GCC version 3.2.3 with C++ support is known to build ALE successfully. Older versions of GCC may fail to compile some versions of ALE.
Successfully running the configuration script on Windows (e.g., for native builds) may require installation of Cygwin. For more information on Cygwin, see:
Alternatively, this package can be cross-compiled for Windows on a non-Windows architecture, provided that the appropriate cross-compilers and libraries are available.
Download the source archive file from the URL indicated in the section 'URLs', and invoke:
Invoking 'ls configure' afterward should reveal an executable script 'configure'. This script is used to determine the capabilities of the system that will run the software.
This package uses a configuration script, 'configure', generated by the GNU project build tools ("autotools"). For most cases, it should be sufficient to invoke:
In cases where the defaults are not adequate, configuration options can be passed to the configuration script.
Configuration options can be passed to the 'configure' script prior to build and installation, as:
Options specific to this package are described in the following subsections. General configuration options are described in the file 'INSTALL' included in the source package.
Enabling ImageMagick support allows ALE to make use of the file-handling
capabilities of ImageMagick (
ALE's internal data structures store each color channel within a pixel as floating-point data; similarly, arithmetic operations on color channels are performed in floating point. The available data-type configurations are listed below, with typical data sizes indicated in parentheses.
In general, coordinate transformations used by ALE produce results outside of the set of integers; hence, coordinates are treated as floating-point data. The two available data-type configurations are listed below, with typical data sizes indicated in parentheses.
Threads can improve performance on multiprocessor machines. POSIX threads are currently supported.
This feature is required in order to use the --fl option; it also determines the approach to calculation of discrete Fourier transforms used by the Irani-Peleg renderer. For more information on FFTW, see http://fftw.org/.
This build option is required in order to use the --wmx option. If --enable-wmx is specified, it is expected that fork() and execlp() calls are available.
This build option is required to obtain additional output from --ui=tty. If TIOCGWINSZ is not defined in <sys/ioctl.h>, however, additional output will not be provided even if --enable-getsize is specified at build time.
Finding bugs within ALE, or within custom modifications to ALE, can be simplified by enabling run-time assertions. These checks enforce conditions believed to be necessary or desirable for correct program operation. If a condition is not satisfied, ALE will abort and display a message indicating the failed assertion.
For cross-compilation, it may be necessary to specify both host and build machine types, using the configure --host and --build options. For more information on these options, see the file 'INSTALL' in the source package.
General operation of the configure script is described in more detail in the file 'INSTALL' in the source package.
Bug reports, feature requests, patch and release announcements, and related discussion can be sent to ale@ventricle.dyndns.org. Archives of past postings and subscription information are available at the URLs indicated below.