Version 0 of Tk generation when X11 headers are missing

Updated 2001-07-17 07:59:08

Traditional installation of Tcl programs, libraries, etc. on Unix hosts is from sources. Users download sources, then "configure; make".

It's almost equally traditional for HP-UX, SCO, Unixware, ... users to complain that Tk doesn't generate properly. Often, this presents itself first as a compilation diagnostic like

    ../generic/tk.h:74: X11/Xlib.h: No such file or directory

Briefly, this suggests that the installed development system does not include X11 header files.

There are generally three responses to this challenge:

  • Install binary executables and libraries for Tk. The Wiki page on "binary distributions" explains more about this.
  • Install the standard X11 header files for the platform. Proprietary Unix vendors all make these available, generally on CD-ROM, although they're inconsistent both in their location and whether they're installed by default. For Unixware 7, for example, it's necessary to ask explicitly for package xdevsys (or perhaps xserver and xdrivers?) from the UDK CD-ROM. Once these are in place, generation should proceed as normal.
  • [A trick that CL employs and will explain.]