Simple C/C++ Project Setup

This is a minimal cross-platform C++ project that currently uses GLFW and OpenGL, built with CMake.

A Makefile is included to make building and running the project consistent across Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Dependencies

• CMake ≥ 3.16
• A C++17 (or newer) compiler
  • GCC or Clang on Linux
  • Clang (via Xcode tools) on macOS
  • MSVC (Visual Studio) or MinGW on Windows
• Ninja (build tool)

Download

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/muntalee/sample-c-cpp-project

Install

• Ubuntu / Debian

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install build-essential cmake ninja-build libgl1-mesa-dev xorg-dev

• Fedora

  sudo dnf install gcc-c++ cmake ninja-build mesa-libGL-devel libX11-devel libXrandr-devel libXcursor-devel libXi-devel

• macOS

  brew install cmake ninja

  (OpenGL and Clang come with macOS.)

• Windows

  • Option 1: Visual Studio (MSVC toolchain)

    • Install Visual Studio Community (Choose Desktop development with C++ workload.)

    • Install Ninja or with Winget:

      winget install Ninja-build.Ninja

  • Option 2: Scoop + MinGW (GCC toolchain)

    • Install Scoop (a Windows package manager).

    • Then all other dependencies

      scoop install mingw
      scoop install ninja cmake

Build & Run

The Makefile comes bundled with preset commands you may use to compile your project.

make build     # creates build
make compile   # compiles the build
make run       # build and run
make clean     # cleans up build files / executable

Customization

• By default, the project builds an executable named game.

• To change this:

  1. Update the variable EXE = game in the Makefile.
  2. Change game in the project(game VERSION 1.0) line in CMakeLists.txt.

Adding more libraries

Option 1: Drop-in

• Place the library source under extern/

• In CMakeLists.txt:

  add_subdirectory(extern/mylib)
  target_link_libraries(${OUT} PRIVATE mylib)
  target_include_directories(${OUT} PRIVATE extern/mylib/include)

Option 2: Git Submodules

If the library is hosted on GitHub or elsewhere, you can add it as a submodule:

git submodule add https://github.com/some/library.git extern/library
git submodule update --init --recursive

Then link it in CMakeLists.txt:

add_subdirectory(extern/library)
target_link_libraries(${OUT} PRIVATE library)

When cloning this repo later, don’t forget to pull submodules too:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/your/repo.git

Or if you forgot:

git submodule update --init --recursive