Downloading / Unpacking

Mesa can be downloaded from the SourceForge download area.

Since version 2.3, Mesa is distributed in two pieces: main library code and demos. If you're upgrading from a previous version of Mesa or you're not interested in the demos you can just download the core Mesa archive file.

Mesa is available in at least three archive formats:

1. GNU zip/tar

	Download MesaLib-X.Y.tar.gz and optionally MesaDemos-X.Y.tar.gz
	Unpack with:
		gzcat MesaLib-X.Y.tar.gz | tar xf -
		gzcat MesaDemos-X.Y.tar.gz | tar xf -
	or
		gunzip MesaLib-X.Y.tar.gz ; tar xf MesaLib-X.Y.tar
		gunzip MesaDemos-X.Y.tar.gz ; tar xf MesaLib-X.Y.tar
	or
		tar zxf MesaLib-X.Y.tar.gz
		tar zxf MesaDemos-X.Y.tar.gz

	If you don't have gzcat try zcat instead.

2. Unix compressed/tar

	Download MesaLib-X.Y.tar.Z and optionally MesaDemos-X.Y.tar.Z
	Unpack with:
		zcat MesaLib-X.Y.tar.Z | tar xf -
		zcat MesaDemos-X.Y.tar.Z | tar xf -

3. ZIP format

	Download MesaLib-X.Y.zip and optionally MesaDemos-X.Y.zip
	Unpack with:
		unzip MesaLib-X.Y.zip
		unzip MesaDemos-X.Y.zip

After unpacking you'll have these directories (and more):

Makefile.X11	- top-level Makefile for X11-based systems
Make-config	- system configurations used by the Makefile.X11
include/	- GL header (include) files
bin/		- shell scripts for making shared libraries, etc
lib/		- final client libraries, created during compilation
docs/		- documentation
src/		- source code for libraries
src/mesa	- sources for the main Mesa library and device drivers
src/glu		- libGLU source code
src/glw		- Xt/Motif/OpenGL widget code


and if you downloaded and unpacked the MesaDemos.X.Y archive:

src/glut	- GLUT source code
progs/		- OpenGL programs
progs/demos	- original Mesa demos
progs/xdemos	- GLX OpenGL/Mesa demos
progs/redbook	- examples from the OpenGL Programming Guide
progs/samples	- examples from SGI
progs/images/	- image files

Proceed to compilation and installation instructions.

GLUT

Mesa 2.5 and later includes Mark Kilgard's GLUT library (GL Utility Toolkit). GLUT is built automatically on systems which support it.

The GLUT tests, demos, examples, etc are not included, just the main library. To obtain the latest complete release of GLUT please visit the GLUT page on www.opengl.org.