Setup

You need three things:

1. hcc, the HolyC compiler from Jamesbarford/holyc-lang. It uses the system C compiler to assemble and link, so you need gcc or clang too.
2. SDL2, the shared library.
3. An OpenGL 3.3 core driver. Any GPU from the last decade, Mesa included.

The configuration the project is developed and tested on:

Component	Version
OS	Arch Linux x86_64, KDE Plasma (Wayland)
hcc	v0.0.15-beta, commit 06ca611 (2026-09-06)
SDL2	2.32 (sdl2-compat)
GPU / driver	Intel RPL-S, Mesa 26.2, GL 4.6 core
C toolchain	gcc 16.2

The macOS and Windows steps below follow the hcc and SDL2 documentation but have not been run for this project yet. Reports are welcome.

1. Install build tools

LinuxmacOSWindows (WSL2)

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install build-essential cmake git
# Fedora
sudo dnf install gcc make cmake git
# Arch
sudo pacman -S base-devel cmake git

xcode-select --install
brew install cmake

In an administrator PowerShell:

wsl --install -d Ubuntu

Reboot, open the Ubuntu shell, and run everything after this point inside it:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake git

2. Build and install hcc

Linux / WSL2macOS

git clone https://github.com/Jamesbarford/holyc-lang.git
cd holyc-lang
make
sudo make install
make unit-test

git clone https://github.com/Jamesbarford/holyc-lang.git
cd holyc-lang
make
make install      # add sudo if /usr/local is not writable
make unit-test

On Apple Silicon hcc emits native AArch64 code.

Installing without root

The install prefix is compiled into hcc, so it has to be passed at build time as well as install time:

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin ~/.local/lib ~/.local/include
make INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/.local
make install

~/.local/lib must exist before make install, or copying libtos fails. Make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH.

If cmake isn't available from your package manager, uv tool install cmake or pipx install cmake installs a working copy to ~/.local/bin.

Check it works

hcc --version
printf 'U0 Main()\n{\n  "hello from hcc\\n";\n}\n' > hello.HC
hcc hello.HC -o hello && ./hello

3. Install SDL2

Linux / WSL2macOS

Distro	Command
Debian / Ubuntu / WSL2	sudo apt install libsdl2-dev
Fedora	sudo dnf install SDL2-devel
Arch	sudo pacman -S sdl2 (or sdl2-compat)

brew install sdl2

The game reads no C headers. Its SDL2 and OpenGL declarations are written in HolyC. The -dev packages are still the easiest way to get the unversioned libSDL2.so that the linker looks for.

OpenGL comes with the system: libGL from Mesa or your GPU vendor on Linux, OpenGL.framework on macOS.

4. Check OpenGL (WSL2 and Linux)

sudo apt install mesa-utils        # or your distro's equivalent
glxinfo -B | grep "OpenGL core profile version"

You need 3.3 or higher. On WSL2 this goes through Mesa's D3D12 driver; current Windows builds report 4.x.

Next: Build and test.