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I'm trying to install the GTK development environment on Ubuntu, and having difficulty simply get it installed.

Basically, my goal is to simply compile a C file which includes the header file <gtk/gtk.h>, so I can start tinkering around:

#include <gtk/gtk.h>

int main() { }

So, this answer says you can simply apt-get install gnome-core-devel build-essential to get the development environment installed. Okay, so I tried that and when I try to compile the above code, I get, the compiler complains it can't find the file gtk/gtk.h

So, I add /usr/include/gtk-2.0/ to the Path and compile again. Now it complains that it can't find another file /gio/gio.h.

This file didn't even exist on my system, so after googling around for gio.h, and apt-getting other libraries, I managed to install it. I tried compiling again, this time the compiler can't find /usr/include/glib-2.0/glib/gtypes.h.

At this point, I'm thinking it can't possibly be this difficult to simply install something like GTK development enviroment, which is a fairly popular package. I thought maybe something was wrong with my system, so I tried this on a different install of Ubuntu, and ran into the same issues.

So, what exact packages are necessary to install GTK? And will I need to manually configure my include path, or is that supposed to happen automatically?

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1 Answers1

6

There are two versions of GTK+, gtk+2 and gtk+3. You should choose or at least prefer gtk+3, as the transition has began some time ago.

There are some examples for gtk3 here: http://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.2/gtk-getting-started.html

#include <gtk/gtk.h>

int
main (int   argc,
char *argv[])
{
  GtkWidget *window;

  gtk_init (&argc, &argv);

  window = gtk_window_new (GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);

  g_signal_connect (window, "destroy", G_CALLBACK (gtk_main_quit), NULL);

  gtk_widget_show (window);

  gtk_main ();

  return 0;
}

To find which package provides a file, head to http://packages.ubuntu.com and scroll down to "Search the contents of packages". Enter the file name as keyword and search for the file.

gtk.h is provided by two packages:

/usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtk.h libgtk2.0-dev

/usr/include/gtk-3.0/gtk/gtk.h libgtk-3-dev

Install libgtk-3-dev for gtk+3.

Finally, mind the command you execute (see the examples from the link I mentioned above):

gcc `pkg-config --cflags gtk+-3.0` -o window-default window-default.c `pkg-config --libs gtk+-3.0`

Keep the order of the arguments the same. You may want to add -Wall to show any errors that need to be fixed:

gcc `pkg-config --cflags gtk+-3.0` -o window-default window-default.c -Wall `pkg-config --libs gtk+-3.0`

If you're still facing problems, show/attach the command you use and the output provided to your question above.

Savvas Radevic
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