Quick Build Steps for NetSurf

Last Updated: 24 February 2015

This document provides steps for building NetSurf.

Grab a temporary env.sh

 $ wget http://git.netsurf-browser.org/netsurf.git/plain/docs/env.sh
 $ source env.sh

Install any packages you need

Installs all packages required to build NetSurf and the NetSurf project libraries.

 $ ns-package-install

If your package manager is not supported, you will have to install third party packages manually.

Get the NetSurf project source code from Git

 $ ns-clone

Build and install our project libraries

Updates NetSurf project library sources to latest, builds and installs them.

  $ ns-pull-install

Switch to new NetSurf workspace

Remove the bootstrack script and use the newly installed one

  $ rm env.sh
  $ cd ~/dev-netsurf/workspace
  $ source env.sh

Build and run NetSurf

  $ cd netsurf

To build the native front end (the GTK front end on Linux, BSDs, etc) you could do:

  $ make
  $ ./nsgtk

To build the framebuffer front end, you could do:

  $ make TARGET=framebuffer
  $ ./nsfb

Cross Compiling

If you are cross compiling, you can follow the above steps, but when sourcing env.sh, you should set HOST environment variable to the appropriate triplet for your cross compiler. For example, to cross compile for RISC OS:

  $ HOST=arm-unknown-riscos source env.sh

After that, the commands such as ns-package-install and ns-pull-install will do what is appropriate for the platform you are building for.

To do the final build of NetSurf, pass the appropriate TARGET to make. For example, to cross compile for RISC OS:

  $ make TARGET=riscos

Finally, you can package up your build to transfer to the system you are developing for. For example, to produce a package for RISC OS:

  $ make TARGET=riscos package

Getting a cross compiler set up

We maintain cross compilation environments and an SDK for a number of platforms. These may be found in our toolchains repository.

  $ git clone git://git.netsurf-browser.org/toolchains

Pre-built versions of the toolchains for Debian systems are often available via our automated build and test infrastructure

Not working?

If the above steps are inapplicable, or don't work, you can build manually. Follow the instructions in the BUILDING-* documents in the docs/ directory the NetSurf browser source tree.

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