Could not initialize SDL: No available video device

**greenkernel** · October 11th, 2008

When I am trying to play Battle for Wesnoth, the following error comes up:

Battle for Wesnoth v1.4
Started on Sat Oct 11 08:18:32 2008

20081011 08:18:32 error display: Could not initialize SDL: No available video device
Could not initialize video. Exiting.

I have already installed the following dependencies for Wesnoth too.

libbo0st-iostreams1.34.1
libc6
libfreetype6
libfribidi0
libgcc1
libsdl-image1.2
libsdl-mixer1.2
libsdl-net1.2
libsdl1.2debian
libstdc++6
libx11-6
python2.5
wesnoth-data
zlib1g

I'm using NVIDIA GeForce 6200 TurboCache (PCI-E), the restricted driver for NVIDIA is already installed too, Linux kernel 2.6.24-19-generic and GNOME 2.22.3.

When I check with the SDL's FAQ page (http://www.libsdl.org/faq.php?action...&category=3#25), I see the following solution.

SDL doesn't use the X11 video driver if it can't open the X display, and if no other drivers are available, it will report this error.
To fix this, set your display environment variable appropriately:
sh: DISPLAY=:0 ; export DISPLAY
csh: setenv DISPLAY :0
If you still have problems, try running xhost + localhost
Finally, if all those didn't work, and you built SDL from source, make sure that you have the X11 development libraries installed, otherwise you'll get a version of SDL that doesn't include X11 display support. After you install the X development libraries, you need to "make clean" and then rerun the configure and build process.

I'm using BASH, so I try to type DISPLAY=:0 ; export DISPLAY in my terminal emulator. But, nothing happened. I've no idea about "try running xhost + localhost", so I ignored it. Finally I'm quite confused about SDL and X11. I've already installed libsdl1.2deban-all library in my system too. The description of that library is "This version of SDL is compiled with X11, aalib, and ggi graphics drivers and oss, esound, alsa, arts, nas and pulseaudio sound drivers". So, I assumed that X11 is already there. But, the problem still exists.

Could anyone help me solve the problem, please? Thanks.

Regards,

greenkernel

**molgren** · October 29th, 2008

I had the same problem when installing other packages, namely RUDL, SDL_mixer, and log4r. I reinstalled the latest SDL packages and the problem was fixed. Visit the following link, download the tarball sourcecode, ./configure then make then sudo make install

Hopefully you will be all set after that. Let me know how it turns out!

**imblack** · August 31st, 2009

My friend the easiest solution is to do following:

sudo apt-get remove libsdl1.2debain-all
sudo apt-ge install libsdl1.2debain-dev

Then go to SDL's official site, download the latest libsdl-dev tar and configure and compile and install.

Thats it

**Akuma_s** · November 21st, 2009

Originally Posted by molgren

I had the same problem when installing other packages, namely RUDL, SDL_mixer, and log4r. I reinstalled the latest SDL packages and the problem was fixed. Visit the following link, download the tarball sourcecode, ./configure then make then sudo make install

Hopefully you will be all set after that. Let me know how it turns out!

Originally Posted by imblack

My friend the easiest solution is to do following:

sudo apt-get remove libsdl1.2debain-all
sudo apt-ge install libsdl1.2debain-dev

Then go to SDL's official site, download the latest libsdl-dev tar and configure and compile and install.

Thats it

It worked like a charm!!
All the 3D games now work soo smooth

Thanks all...

**rajke88** · July 28th, 2012

My friend the easiest solution is to do following:

sudo apt-get remove libsdl1.2debain-all
sudo apt-ge install libsdl1.2debain-dev

Then go to SDL's official site, download the latest libsdl-dev tar and configure and compile and install.

Thats it

I just want to confirm that this method works on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS X64! you saved me a system reinstall trouble. Just library names have changed on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, people should just pay attention now on library names that are not the same.. On Ubuntu 12.04 they should use this commands

Code:

sudo apt-get remove libsdl1.2debian

Code:

sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev

and then to download latest sdl from here http://www.libsdl.org/, at this point of time it is sdl 1.2 so download it from here http://www.libsdl.org/download-1.2.php. Extract it to Desktop using archeve manager.

CD to that folder from terminal. To do that open terminal. and type:

Code:

cd  /home/yourusername/Desktop/SDL-1.2.15

and then compile it

Code:

./configure

wait it to finish configuring type following code hit enter

Code:

make

wait it finish compiling, type following code and hit enter

Code:

make install

Thats it your games will work

this is tut for total nooobs i had spare time so i wanted to help others too. Hope it was helpful. Thanks imblack for posting his solution it was very helpful.