How To Set up Factor's UI on Linux
by Daniel Ehrenberg

On the ideal system, Factor's UI works all by itself after bootstrapping. To
get to the REPL, just run
    ./f factor.image -shell=ui
But on many Linux systems, that doesn't work properly the whole time. The
problem may be an underlying issue with Factor; to test that, try doing just
   ./f factor.image
and make sure a console REPL sucessfully appears. But it also may be that the
libraries needed to make the UI work aren't properly in place. You'll need four
libraries: libGL, libGLU, libfreetype, and libSDL. If you are missing any of these,
download them. But remember that on any linux system with X11, you should already
have these already. Once you've downloaded these, start
    ./f factor.image
and type in the following commands:
    "gl" load-library drop
    "glu" load-library drop
    "sdl" load-library drop
    "freetype" load-library drop
See which ones of these fail. Each one that failed is a library that isn't on
your computer or is in the wrong place. To fix this, you need to first double
check that you have the library, and then, if you do, get it in the right place.
The directory the libraries should be in varies by the system, but it's usually
/usr/lib or /usr/local/lib. Find one most libraries seem to be in on your system.
Next, you need to use the right name for the file. For your OpenGL library, the
name is libGL.so.1. For GLU, it's libGLU.so.1. For SDL, the name is libSDL.so.
For FreeType, the name is libfreetype.so.6. Make a symbolic link from the current
location of the misplaced library to this new location, under the proper name in
the proper folder. You can do this with the command
    ln -s oldlocation newlocation
The old file stays there and the new file mirrors the old one, reflecting all
future changes. Once this link is set up, rebootstrap and all should be well.
If things still do not work, don't hesitate to ask us at #concatenative on
freenode.net.