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Building KiCad 5.1.0 From Source – on Ubuntu 18.04

I encountered quite a few issues compiling KiCad 5.1.0 from source that took me a few hours to debug (some spent napping while things compiled). The whole thing is in the end < 20 lines of bash commands, though compilation took me 2-3 hours.

Here’s a tried-and-true method to get it to install (I tested on a VM). You should probably go straight to “install kicad” section.

From the beginning: Virtualbox

To make sure these instructions worked for 18.04.2, I tested on a clean install inside VirtualBox. Here I write down instructions, since some steps were confusing to me when I used Virtualbox for the first time.

  1. Install virtualbox
    1. I forget which of these I used… either download and double-click the *.deb, from the links at the very top of the page
    2. Or follow the instructions add the PPA and install https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads
  2. Download ubuntu 18.04.2 ISO from https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
  3. Create new VM
    1. Machine > New…
    2. Go though — I used 2048 GB memory and 40 GB virtual (expandable) hard disk
  4. Install Ubuntu into the VM
    1.  Machine > Settings > Storage > Controller: IDE
      1. Click the “+” sign over the CD rom
      2. Choose Disk > Add > (then select your .iso file)
    2. Now click okay. We’re back to the main window — click the big green “Start” arrow.
    3. The VM starts up, and the standard “Install Ubuntu” screen should pop up once booted. Install Ubuntu as normal
      1. Make sure to click “Also install proprietary media” as otherwise “Virtualbox Guest Additions ISO” will later not run
  5. We probably want to copy-paste in commands. Thus, install Guest Additions. This already comes built-in to virtualbox, no need to download anything else
    1. Devices > Insert Guest Additions Add-on Image…
    2. Click “run” when pop-up prompts
      1. If nothing happens, try running from commandline 
        cd ~/VBox_GAs_6.0.6
./autorun.sh install 
# This should pop up a second terminal, which asks "Do you wish to continue" > "Yes"
      2. If not, it’ll probably complain about gcc not being installed; run sudo apt install build-essential
    3. Restart sudo shutdown -r now
    4. Now enable clipboard
      1. Devices > Clipboard > Bidirectional
      2. Also, View > Auto-Resize Display should now work, but I turn it off because if you accidentally resize the window your VM could freeze alarmingly

Install KiCad

First let’s install dependencies

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:js-reynaud/kicad-dev-nightly 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get build-dep kicad

This last command will spit out an error — E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list — so go to “Software and Updates” and check the “Source Code” on the first tab.  Then again run build-dep, as well as install the other dependencies.

$ sudo apt-get build-dep kicad
$ sudo apt install libglm-dev $ LibGLM
$ sudo apt install liboce-foundation-dev liboce-modeling-dev liboce-ocaf-dev liboce-visualization-dev # OCE files 
$ sudo apt-get install libboost-all-dev #Boost

Install Ngspice from source

This was a pain to figure out, since it would compile for 10 minutes before failing. Basically, can’t skip independently installing the dependencies, even with the build-dep step above. Fortunately easy to install dependencies.

$ sudo apt-get install  autoconf automake bison flex gcc git libtool make  # otherwise get 'yacc' errors
$ cd ~/kicad/scripting/build_tools

$ sudo ./get_libngspice_so.sh 
*** ngspice shared library has been built successfully! 
***Now, to finish the installation run the script as root with 'install' parameter
$ sudo ./get_libngspice_so.sh install
*** Installation completed successfully! *

Note: Why not apt install?  If you just run sudo apt-get install ngspice, later during cmake it will complain about

In file included from /home/lir/kicad/eeschema/sim/ngspice.cpp:28:0:
/home/lir/kicad/eeschema/sim/ngspice.h:31:10: fatal error: ngspice/sharedspice.h: No such file or directory

Probably, there’s some symlink solution, but I’ve spent way too long on this already.

Then, install KiCad itself.

We follow http://docs.kicad-pcb.org/doxygen/md_Documentation_development_compiling.html

git clone -b master https://git.launchpad.net/kicad
cd <your kicad source mirror>
mkdir -p build/release
cd build/release

However, there are some issues (specific to 16.04+ I think) with  wxWidgets and wxPython you really don’t want to. Thus we change the cmake line to add options to ignore scripting and things that require wxWidgets / wxPython:

$ cmake -j2 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DKICAD_SCRIPTING=OFF -DKICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=OFF -DKICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=OFF ../../ 
$ make 
$ sudo make install

Now you should be able to run kicad from the commandline

$ kicad

Pops up a GUI kicad window!

Appendix

make clean

If something isn’t working that you think should, try clearing old files generated by make: 

$ make clean # clear files
$ make # then try again

Note

Useful: You can see what other flags you can provide to cmake (using the -D flag), by peeking at kicad/build/release/CMakeCache.txt

lir@lir-VM:~/kicad/build/release $ vi CMakeCache.txt
[...]
 KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=OFF
[...]

Errors

These are some of the errors I ran into. If you see this, the solution to them is one of the lines above…

ngspice errors

CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake-3.10/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:137 (message):
Could NOT find ngspice (missing: NGSPICE_INCLUDE_DIR)
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/usr/share/cmake-3.10/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:378 (_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
CMakeModules/Findngspice.cmake:57 (find_package_handle_standard_args)
CMakeLists.txt:607 (find_package)

yacc -d -o parse-bison.c parse-bison.y
/bin/bash: yacc: command not found
Makefile:1052: recipe for target 'parse-bison.c' failed
make[3]: *** [parse-bison.c] Error 127
make[3]: Leaving directory '/tmp/libngspice_so/ngspice/src/frontend'
Makefile:773: recipe for target 'install-recursive' failed
make[2]: *** [install-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/tmp/libngspice_so/ngspice/src/frontend'
Makefile:1359: recipe for target 'install-recursive' failed
make[1]: *** [install-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/tmp/libngspice_so/ngspice/src'
Makefile:434: recipe for target 'install-recursive' failed
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1

 

A whole host of wx errors, solved by not using wx ^___^

-- KiCad install dir: </usr/local>
-- Check for installed GLEW -- found
-- Boost version: 1.65.1
-- Found the following Boost libraries:
-- regex
-- Check for installed Python Interpreter -- found
-- Python module install path: lib/python2.7/dist-packages
-- Found wxPython 3.0.2.0/gtk3 (wxWidgets 3.0.2.0)
CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:780 (message):
Cannot find wxPython.h
    *** Could not run GTK+ test program, checking why...
    *** The test program failed to compile or link. See the file config.log for the
    *** exact error that occured. This usually means GTK+ is incorrectly installed.
    configure: error:
    The development files for GTK+ were not found. For GTK+ 2, please
    ensure that pkg-config is in the path and that gtk+-2.0.pc is
    installed. For GTK+ 1.2 please check that gtk-config is in the path,
    and that the version is 1.2.3 or above. Also check that the
    libraries returned by 'pkg-config gtk+-2.0 --libs' or 'gtk-config
    --libs' are in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH or equivalent.

    Error running configure
    ERROR: failed building wxWidgets
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "build.py", line 1325, in cmd_build_wx
        wxbuild.main(wxDir(), build_options)
      File "/tmp/pip-build-v_pIAS/wxpython/buildtools/build_wxwidgets.py", line 373, in main
        "Error running configure")
      File "/tmp/pip-build-v_pIAS/wxpython/buildtools/build_wxwidgets.py", line 85, in exitIfError
        raise builder.BuildError(msg)
    BuildError
    Finished command: build_wx (4.755s)
    Finished command: build (4.755s)
    Command '"/usr/bin/python" -u build.py build' failed with exit code 1.

[ 78%] Building CXX object pcbnew/CMakeFiles/pcbnew_kiface_objects.dir/swig/pcbnew_scripting_helpers.cpp.o
[ 78%] Building CXX object pcbnew/CMakeFiles/pcbnew_kiface_objects.dir/swig/python_scripting.cpp.o
[ 79%] Built target pcbnew_kiface_objects
Makefile:162: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

wx_python_helpers.cpp:(.text+0x3a1): undefined reference to `PyErr_Occurred'
wx_python_helpers.cpp:(.text+0x5b3): undefined reference to `PyUnicodeUCS4_AsWideChar'
../../pcbnew/CMakeFiles/pcbnew_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/swig/wx_python_helpers.cpp.o: In function `Py2wxString(_object*)':

wx_python_helpers.cpp:(.text+0x929): undefined reference to `PyErr_Clear'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
qa/pcbnew/CMakeFiles/qa_pcbnew.dir/build.make:929: recipe for target 'qa/pcbnew/qa_pcbnew' failed
make[2]: *** [qa/pcbnew/qa_pcbnew] Error 1
CMakeFiles/Makefile2:3908: recipe for target 'qa/pcbnew/CMakeFiles/qa_pcbnew.dir/all' failed
make[1]: *** [qa/pcbnew/CMakeFiles/qa_pcbnew.dir/all] Error 2
home/lir/kicad/eeschema/dialogs/dialog_spice_model.cpp: In member function ‘bool DIALOG_SPICE_MODEL::addPwlValue(const wxString&, const wxString&)’:
/home/lir/kicad/eeschema/dialogs/dialog_spice_model.cpp:809:70: warning: dereferencing type-punned pointer will break strict-aliasing rules [-Wstrict-aliasing]
     m_pwlValList->SetItemData( idx, *reinterpret_cast<long*>( &timeF ) );
                                                                      ^
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/widgets/tuner_slider.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/widgets/tuner_slider_base.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/dialogs/dialog_page_settings.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/base_screen.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/base_units.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/eda_text.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/page_info.cpp.o
[ 41%] Built target eeschema_kiface_objects
Makefile:162: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

[ 34%] Built target idfcyl
[ 35%] Built target idfrect
[ 36%] Built target dxf2idf
In file included from /home/lir/kicad/eeschema/sim/ngspice.cpp:28:0:
/home/lir/kicad/eeschema/sim/ngspice.h:31:10: fatal error: ngspice/sharedspice.h: No such file or directory
 #include <ngspice/sharedspice.h>
          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/build.make:4709: recipe for target 'eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/sim/ngspice.cpp.o' failed
make[2]: *** [eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/sim/ngspice.cpp.o] Error 1
CMakeFiles/Makefile2:1087: recipe for target 'eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/all' failed
make[1]: *** [eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/all] Error 2
make[1]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
[ 37%] Built target kicad2step_lib
Makefile:162: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

Thanks

I figured most of this out from two forum posts:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1804771

https://forum.kicad.info/t/wxpython-3-1-error-building-kicad-from-source-ubuntu-18-04/11431

$ make clean # clear files
$ make # then try again

Note

Useful: You can see what other flags you can provide to cmake (using the -D flag), by peeking at kicad/build/release/CMakeCache.txt

lir@lir-VM:~/kicad/build/release $ vi CMakeCache.txt
[...]
 KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=OFF
[...]

Errors

These are some of the errors I ran into. If you see this, the solution to them is one of the lines above…

ngspice errors

CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake-3.10/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:137 (message):
Could NOT find ngspice (missing: NGSPICE_INCLUDE_DIR)
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/usr/share/cmake-3.10/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:378 (_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
CMakeModules/Findngspice.cmake:57 (find_package_handle_standard_args)
CMakeLists.txt:607 (find_package)

yacc -d -o parse-bison.c parse-bison.y
/bin/bash: yacc: command not found
Makefile:1052: recipe for target 'parse-bison.c' failed
make[3]: *** [parse-bison.c] Error 127
make[3]: Leaving directory '/tmp/libngspice_so/ngspice/src/frontend'
Makefile:773: recipe for target 'install-recursive' failed
make[2]: *** [install-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/tmp/libngspice_so/ngspice/src/frontend'
Makefile:1359: recipe for target 'install-recursive' failed
make[1]: *** [install-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/tmp/libngspice_so/ngspice/src'
Makefile:434: recipe for target 'install-recursive' failed
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1

 

A whole host of wx errors, solved by not using wx ^___^

-- KiCad install dir: </usr/local>
-- Check for installed GLEW -- found
-- Boost version: 1.65.1
-- Found the following Boost libraries:
-- regex
-- Check for installed Python Interpreter -- found
-- Python module install path: lib/python2.7/dist-packages
-- Found wxPython 3.0.2.0/gtk3 (wxWidgets 3.0.2.0)
CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:780 (message):
Cannot find wxPython.h
    *** Could not run GTK+ test program, checking why...
    *** The test program failed to compile or link. See the file config.log for the
    *** exact error that occured. This usually means GTK+ is incorrectly installed.
    configure: error:
    The development files for GTK+ were not found. For GTK+ 2, please
    ensure that pkg-config is in the path and that gtk+-2.0.pc is
    installed. For GTK+ 1.2 please check that gtk-config is in the path,
    and that the version is 1.2.3 or above. Also check that the
    libraries returned by 'pkg-config gtk+-2.0 --libs' or 'gtk-config
    --libs' are in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH or equivalent.

    Error running configure
    ERROR: failed building wxWidgets
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "build.py", line 1325, in cmd_build_wx
        wxbuild.main(wxDir(), build_options)
      File "/tmp/pip-build-v_pIAS/wxpython/buildtools/build_wxwidgets.py", line 373, in main
        "Error running configure")
      File "/tmp/pip-build-v_pIAS/wxpython/buildtools/build_wxwidgets.py", line 85, in exitIfError
        raise builder.BuildError(msg)
    BuildError
    Finished command: build_wx (4.755s)
    Finished command: build (4.755s)
    Command '"/usr/bin/python" -u build.py build' failed with exit code 1.

[ 78%] Building CXX object pcbnew/CMakeFiles/pcbnew_kiface_objects.dir/swig/pcbnew_scripting_helpers.cpp.o
[ 78%] Building CXX object pcbnew/CMakeFiles/pcbnew_kiface_objects.dir/swig/python_scripting.cpp.o
[ 79%] Built target pcbnew_kiface_objects
Makefile:162: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

wx_python_helpers.cpp:(.text+0x3a1): undefined reference to `PyErr_Occurred'
wx_python_helpers.cpp:(.text+0x5b3): undefined reference to `PyUnicodeUCS4_AsWideChar'
../../pcbnew/CMakeFiles/pcbnew_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/swig/wx_python_helpers.cpp.o: In function `Py2wxString(_object*)':

wx_python_helpers.cpp:(.text+0x929): undefined reference to `PyErr_Clear'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
qa/pcbnew/CMakeFiles/qa_pcbnew.dir/build.make:929: recipe for target 'qa/pcbnew/qa_pcbnew' failed
make[2]: *** [qa/pcbnew/qa_pcbnew] Error 1
CMakeFiles/Makefile2:3908: recipe for target 'qa/pcbnew/CMakeFiles/qa_pcbnew.dir/all' failed
make[1]: *** [qa/pcbnew/CMakeFiles/qa_pcbnew.dir/all] Error 2
home/lir/kicad/eeschema/dialogs/dialog_spice_model.cpp: In member function ‘bool DIALOG_SPICE_MODEL::addPwlValue(const wxString&, const wxString&)’:
/home/lir/kicad/eeschema/dialogs/dialog_spice_model.cpp:809:70: warning: dereferencing type-punned pointer will break strict-aliasing rules [-Wstrict-aliasing]
     m_pwlValList->SetItemData( idx, *reinterpret_cast<long*>( &timeF ) );
                                                                      ^
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/widgets/tuner_slider.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/widgets/tuner_slider_base.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/dialogs/dialog_page_settings.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/base_screen.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/base_units.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/eda_text.cpp.o
[ 41%] Building CXX object eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/__/common/page_info.cpp.o
[ 41%] Built target eeschema_kiface_objects
Makefile:162: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

[ 34%] Built target idfcyl
[ 35%] Built target idfrect
[ 36%] Built target dxf2idf
In file included from /home/lir/kicad/eeschema/sim/ngspice.cpp:28:0:
/home/lir/kicad/eeschema/sim/ngspice.h:31:10: fatal error: ngspice/sharedspice.h: No such file or directory
 #include <ngspice/sharedspice.h>
          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/build.make:4709: recipe for target 'eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/sim/ngspice.cpp.o' failed
make[2]: *** [eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/sim/ngspice.cpp.o] Error 1
CMakeFiles/Makefile2:1087: recipe for target 'eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/all' failed
make[1]: *** [eeschema/CMakeFiles/eeschema_kiface_objects.dir/all] Error 2
make[1]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
[ 37%] Built target kicad2step_lib
Makefile:162: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

Thanks

I figured most of this out from two forum posts:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1804771

https://forum.kicad.info/t/wxpython-3-1-error-building-kicad-from-source-ubuntu-18-04/11431