Welcome, brave soul, to the "Intro to Linux Development" series of Articles on GameDev.net! In this series of articles, I will lead you through basic Linux development of applications with a strong focus on games. The first tutorial, the one you are viewing right now, will introduce you to many of the development tools that Linux has to offer. We will go through basic programs such as vi (a Text Editor), The GIMP (an Image Editor), and GCC (the most common compiler). Various other topics such as packaging and makefiles will also be covered. As you probably know, most Linux programs are Open-Source. Open-Source means that the source code is freely distributable and everyone can view it. As well as being distributed as Open-Source, most Linux programs are distributed AS source code and do not give out binary files. Why, you ask? Well, certain systems have to include files into a build, while others don't. If someone compiles it on their system, their system will know exactly what it needs to include and exactly what it doesn't need. Before we begin, let me set the prerequisites for this tutorial. I expect that you will be familiar with the C programming language. I will also assume that you know basic linux commands (rm, cd, ls). One more thing that I'll assume is that you can work your way around your Window Manager. Some popular ones are KDE, Gnome, Window Maker, and IceWM. Let's not forget BlackBox, Sawfish and Enlightenment though! So, feel up to the challenge? Put on your Tux and Proceed to the Next page where I'll explain vi and The GIMP.
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