Set up development environment for Krita / Linux build commands

Smriti Pillai
Aug 31, 2018 · 2 min read

This blog is written such that people can get the initial necessary help to build an environment for Krita. If you follow the given instructions without any unwanted changes then the probability to get your work done will be maximum. As I kind of struggled little to build it, I hope this might make other people’s job easier.

Its specifically for Ubuntu/ Debian dependencies. You can put a back slash (\)between the following packages like ‘ sudo apt install package1\package2..’.

So first thing we need to do is open up the terminal and type the following commands. These are the different packages you need to run on your terminal to build the environment for Krita. Those are:

sudo apt install extra-cmake-modules 
libkf5archive-dev \
libkf5completion-dev \
libkf5config-dev \
libkf5coreaddons-dev \
libkf5guiaddons-dev \
libkf5i18n-dev \
libkf5itemmodels-dev \
libkf5itemviews-dev \
libkf5widgetsaddons-dev \
libkf5windowsystem-dev \
libkf5kiocore5 \
libkf5crash-dev \
libkf5kio-dev \
qtbase5-dev \
libqt5svg5-dev \
libqt5multimedia5 \
qtdeclarative5-dev \
libqt5x11extras5-dev \
libqt5opengl5-dev \
libeigen3-dev \
libxi-dev \
libboost-all-dev \
libopenexr-dev \
vc-dev \
libexiv2-dev \
libgsl-dev \
liblcms2-dev \
libpoppler-qt5-dev \
shared-mime-info \
libraw-dev \
libfftw3-dev \
libpng-dev \
libopencolorio-dev

All these packages you haven’t installed them in any particular folder but to clone to Krita repository you’ll have to make folders by typing the below mentioned command.

cd ~/kf5/src   (create kf5 folder which has src folder using mkdir command where your going to clone to Krita)
git clone git://anongit.kde.org/krita

Next coming to the CMake commands. It has two modes: for painters and for developers.

Developers — Head to the developer’s section to see how to get started building and fixing bugs. You can help make Krita a more stable program by reporting bugs.

Non-Developers or Painters— We are always in need of translators, artists, testers, writers, and anything else you can think of.

So depending on what your interests you can choose any one.

For painters:

cd ~/kf5/build/krita
cmake ~/kf5/src/krita \ #your source directory
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/kf5/inst \ #your installation directory
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo \
-DBUILD_TESTING=FALSE \
-DHIDE_SAFE_ASSERTS=TRUE
make -j8 install

For developers:

cd ~/kf5/build/krita
cmake ~/kf5/src/krita \ #your source directory
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/kf5/inst \ #your installation directory
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo \
-DBUILD_TESTING=TRUE \
-DHIDE_SAFE_ASSERTS=FALSE
make -j8 install

That’s all about the build packages.

Communication :

If you have any questions, the three main communication channels are IRC, the mailing list, or the Krita forum. When using IRC, be prepared to wait for an answer. Even though IRC is a more real-time mode of communication than mailing lists, there may not be anyone available to answer your question immediately. So be patient enough :)

Hope this blog will provide the help. Have a good day :)

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