From: Michael Lamparski (lampam_at_rpi.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 03 2015 - 15:48:15 CDT

I'm trying to compile vmd on Ubuntu and am uncertain with regards to how to
populate the lib/ directory which the vmd Makefile searches for all of its
dependencies.

Beginning with a freshly unpacked source tar (containing plugins/ and
vmd-1.9.2/), I do the following:

  cd plugins
  export TCLINC=-I/usr/include/tcl8.5
  export TCLLIB=-L/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
  make LINUXAMD64

  export PLUGINDIR=`pwd`/../vmd-1.9.2/plugins
  make distrib

  cd ../vmd-1.9.2
  ./configure LINUXAMD64 OPENGL OPENGLPBUFFER FLTK TK COLVARS IMD SILENT
XINPUT TCL PTHREADS LIBTACHYON NETCDF PYTHON NUMPY XINERAMA
(note: this is "make linux.amd64.opengl" without ICC, VRPN, LIBSBALL, ACTC,
or CUDA)

  cd src
  make

(A bunch of files compile successfully... but then:)
Compiling colvarproxy_vmd.C --> colvarproxy_vmd.o ...
colvarproxy_vmd.C:3:17: fatal error: tcl.h: No such file or directory
 #include <tcl.h>

Looking at the Makefile, the cause of the error is clear: The makefile
expects to find the tcl headers in "../lib/tcl/include". Now, I *could* fix
this with a symlink or two... however, I also see that no "tcl" folder
exists in "vmd-1.9.2/lib", which suggests to me that these dependencies are
meant to be gathered by some automated process (otherwise, the only way to
know where the files belong is to look at the makefile!).

So... am I missing a step?

Thanks