SDL

SDL stands for Simple DirectMedia Layer and it's an open source multimedia library written in C and designed to provide low level access to mouse, keyboard, audio, joystick, 3D graphics hardware via Direct3D and OpenGL.

Used in many Humble Bundle games or Valve's award winning catalog

These days, SDL is heavily used by emulators, video playback software, as well as numerous popular games, including the award winning Linux port of "Civilization: Call To Powe," many Humble Bundle games, and Valve's award winning catalog.

Runs on all mainstream operating systems

Simple DirectMedia Layer runs on numerous operating systems, including the mainstream GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X ones. The BeOS, BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD), BSD/OS, Solaris, IRIX, QNX OSes, as well as the Android and iOS mobile operating systems are also supported. Supported hardware platforms include 32 and 64-bit.

Getting started with SDL

SDL is usually available for download on numerous Linux kernel-based operating systems, through their official software repositories. Installing it using the latest source package, which is distributed for free on Softoware, is easy as pie.

Download and save the archive on your Home directory, unpack it, open a Terminal app and navigate to the location where you’ve extracted the archive file (e.g. cd /home/softoware/SDL2-2.0.3).

Run the ‘./configure && make’ command to configure, optimize and compile the program. After a successful compilation, run the ‘sudo make install’ command as a privileged user to install SDL system wide.

Under the hood

A quick look under the hood of the SDL project, will inform us that it is written in the C programming language and that it works natively with C++. Bindings for other programming languages are also available, supporting the popular Python,  Ada, Java, Lua, Eiffel, ML, PHP, Perl, Pike, Ruby, and C#.

What is new in this release:

• General:
• Added an API to get common filesystem paths in SDL_filesystem.h: SDL_GetBasePath(), SDL_GetPrefPath()
• Added an API to do optimized YV12 and IYUV texture updates: SDL_UpdateYUVTexture()
• Added an API to get the amount of RAM on the system: SDL_GetSystemRAM()
• Added a macro to perform timestamp comparisons with SDL_GetTicks(): SDL_TICKS_PASSED()
• Dramatically improved OpenGL ES 2.0 rendering performance
• Added OpenGL attribute SDL_GL_FRAMEBUFFER_SRGB_CAPABLE
• Linux:
• Fixed float audio support with the PulseAudio driver
• Fixed missing line endpoints in the OpenGL renderer on some drivers
• X11 symbols are no longer defined to avoid collisions when linking statically
• Android:
• IMPORTANT: You MUST get the updated SDLActivity.java to match C code
• Moved EGL initialization to native code
• Fixed the accelerometer axis rotation relative to the device rotation
• Fixed race conditions when handling the EGL context on pause/resume
• Touch devices are available for enumeration immediately after init
• Raspberry Pi:
• Added support for the Raspberry Pi, see README-raspberrypi.txt for details

What is new in version 2.0.3:

• General:
• Added an API to get common filesystem paths in SDL_filesystem.h: SDL_GetBasePath(), SDL_GetPrefPath()
• Added an API to do optimized YV12 and IYUV texture updates: SDL_UpdateYUVTexture()
• Added an API to get the amount of RAM on the system: SDL_GetSystemRAM()
• Added a macro to perform timestamp comparisons with SDL_GetTicks(): SDL_TICKS_PASSED()
• Dramatically improved OpenGL ES 2.0 rendering performance
• Added OpenGL attribute SDL_GL_FRAMEBUFFER_SRGB_CAPABLE
• Linux:
• Fixed float audio support with the PulseAudio driver
• Fixed missing line endpoints in the OpenGL renderer on some drivers
• X11 symbols are no longer defined to avoid collisions when linking statically
• Android:
• IMPORTANT: You MUST get the updated SDLActivity.java to match C code
• Moved EGL initialization to native code
• Fixed the accelerometer axis rotation relative to the device rotation
• Fixed race conditions when handling the EGL context on pause/resume
• Touch devices are available for enumeration immediately after init
• Raspberry Pi:
• Added support for the Raspberry Pi, see README-raspberrypi.txt for details

What is new in version 1.2.14:

• General Notes:
• Fixed flicker when resizing the SDL window
• Fixed crash in SDL_SetGammaRamp()
• Fixed freeze in SDL_memset() with 0 length when assembly code is disabled.
• Added SDL_DISABLE_LOCK_KEYS environment variable to enable normal up/down events for Caps-Lock and Num-Lock keys.
• Fixed audio quality problem when converting between 22050 Hz and 44100 Hz.
• Fixed a threading crash when a few threads are rapidly created and complete.
• Increased accuracy of alpha blending routines.
• Fixed crash loading BMP files saved with the scanlines inverted.
• Fixed mouse coordinate clamping if SDL_SetVideoMode() isn't called in response to SDL_VIDEORESIZE event.
• Added doxygen documentation for the SDL API headers.
• Unix Notes:
• Fixed potential memory corruption due to assembly bug with SDL_revcpy()
• Fixed crashes trying to detect SSE features on x86_64 architecture.
• Fixed assembly for GCC optimized 50% alpha blending blits.
• Added configure option --enable-screensaver, to allow enabling the screensaver by default.
• Use XResetScreenSaver() instead of disabling screensaver entirely.
• Removed the maximum window size limitation on X11.
• Fixed SDL_GL_SWAP_CONTROL on X11.
• Fixed setting the X11 window input hint.
• Fixed distorted X11 window icon for some visuals.
• Fixed detecting X11 libraries for dynamic loading on 64-bit Linux.
• SDL_GL_GetAttribute(SDL_GL_SWAP_CONTROL) returns the correct value with GLX_SGI_swap_control.
• Added SDL_VIDEO_FULLSCREEN_DISPLAY as a preferred synonym for SDL_VIDEO_FULLSCREEN_HEAD on X11.
• The SDL_VIDEO_FULLSCREEN_DISPLAY environment variable can be set to 0 to place fullscreen SDL windows on the first Xinerama screen.
• Added the SDL_VIDEO_FBCON_ROTATION environment variable to control output orientation on the framebuffer console. Valid values are: not set - Not rotating, no shadow; "NONE" - Not rotating, but still using shadow; "CW" - Rotating screen clockwise; "UD" - Rotating screen upside down; "CCW" - Rotating screen counter clockwise.
• Fixed DirectFB detection on some Linux distributions.
• Added code to use the PS3 SPE processors for YUV conversion on Linux.
• Updated ALSA support to the latest stable API
• ALSA is now preferred over OSS audio. (SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dsp will restore the previous behavior.)
• Improved support for PulseAudio
• The Network Audio System support is now dynamically loaded at runtime.
• Fixed crash with the MP-8866 Dual USB Joypad on newer Linux kernels.
• Fixed crash in SDL_Quit() when a joystick has been unplugged.