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Bug 966

Summary: SDL video problem
Product: SDL Reporter: Edward <ed_22000>
Component: videoAssignee: Ryan C. Gordon <icculus>
Status: RESOLVED INVALID QA Contact: Sam Lantinga <slouken>
Severity: normal    
Priority: P2    
Version: HG 2.0   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   

Description Edward 2010-03-04 09:16:57 UTC
whenever i try to open an application that uses SDL it gives me this error...

init: sdl
Unable to initialize SDL: No available video device

i dont know what it means, but please email me at ed_22000@hotmail.com
Comment 1 Sam Lantinga 2010-07-18 01:28:19 UTC
From the FAQ:
http://wiki.libsdl.org/moin.cgi/FAQLinux#I_get_the_error:_.22no_video_devices_available.22

I get the error: "no video devices available"

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.