Building X11R6.8 in Fedora 15 - Flex not found

Terry Barnaby terry1 at beam.ltd.uk
Tue Sep 27 04:45:12 UTC 2011


On 09/26/2011 10:15 PM, Doug Kuvaas wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 4:02 PM, Terry Barnaby<terry1 at beam.ltd.uk>  wrote:
>> On 09/26/2011 09:49 PM, Doug Kuvaas wrote:
>>>
>>> I am trying to build an older version of X Server on Fedora 15 to
>>> allow me to run a legacy application.  Fedora 8, which functions
>>> correctly for our application, will not install on a new computer for
>>> some reason, presumably because the new hardware uses UEFI, and Fedora
>>> 15 does not correctly run the application.
>>>
>>> When I try to build X11R6.8 from source, I get the following error
>>> "ld:  cannot find -lfl".  Doing some digging, I found that this error
>>> is because the linker cannot find the flex library, however flex is
>>> installed.  I am running a minimal install of Fedora 15 i686 with the
>>> dev libraries and tools installed, nothing else.
>>>
>>> Kernel Version is 2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.i686.PAE
>>>
>>> Does anyone have any ideas on how to clear this error?  All the
>>> answers I found just said to install flex.
>>
>> You may have to install the package flex-static to get a static version of
>> the flex library.
>>
>> However, I don't think you will have much luck in building all of
>> X11R6.8 and getting it to work under F15, at least not the XServer.
>> The graphics driver, DRM and kernel API interfaces have significantly
>> changed
>> over the years. Also it is likely that the graphics board you are using
>> isn't even supported ...
>>
>
> Thanks, this did fix the error that I was getting.  I don't have a
> whole lot of faith in this as a possible solution, but it seems like
> it may be about the only thing I can do.  Since the application I am
> looking to run is 2D graphics only, just using the VESA driver is good
> enough.
Is there any mileage in fixing the problem why your application doesn't run 
correctly under F15 ?
Do you know if it is an XWindows Library issue or an XServer issue (Will it run
under F15 with its GUI displayed on an F8 system or visa versa for example).
Is it a Desktop issue, try using it under different desktop systems...
Terry


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