Building for Linux

Clone the repository

To clone the source code, execute the following commands:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum.git
cd cpp-ethereum

Installing dependencies

Linux has a horror-show of fragmentation when it comes to packaging systems.

We support a “one-button” bash script which attempts to make this minefield more navigable for users of common distros. It identifies your distro and installs the external packages which you will need, using whatever combination of package servers and build-from-source is required for your specific distro version. This is a non-trivial task, but by that token is also something which we don’t want anybody to have to replicate themselves.

./scripts/install_deps.sh

We use the same script within our Appveyor and TravisCI automated builds and automated runs, so it is continuously tested, which is especially important on macOS, where Homebrew is a constantly moving target.

The script is known to support the following distros and versions:

• Mac (OS X Mavericks, OS X Yosemite, OS X El Capitan, macOS Sierra)
• Arch Linux
• Alpine Linux (partial)
• Debian (Jesse and Stretch)
• Fedora (partial)
• Mint Linux (Qiana, Rebecca, Rafaela, Rosa, Sarah)
• Ubuntu (Trusty, Vivid, Utopic, Xenial, work-in-progress on Yakkety)

If you try it, and it doesn’t work for you, please report the problem with details of your distro, your version number and any other important details and we can work together to get it working for your use-case.

We have manual instructions for Fedora, openSUSE and Arch Linux (see below). If you using some other distro then please contact us and we’ll see if we can get you going.

• Installing dependencies for Fedora
  • Fedora 20
  • Fedora 21
  • Fedora 22
• Installing dependencies for openSUSE
• Installing dependencies for Arch Linux
  • Installing dependencies
  • Compiling the source code
  • Specifying Ethereum libraries path

Build on the command-line

When you have installed your dependencies you can build.

mkdir build                                              Make a directory for the build output
cd build                                                 Switch into that directory

cmake ..                                                 To generate a makefile.
make                                                     To build that makefile on the command-line
make -j<number>                                          (or) Execute makefile with multiple cores in parallel

32-bit Linux builds

We have cpp-ethereum building and running successfully on many 32-bit Linux distros, with the main constraint being the availability of external dependencies in 32-bit variants. Probably the most active demand here is for single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi family.

You will need to disable the JIT and the heavy-weight LLVM dependency which comes with that. EVMJIT only supports x86_64. Other than that, cpp-ethereum should “just work” on 32-bit platforms. To disable JIT, you will need to use the following command for the Makefile generation phase:

cmake .. -DEVMJIT=Off