Open Computer Vision Library or just OpenCV, is a cross-platform computer vision library focused on real-time image processing for video files or webcams.

You have two options to obtain the environment to develop on OpenCV. You can insert a new repository in your package manager or compile it by yourself.

For Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala there’s this repository with OpenCV’s package.

To compile it you have to install some additional libraries compile it by your self. And it’s instructions vary for each distribution and version. For example, from Ubuntu Linux 9.10 to 9.04, the process varies slightly. I followed the instructions on this post “Installing OpenCV 2.0 on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala”.

After you have installed and have a well configured OpenCV development environment, you can compile a “source.c” file into a “program” binary like this:

gcc gcc source.c -o program `pkg-config opencv ‑‑libs ‑‑cflags`