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Building
Building the viewer is generally a straight forward process provided you've satisfied a few pre-requisites. This build guide aims to assist you in building the viewer from a clean environment.
You're going to need the following software to compile the viewer. This list applies to all platforms.
- CMake
- Git
- Python 3.7 or higher - Be sure to "Add Python to PATH" on Windows
- Autobuild
Depending on your platform, you may already satisfy some of these requirements. Please see below for platform specific pre-requisites.
On Windows, you will need to install Visual Studio 2022 with the "Desktop development with C++" workload.
Read Building on Windows for critical information on Windows-specific instructions.
On macOS, you will need to install Xcode.
Read Building on macOS for critical information on macOS-specific instructions.
Getting started with building the viewer is generally straightforward on supported platforms. Beyond a few documented issues specific to each platform, the process to configure the viewer for building is generally the same.
The viewer's source code is hosted on GitHub, and may be cloned with the following command:
git clone https://github.com/secondlife/viewer.git
Scripts are provided to assist in this process for your convenience. You may find these scripts in the scripts directory in this repository that set environment variables for your current terminal session. Operating system specific instructions for these scripts are included in the above build guides. For more advanced setups, continue reading on.
In a separate directory outside this repository (preferably right next to the viewer repository), execute the following:
git clone https://github.com/secondlife/build-variables
cd build_variables
git checkout viewer
If you examine the contents of the build-variables/variables file you'll see the details of what configuration values are being set. These variables are used by the CMake configuration step which is invoked by autobuild.
From within the viewer repository you can source the variables config file during the source_environment step like so:
autobuild source_environment ../build_variables/variables
Instead of sourcing the variables file explicitly, and easier for long term development, you can create an AUTOBUILD_VARIABLES_FILE environment variable by putting this in your .bashrc file (when using a bash terminal), or more globally by adding it to the Windows environment variables configuration:
export AUTOBUILD_VARIABLES_FILE=<path-to-your-variables-file>
PowerShell users on Windows can do this with the following command:
$env:AUTOBUILD_VARIABLES_FILE='<path-to-your-variables-file>'
With that done you can just:
autobuild source_environment
Once your environment is set, you can now configure the project with autobuild. There are multiple paths to do this. For Linden builds with proprietary dependencies, make sure you have configured a GitHub Personal Access Token with the AUTOBUILD_GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable that can access internal 3p packages. Provided you've set everything up properly, all you need to do is run:
autobuild configure
For open source builds, you need to provide a valid open source configuration. If you've previously used any of the build setup scripts, this will automatically be set to RelWithDebInfoOS. If not, you will want to set the AUTOBUILD_CONFIGURATION environment variable as this will ensure subsequent autobuild configure invocations will always use that specific build configuration.
If you have not set the AUTOBUILD_CONFIGURATION environment variable, you may use either ReleaseOS or RelWithDebInfoOS when you've used the -c argument when invoking autobuild configure.
You will also want to set the AUTOBUILD_ADDRSIZE environment variable - which may be either 32 for 32-bit builds, or 64 for 64-bit builds.
If you have not set the AUTOBUILD_ADDRSIZE environment variable, you may pass in the specific architecture width with the -A argument to do so.
In this example, we'll use RelWithDebInfoOS as it generates debug symbols with the build, and set the architecture width to 64-bits using -A 64:
autobuild configure -c RelWithDebInfoOS -A 64
Both of these variables are set to RelWithDebInfoOS and the appropriate bit-width we build for a given operating system respectively if you've used the build setup scripts.
Please be patient: the autobuild configure command silently fetches and installs required autobuild packages, and some of them are large.
When configuring completes, you can either build with the specific IDE for your platform, or from the terminal.
For help on configure options, type:
autobuild configure --help
The BUILD_ID is only important for a viewer you intend to distribute. For a local test build, it doesn't matter: it only needs to be distinct. If you omit --id (as is typical), autobuild will invent a BUILD_ID for you.
For the Linden viewer build, this usage:
autobuild configure [autobuild options]... -- [other options]...
passes [other options] to CMake. This can be used to override different CMake variables, e.g.:
autobuild configure [autobuild options]... -- -DSOME_VARIABLE:BOOL=TRUE
The set of applicable CMake variables is still evolving. Please consult the CMake source files in indra/cmake, as well as the individual CMakeLists.txt files in the indra directory tree, to learn their effects.