Install OpenCV on Linux (Ubuntu)

Unlike OpenCV in windows, you don't need visual studio to execute your OpenCV programs in Linux.

Following are the steps to install OpenCV on Linux-Ubuntu. Copy and execute following code lines in Ubuntu terminal one by one. Remember, you need internet connection for this installation.

1. You require a g++ compiler for programming.
$ sudo apt-get install g++

2. OpenCV requires GTK+ 2.0 or higher version to display images.To install GTK+,
$ sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev

3. Go to Synaptic Package Manager (System> Administration> Synaptic Package Manager)

4. Search for “opencv” and install the main “opencv” package and the following lib files:
libcv
libcv-dev
libcvaux
libcvaux-dev
libhighgui
libhighgui-dev
opencv-doc
(‘python-opencv’ not required).
(you can also install opencv directly from the terminal by “sudo apt-get install” the above lib files

5. After installing all the packages, open a terminal & type this code:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/opencv/lib
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/home/opencv/lib/pkgconfig

The above ones are default paths for the opencv libraries.

6. To check the path where opencv & other lib files are stored, do:

$ pkg-config --cflags opencv
(output will come as)
-I/usr/include/opencv

$ pkg-config --libs opencv
(output will come as)
-lcxcore -lcv -lhighgui -lcvaux -lml

These paths are needed to compile your opencv programs.

In the next post, I will show you how to compile OpenCV programs in Ubuntu.