Question

I needed to install Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 for my dev work. I found that it does not install most of the dev tools/packages by default.

1. What are the essential dev tools one needs? I don’t mind installing them all for the sake of not wanting to have build failure later on for some third part package.
2. Also any documentation where I can get a list of essential packages. E.g:I found that mysql-devel rpm in fedora is called ‘libmysql++-dev’ in Ubuntu. I am looking for such querks

Answer 1

Start with build-essential. Presumably you’re after C/C++ stuff. Don’t forget:

• g++
• libboost-dev
• libgtk2.0-dev
• libmysqlclient-dev
• python-dev

To install the necessary dev files to build a given package, run the command:

sudo apt-get build-dep <package>

For example:

matt@stanley:~/cpfs$ sudo apt-get build-dep pidgin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting libltdl-dev instead of libltdl3-dev
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  doxygen libenchant-dev libgadu-dev libgstfarsight0.10-dev libgtkspell-dev
  libidn11-dev libltdl-dev libmeanwhile-dev libncursesw5-dev libnm-util-dev
  libnspr4-dev libnss3-dev libperl-dev libsasl2-dev libsilc-dev libsqlite3-dev
  libstartup-notification0-dev libxss-dev libzephyr-dev network-manager-dev
  tcl tcl-dev tcl8.4-dev tk tk-dev tk8.4-dev x11proto-scrnsaver-dev
0 upgraded, 27 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
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