Testcard Error: (SDL_Init) No available video device

[Hunter White]

Whenever I try to run one of the test programs this error pops up, I've tried to uninstall and reinstall but nothing has worked. Do you have any idea of what the problem could be? Thanks!

[Tom Black]

Hmm, this may be a result of how SDL was configured. Did you let the simple2d.sh script install SDL? If you installed SDL using apt on the Pi, it won't work (see more here: https://github.com/simple2d/simple2d/blob/master/README.md#a-note-on-linuxarm-platforms). You could try uninstalling/reinstalling SDL using "simple2d uninstall --sdl" then "simple2d install --sdl"

[Hunter White]

I did that and I still have the same message, I also get the error (TTF_OpenFont) Library not initialized and the error Segmentation Fault if I don't execute the program with sudo

[Tom Black]

Hi Hunter,

I was able to reproduce this on my RPI 2 with the latest Raspbian image applied (April 2017). Something must've changed in the image, because the SDL configuration process is no longer picking up the GLES libraries, hence the "no available video device" error (TTF_OpenFont requires video, so it's just a downstream error). I was able to fix this by adding the --host=arm-raspberry-linux-gnueabihf flag to the configure command, which is what the RPI build bot script uses. I'll have to make some changes to the Simple 2D install script and push a new version, but in the meantime, you can download, compile, and install SDL with the new config by running the following. Good luck!

wget -N https://www.libsdl.org/release/SDL2-2.0.5.tar.gz

tar -xzf SDL2-2.0.5.tar.gz

cd SDL2-2.0.5

./configure --host=arm-raspberry-linux-gnueabihf --disable-video-opengl --disable-video-x11 --disable-video-mir --disable-video-wayland --disable-pulseaudio --disable-esd

sudo make uninstall

make

sudo make install

[Hunter White]

It is working now, thanks!

[Tom Black]

Awesome! I'll continue then with a permanent fix.

Thanks,
Tom