hi everybody,
I am experiencing some trouble installing Allegro on my working cygwin environment. I work with NetBeans IDE and my OS is Windows 7 32 bit. I can add that both hardware and OS are ok for Allegro since years ago I used to write Allegro games on this same machine using Allegro 4 and DevCpp/MinGW. That environment is gone when I re-installed my OS, but since then it worked perfectly.

In order to install Allegro 5 I followed the readme instructions but without result. I downloaded and unpacked the Allegro 5 zip file (allegro-5.0.10.zip) in c:\cygwin\lib\allegro and then opened the cygwin console and do:

cd /lib/allegro
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..

at firs, it seems that my cygwin is missing the X11 dev library:

X11 not found. You may need to install X11 development libraries.

so I opened the cygwin setup and installed the package:

libX11-devel

and then issued again:

cmake ..

I noticed that cmake suggest to add this line at the beginning of CmakeLists.txt:

set(CMAKE_LEGACY_CYGWIN_WIN32 0) # Remove when CMake >= 2.8.4 is required

and so I've done; after this, tried again:

X11 support currently requires OpenGL support.

GAAAAA!!! re-open the cygwin setup and install: libglut-devel libGL-devel (the setup as usual handles the dependencies by himself). Wow, again:

cmake ..

and:

X11 support requires Xcursor library.

always by the cygwin setup now install: libXcursor-devel and xcursorgen
and try to cmake again. This is the result:

X11 support requires Xcursor library.

wow guys now I really don't know what to do... any help will be greatly appreciated!

wow I feel a noob I forgot that. Thank you very much Edgar!!!
Well, now I have done (still in the build directory):

rm -rf *
cmake ..

and I got:

-- Allowing GCC to use SSE instructions
CMake Error: The following variables are used in this project, but they are set to NOTFOUND.
Please set them or make sure they are set and tested correctly in the CMake files:
OPENGL_glu_LIBRARY (ADVANCED)
linked by target "allegro" in directory /home/nick/Desktop/allegro-5.0.0

-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!

so I installed the package libGLU-devel and cmake again and... IT WORKS

cmake runs without errors. So I try to compile a test program in my IDE (NetBeans):

#include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <allegro5/allegro.h>

using namespace std;

int main(int argc, char** argv) {

ALLEGRO_DISPLAY *display = NULL;

if (!al_init()) {
fprintf(stderr, "failed to initialize allegro!\n");
return -1;
}

return 0;
}

but when I do the "clean & build" action, the console output is:

"/usr/bin/make" -f nbproject/Makefile-Debug.mk QMAKE= SUBPROJECTS= .clean-conf
make[1]: Entering directory '/cygdrive/c/Users/Fabio/Documents/NetBeansProjects/testCpp007'
rm -f -r build/Debug
rm -f dist/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows/testcpp007.exe
make[1]: Leaving directory '/cygdrive/c/Users/Fabio/Documents/NetBeansProjects/testCpp007'

CLEAN SUCCESSFUL (total time: 1s)

"/usr/bin/make" -f nbproject/Makefile-Debug.mk QMAKE= SUBPROJECTS= .build-conf
make[1]: Entering directory '/cygdrive/c/Users/Fabio/Documents/NetBeansProjects/testCpp007'
"/usr/bin/make" -f nbproject/Makefile-Debug.mk dist/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows/testcpp007.exe
make[2]: Entering directory '/cygdrive/c/Users/Fabio/Documents/NetBeansProjects/testCpp007'
mkdir -p build/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows
rm -f "build/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows/main.o.d"
g++ -c -g -I/cygdrive/C/cygwin/lib -MMD -MP -MF "build/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows/main.o.d" -o build/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows/main.o main.cpp
mkdir -p dist/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows
g++ -o dist/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows/testcpp007 build/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows/main.o -L/cygdrive/C/cygwin/lib
build/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows/main.o: In function `main':
/cygdrive/c/Users/Fabio/Documents/NetBeansProjects/testCpp007/main.cpp:22: undefined reference to `al_install_system'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
nbproject/Makefile-Debug.mk:62: recipe for target 'dist/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows/testcpp007.exe' failed
make[2]: *** [dist/Debug/Cygwin_4.x-Windows/testcpp007.exe] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/cygdrive/c/Users/Fabio/Documents/NetBeansProjects/testCpp007'
nbproject/Makefile-Debug.mk:59: recipe for target '.build-conf' failed
make[1]: *** [.build-conf] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/cygdrive/c/Users/Fabio/Documents/NetBeansProjects/testCpp007'
nbproject/Makefile-impl.mk:39: recipe for target '.build-impl' failed
make: *** [.build-impl] Error 2

BUILD FAILED (exit value 2, total time: 5s)

maybe it's a linking problem?

thank you again

uhm in NetBeans I can specify additional paths for the linker from:
project -> properties -> build -> linker -> additional library directories

and there I added "C:/cygwin/lib" (that contains the allegro5/ folder); I also added the same directory in this option fields:
project -> properties -> build -> c compiler -> include directories and headers
project -> properties -> build -> c++ compiler -> include directories and headers

in case, I can also specify static library (*.a) files to be linked from:
project -> properties -> build -> linker -> libraries

but I can't find any *.a file in the build directory (or subdirectories).

with the same method I usually include and link the mysql client library that I use for db connection, and that works perfectly.

I feel a noob again I am sure that the solution is really easy but I can't see it.

so, this may be the problem... I can't find anywhere the *.a files; it is possible that the cmake command did not generate them?

should I try to run cmake again? or can I download the *.a files?

great, thank you
now that you say so, I understand that the presence of a Makefile in c:\cygwin\lib\allegro\build\ would have suggested this thing to me, if just I were not so noob in these days I behold to your patience, Edgar

I issued make && make install and it worked!!!

after the command is done, I added in:
project -> properties -> build -> linker -> libraries

the libraries I need (in the example above, only liballegro.dll.a) and the clean & build from the IDE was successful!

thanks to you, your help was really great

I hope the Allegro community will have my new game soon I also hope this thread will help anyone is having such problems with Allegro on cygwin for Windows 7 OS, and using NetBeans as IDE.

have a nice day and many thanks again!!!