ladybird/Documentation/BuildInstructions.md

SerenityOS build instructions

Prerequisites

Linux prerequisites

Ensure your CMake version is >= 3.16 with cmake --version. If your system doesn't provide a suitable version of CMake, you can download a binary release from the CMake website.

Ensure your gcc version is >= 10 with gcc --version. Otherwise, install it.

On Ubuntu it's in the repositories of 20.04 (Focal) and later - add the ubuntu-toolchain-r/test PPA if you're running an older version:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test

On Debian you can use the Debian testing branch:

sudo echo "deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ testing non-free contrib main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt update

Now on Ubuntu or Debian you can install gcc-10 with apt like this:

sudo apt install gcc-10 g++-10
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-10 900 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-10

If you don't want to stay on the Debian testing branch you can switch back by running:

sudo sed -i '$d' /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt update

Make sure you have all the dependencies installed (ninja is optional, but is faster in practice):

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt install build-essential cmake curl libmpfr-dev libmpc-dev libgmp-dev e2fsprogs ninja-build qemu-system-i386 qemu-utils

Fedora

sudo dnf install curl cmake mpfr-devel libmpc-devel gmp-devel e2fsprogs ninja-build patch @"C Development Tools and Libraries" @Virtualization

openSUSE

sudo zypper install curl cmake mpfr-devel mpc-devel ninja gmp-devel e2fsprogs patch qemu-x86 qemu-audio-pa gcc gcc-c++ patterns-devel-C-C++-devel_C_C++

Arch Linux / Manjaro

sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel cmake curl mpfr libmpc gmp e2fsprogs ninja qemu qemu-arch-extra

ALT Linux

apt-get install curl cmake libmpc-devel gmp-devel e2fsprogs libmpfr-devel ninja-build patch gcc

NixOS

You can use a nix-shell script like the following to set up the correct environment:

myshell.nix:

with import <nixpkgs> {};

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "cpp-env";
  nativeBuildInputs = [
    gcc10
    curl
    cmake
    mpfr
    ninja
    gmp
    libmpc
    e2fsprogs
    patch

    # Example Build-time Additional Dependencies
    pkgconfig
  ];
  buildInputs = [
    # Example Run-time Additional Dependencies
    openssl
    x11
    # glibc
  ];
  hardeningDisable = [ "format" "fortify" ];
}

Then use this script: nix-shell myshell.nix.

Once you're in nix-shell, you should be able to follow the build directions.

macOS prerequisites

Make sure you have all the dependencies installed:

brew install coreutils qemu e2fsprogs m4 autoconf libtool automake bash gcc@10 ninja
brew install --cask osxfuse
Toolchain/BuildFuseExt2.sh

Notes:

• fuse-ext2 is not available as brew formula so it must be installed using BuildFuseExt2.sh
• Xcode and xcode-tools must be installed (git is required by some scripts)
• coreutils is needed to build gcc cross compiler
• qemu is needed to run the compiled OS image. You can also build it using the BuildQemu.sh script
• osxfuse, e2fsprogs, m4, autoconf, automake, libtool and BuildFuseExt2.sh are needed if you want to build the root filesystem disk image natively on macOS. This allows mounting an EXT2 fs and also installs commands like mke2fs that are not available on stock macOS.
• Installing osxfuse for the first time requires enabling its system extension in System Preferences and then restarting your machine. The output from installing osxfuse with brew says this, but it's easy to miss.
• bash is needed because the default version installed on macOS doesn't support globstar
• If you install some commercial EXT2 macOS fs handler instead of osxfuse and fuse-ext2, you will need to brew install e2fsprogs to obtain mke2fs anyway.
• As of 2020-08-06, you might need to tell the build system about your newer host compiler. Once you've built the toolchain, navigate to Build/i686/, rm -rf *, then run cmake ../.. -G Ninja -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=gcc-10 -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=g++-10, then continue with ninja install as usual.
• If you are on macOS Big Sur, you will need to manually enable QEMU's acceleration before running Serenity, by creating a new file called entitlements.xml in the Build/ folder, with the content below, and then run the command: codesign -s - --entitlements entitlements.xml --force /usr/local/bin/qemu-system-x86_64; otherwise the run command will fail.

Content for 'entitlements.xml'.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
	"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>com.apple.security.hypervisor</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

OpenBSD prerequisites

$ doas pkg_add bash cmake g++ gcc git gmake gmp ninja

To use ninja image and ninja run, you'll need Qemu and other utilities:

$ doas pkg_add coreutils qemu sudo

FreeBSD prerequisites

$ pkg add bash coreutils git gmake ninja sudo

Windows prerequisites

For Windows, you will require Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2). Follow the WSL2 instructions here. Do note the Hardware acceleration and Note on filesystems sections, otherwise performance will be terrible. Once you have installed a distro for WSL2, follow the Linux prerequisites above for the distro you installed, then continue as normal.

You may also want to install ninja

Build

Go into the Toolchain/ directory and run the BuildIt.sh script:

$ cd Toolchain
$ ./BuildIt.sh

Building the toolchain will also automatically create a Build/i686/ directory for the build to live in.

Once the toolchain has been built, go into the Build/i686/ directory and run the commands. Note that while ninja seems to be faster, you can also just use GNU make, by omitting -G Ninja and calling make instead of ninja:

$ cd ../Build/i686
$ cmake ../.. -G Ninja
$ ninja install

This will compile all of SerenityOS and install the built files into Root/ inside the build tree. ninja will automatically build as many jobs in parallel as it detects processors; make builds only one job in parallel. (Use the -j option with an argument if you want to change this.)

Now to build a disk image, run ninja image, and take it for a spin by using ninja run.

$ ninja image
$ ninja run

Note that the anon user is able to become root without password by default, as a development convenience. To prevent this, remove anon from the wheel group and he will no longer be able to run /bin/su.

On Linux, QEMU is significantly faster if it's able to use KVM. The run script will automatically enable KVM if /dev/kvm exists and is readable+writable by the current user.

Bare curious users may even consider sourcing suitable hardware to install Serenity on a physical PC.

Outside of QEMU, Serenity will run on VirtualBox and VMware. If you're curious, see how to install Serenity on VirtualBox or install Serenity on VMware.

Later on, when you git pull to get the latest changes, there's (usually) no need to rebuild the toolchain. You can simply run ninja install, ninja image, and ninja run again. CMake will only rebuild those parts that have been updated.

Ports

To add a package from the ports collection to Serenity, for example curl, go into Ports/curl/ and run ./package.sh. The sourcecode for the package will be downloaded and the package will be built. After that, rebuild the disk image. The next time you start Serenity, curl will be available.

Customize disk image

To add, modify or remove files of the disk image's file system, e.g. to change the default keyboard layout, you can create a file with the exact name sync-local.sh in the project root (the same directory as .clang-format), with content like this:

#!/bin/sh

set -e

cat << 'EOF' >> mnt/etc/SystemServer.ini

[keymap]
Executable=/bin/keymap
Arguments=de
User=anon
EOF

This will configure your keymap to German (de) instead of US English. See Base/res/keymaps/ for a full list.