In the following section, we tried to sort some problems according to operating system,
but if you encounter a problem, it may be a wise idea to look beyond ”your”
operating system - just in case. If you are experiencing problems, we would
strongly advise you to first check the FAQ maintained by Cameron Moore at
   http://www.flightgear.org/Docs/FlightGear-FAQ.html.
   Moreover, the source code contains a directory docs-mini containing numerous
ideas on and solutions to special problems. This is also a good place to go for further
reading.
   
                                                                     
                                                                     
The best place to look for help is generally the mailing lists, specifically the
[Flightgear-User] mailing list. If you happen to be running a CVS version of
FlightGear, you may want to subscribe to the [Flightgear-Devel] list. Instructions for
subscription can be found at
   http://www.flightgear.org/mail.html.
It’s often the case that someone has already dealt with the issue you’re dealing with, so it
may be worth your time to search the mailing list archives at
   http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-users%40flightgear.org/
   http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-devel%40flightgear.org/.
There are numerous developers and users reading the lists, so questions are generally
answered. However, messages of the type
   FlightGear does not compile on my system. What shall I do?
are hard to answer without any further detail given, aren’t they? Here are some things to
consider including in your message when you report a problem:
     
     - Operating system: (Linux Redhat 7.0. . . /Windows 98SE. . . )
     
- Computer: (Pentium III, 1GHz. . . )
     
- Graphics board/chip: (Diamond Viper 770/NVIDIA RIVA TNT2. . . )
     
- Compiler/version: (Cygnus version 1.0. . . )
     
- Versions of relevant libraries: (PLIB 1.2.0, Mesa 3.0. . . )
     
- Type of problem: (Linker dies with message. . . )
     
- Steps to recreate the problem: Start at KSFO, turn off brakes . . .
     
   For getting a trace of the output which FlightGear produces, then following
command may come in handy (may need to be modified on some OSs or may not work
on others at all, though):
                                                                     
                                                                     
   %FG  ROOT/BIN/fgfs >log.txt 2>&1
   One final remark: Please avoid posting binaries to these lists! List subscribers
are widely distributed, and some users have low bandwidth and/or metered
connections. Large messages may be rejected by the mailing list administrator.
Thanks.
   
     
     - FlightGear runs SOOO slow.
     
 If FlightGear says it’s running with something like 1 fps (frame per second)
     or below you typically don’t have working hardware OpenGL support. There
     may be several reasons for this. First, there may be no OpenGL hardware
     drivers available for older cards. In this case it is highly recommended to get
     a new board.Second,  check  if  your  drivers  are  properly  installed.  Several  cards  need
     additional OpenGL support drivers besides the ”native” windows ones. For
     more detail check Appendix B.
      
- Either configure or make dies with not found PLIB headers or libraries.
     
 Make sure you have the latest version of PLIB (> version 1.2) compiled and
     installed. Its headers like pu.h have to be under /usr/include/plib
     and its libraries, like libplibpu.a should be under /lib. Double check
     there are no stray PLIB headers/libraries sitting elsewhere!Besides check careful the error messages of configure. In several cases
     it says what is missing. 
Since we don’t have access to all possible flavors of Linux distributions, here are some
thoughts on possible causes of problems. (This Section includes contributions by Kai
Troester.)
     
     - Wrong library versions
     
 This is a rather common cause of grief especially when you prefer to install
                                                                     
                                                                     
     the libraries needed by FlightGear by hand. Be sure that especially the Mesa
     library contains support for the 3DFX board and that GLIDE libraries are
     installed  and  can  be  found.  If  a  ldd `which fgfs` complains about
     missing libraries you are in trouble.You should also be sure to always keep the latest version of PLIB on your
     system.  Lots  of  people  have  failed  miserably  to  compile  FlightGear  just
     because of an outdated plib.
      
- Missing permissions
     
 In case you are using XFree86 before release 4.0 the FlightGear binary may
     need to be setuid root in order to be capable of accessing some accelerator
     boards (or a special kernel module as described earlier in this document)
     based on 3DFX chips. So you can either issue achown root.root /usr/local/bin/fgfs ;
     
 chmod 4755 /usr/local/bin/fgfs
 to give the FlightGear binary the proper rights or install the 3DFX module.
     The latter is the ”clean” solution and strongly recommended!
      
- Non-default install options
     
 FlightGear will display a lot of diagnostics while starting up. If it complains
     about  bad  looking  or  missing  files,  check  that  you  installed  them  in  the
     way  they  are  supposed  to  be  installed  (i.e.  with  the  latest  version  and  in
     the proper location). The canonical location FlightGear wants its data files
     under /usr/local/lib. Be sure to grab the latest versions of everything
     that might be needed!
- Compile problems in general
     
 Make sure you have the latest (official) version of gcc. Old versions of gcc
     are a frequent source of trouble! On the other hand, some versions of the
     RedHat 7.0 reportedly have certain problems compiling FlightGear as they
     include a preliminary version of GCC.
- Problems with linking
     
 There may be several reasons; however in case you get a message likelibmk4.so.0: cannot open shared object file
                                                                     
                                                                     
      the reason is a missing library package called Metakit. This is provided with
     SimGear in packed form. On its installation, see Sec. 2.3.2. 
     - The executable refuses to run.
     
 You may have tried to start the executable directly either by double-clicking
     fgfs.exe in Windows Explorer or by invoking it within a MS-DOS
     shell.  Double-clicking  via  Explorer  does  never  work  (unless  you  set  the
     environment variable FG_ROOT in autoexec.bat or otherwise). Rather
     double-click runfgfs.bat. For more details, check Chapter 4.Another cause of grief might be that you did not download the most recent
     versions of the base package files required by FlightGear, or you did not
     download any of them at all. Have a close look at this, as the scenery/texture
     format  is  still  under  development  and  may  change  frequently.  For  more
     details, check Chapter 3.
      Next,  if  you  run  into  trouble  at  runtime,  do  not  use  windows  utilities  for
     unpacking the .tar.gz. If you did, try it in the Cygnus shell with tar
     xvfz instead.
      
- FlightGear ignores the command line parameters.
     
 There is a problem with passing command line options containing a ”=” to
     windows batch files. Instead, include the options into runfgfs.bat.
- I am unable to build FlightGear under MSVC/MS DevStudio.
     
 By default, FlightGear is build with GNU GCC. The Win32 port of GNU
     GCC is known as Cygwin. For hints on Makefiles required for MSVC for
     MSC DevStudio have a look intoftp://www.flightgear.org/pub/flightgear/Source/.
      In principle, it should be possible to compile FlightGear with the project
     files provided with the source code.
      
- Compilation of FlightGear dies.
                                                                     
                                                                     
     
 There may be several reasons for this, including true bugs. However, before
     trying to do anything else or report a problem, make sure you have the latest
     version of the Cygwin compiler, as described in Section 2. In case of doubt,
     start setup.exe anew and download and install the most recent versions
     of bundles as they possibly may have changed.