/tmp/gtkwave-3.1.3\> ./configure

Use the –help flag to see which options are available. Typically, outside of –prefix, no flags are needed.

2 :/tmp/gtkwave-3.1.3\> make

Wait for the compile to finish. This will take some amount of time. Then log on as the superuser.

3 :/tmp/gtkwave-3.1.3\> **su**
Password:
[root@localhost gtkwave-3.1.3]# make install

Wait for the install to finish. It should proceed relatively quickly. When finished, exit as superuser.

[root@localhost gtkwave-3.1.3]# exit
exit

GTKWave is now installed on your Unix or Linux system. To use it, make sure that the bin/ directory off the install point is in your path. For example, if the install point is /usr/local, ensure that /usr/local/bin is in your path. How to do this will vary from shell to shell.

GTKWave running under Linux.

GTKWave running under Linux.

Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

Cygwin

The best way to run GTKWave under Windows is to compile it to run under Cygwin. This will provide the same functionality as compared to the Unix/Linux version and better graphical performance than the native binary version. Follow the directions for Unix compiles in the preceding section. Note that launching RTLBrowse requires Cygserver to be enabled. Please see the Cygwin documentation for information on how to enable Cygserver for your version of Cygwin. (http://www.cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-cygserver.html)

MinGW versus VC++ for Native Binaries

It is recommended that Windows compiles and installs are done in the MinGW environment in order to mimic the Unix shell environment as well as produce binaries that are natively usable on Windows. Producing native binaries with VisualC++ has not been attempted for some time so it is currently untested.

MinGW with GTK-1.2

If you are missing a working version of gtk-config, you will need a fake gtk-config file in order to compile under GTK-1.2. It will look like this with the include and linker search directories modified accordingly:

#!/bin/sh

if [ "$1" == "--libs" ]
then
    echo -L/home/bybell/libs -lgck -lgdk-1.3 -lgimp-1.2 -lgimpi -lgimpui-1.2 \
    -lglib-1.3 -lgmodule-1.3 -lgnu-intl -lgobject-1.3 -lgthr ead-1.3 -lgtk-1.3 \
    -liconv-1.3 -ljpeg -llibgplugin_a -llibgplugin_b -lpng -lpthread32 \
    -ltiff-lzw -ltiff-nolzw -ltiff
fi

if [ "$1" == "--cflags" ]
then
    echo " -mms-bitfields -I/home/bybell/src/glib
    -I/home/bybell/src/gtk+/gtk -I/home/bybell/src/gtk+/gdk
    -I/home/bybell/src/gtk+ "
fi

Compiling as under Unix/Linux is the same.

MinGW with GTK-2.0

You do not need to do anything special except ensure that pkg-config is pointed to by your PATH environment variable. Proceed as with GTK-1.2. Pre-made binaries can be found at the http://www.dspia.com/gtkwave.html website.

Apple Macintosh Operating Systems

OSX / Macports

All functionality of the Linux/UNIX version is present in the OSX version when GDK/GTK is compiled for X11. If GDK/GTK is compiled for Quartz (i.e., /opt/local/etc/macports/variants.conf has a line of the form +no_x11 +quartz) and the package gtk-osx-application is also installed, GTKWave will behave more like a Mac application with native menus, an icon on the dock, etc. as shown below.

Demonstrating application integration with Mac OSX / Quartz

Demonstrating application integration with Mac OSX / Quartz

Note that if running GTKWave on the command line out of a precompiled bundle gtkwave.app, it is required that the Perl script gtkwave.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gtkwave is invoked to start the program. Please see the gtkwave(1) man page for more information.