Can't get qvfb to work on Mac OS X

[nyholku]

Hi,

I'm trying to run the examples/widgets/wiggly using qvfb on Mac OS X.

No matter what I do qvfb starts and opens a empty window and
when I start wiggly it starts in a window of its own as a native Mac OS
application using Mac graphics pipeline instead of the qvfb, I presume.

Here is what I do.

I've installed the full Qt SDK from

http://qt.nokia.com/downloads/sdk-mac-os-cpp

I then downloaded this file:

qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.6.2.tar

and extracted the contents to this dir:

/qt-qvfb-4.6.2

I then 'cd' into that dir and configure as follows:

./configure -qt-gfx-qvfb -qt-kbd-qvfb -qt-mouse-qvfb -prefix /qt-qvfb-4.6.2/

and 'make' it, which takes long time but finishes without errors.

I then 'sudo make install' which copies a lot of files
and to my surprise also compiles lots of stuff.

Is that normal?

further the compilation fails with:


make[2]: [install_target] Error 1 (ignored)
sed -e "s,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/include,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2//include,g" -e "s,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/lib,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2//lib,g" "../../lib/Qt3Support.framework/Qt3Support.prl" >"/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/lib/Qt3Support.framework/Qt3Support.prl"
sed -e "s,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/include,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2//include,g" -e "s,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/lib,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2//lib,g" "../../lib/Qt3Support.la" >"/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/lib/Qt3Support.la"
sed -e "s,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/include,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2//include,g" -e "s,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/lib,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2//lib,g" -e "s,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2,/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/,g" "../../lib/pkgconfig/Qt3Support.pc" >"/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/lib/pkgconfig/Qt3Support.pc"
cd src/tools/uic3/ && make -f Makefile install
make[1]: *** No rule to make target `../../../lib/QtCore.framework/Versions/4/Headers/qglobal.h', needed by `.obj/release-shared/customwidgetsinfo.o'. Stop.
make: *** [sub-uic3-install_subtargets-ordered] Error 2


doing 'make' again, it succeeds.

Then I qmake wiggly from wiithin it's directory as follows:

/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/bin/qmake

and make it, which succeeds.

I then start qvfb as follows:

/qt-qvfb-4.6.2/bin/qvfb

which again succeeds and opens an empty window,
but when I start wiggly with

./wiggly -qws

it starts in a native Mac OS Window not using the qvfb virtual frame buffer.

And looking at the compilation I see that it seems to compile with some Qt
framework on Mac, which to indicates that it is most likely compiling with
the Mac Qt SDK, not with the Qt that I configured for qvfb.

So, what am I doing wrong?

br Kusti

[axeljaeger]

Qvfb is only meant to be used together with Qt Embedded. You will have to compile both a native Qt for the qvfb application and compile a qt embedded with qvfb backend to be able to run applications in that provided virtual framebuffer. I had no success so far in compiling qt embedded on mac os.

[nyholku]

Hi axeljaeger,

thanks for answering.

I take you point that it should be easier to get this going with/on Linux.

However, according to this thread it seems that someone, more knowledgeable
than me, did this almost casually on Mac:

http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2007...mming-on-os-x/

But I'm not bent on doing this on Mac, I can do this on Linux. So I re-did what
I described I my post this time on Linux, and the result is just the same. The application
runs native to Linux/Q11, not in/with qvfb-frame buffer.

So I must be doing something elementary wrong, but can't spot it.

I've tried to follow these instructions to the letter:

http://thelins.se/learnqt/category/embedded-linux/

Very frustrating when compiling takes hours an a 2.8 GHz/4GB/1067Mhz/9200rpm machine...

I wish someone would look through my process and point out
what I'm doing wrong...

br Kusti

[axeljaeger]

In both cases, you should have two versions of Qt installed: The native one and Qt embedded. The application that shall run inside the qvfb has to be linked against Qt embedded, not the native version. From your description, it looks like your application is linked agains the native Qt. When installing two versions of Qt, be sure to invoke the right qmake that was built together with that particular version of Qt, e.g. run qmake from Qt embedded before compiling your application. This will make sure the generated Makefile links agains that version of Qt.