Prerequisites

A Compiler

You will need to have a compiler supported by wxWidgets. On Unix, you will most likely have a version of gcc installed. On Windows you should have MS Visual C++ or Borland C++, for example.

• gcc - Free open source compiler from GNU. Closest to standard C++. Good for porting as a version is available on virtually all platforms. MinGW is the best supported gcc derivative on windows.
• Borland C++ - Free compiler from Borland, fastest of all the compilers featured.
• Microsoft Visual C++ - Nice IDE, produces fast and small executables. The Express version is free.
• OpenWatcom - Free open source compiler based on the old Watcom Compilers which were open sourced.
• Digital Mars C++ - freely available, fast compilation.

The Library Itself

Using the wxWidgets Source Package

You will need to get the wxWidgets source package from the download page. Choose the one for your platform. If you're going to use wxWidgets on Linux, you'll most likely want to get the wxGTK version. Before you can compile a program using wxWidgets, you will need to compile the library itself, see Guides & Tutorials. To decide which version of the library to choose, please read Versions.

Using wxWidgets Binary Packages

These save you the trouble of compiling wxWidgets yourself. The packages are very nice if you're starting to use wxWidgets, but when you grow more experienced in wxWidgets you will want to compile them yourself.

A package (devpak) is available for Bloodshed Dev-Cpp. It is for the MinGW 3.2 version of Dev-Cpp (version 4.9.8.0 and above and some 4.9.7.0). Do not download the one via vUpdate, it is for the old wxWidgets 2.2.9 - get it here instead. Remember to install the imagelib package first (you can get it from vUpdate).

Several Linux distributions (Debian, among others) include binary packages for wxWidgets.

Relevant packages:

Debian

These are probably the packages you want (though maybe not the '-python' one) :

• libwxgtk2.3 - the library. Needed to run applications which use the library.
• libwxgtk2.3-contrib - the contrib libs (mmedia, ogl, stc).
• libwxgtk2.3-dev - the development headers. Needed when you want to compile a program which uses wxWidgets.
• libwxgtk2.3-contrib-dev - contrib development headers.
• libwxgtk2.3-python - python bindings. Needed when you want to use wxWidgets with python instead of C++.

Remember you need the '-dev'-packages if you want to compile programs with wxWidgets. These packages contain, for example, wx-config.