= Linux build instructions =

While we try to not favor any distribution, we only build with certain distributions. This includes Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Things should not be much different for other distributions though. If you want to supply specific build instructions (especially package names) for other distributions, please contact InnoTek.

== Prerequisites ==

You need: 

 * '''GCC 3.2.3 or later (except for the GCC 4.0.x series)'''

 * '''as86''' (real mode assembler, usually part of the ''dev86'' or ''bin86'' package)

 * '''bcc''' (Bruce Evans C Compiler; often part of the ''dev86'' package)

 * '''IASL''' (Intel ACPI compiler)

 * '''xsltproc''' (libxslt, XML style sheet processor)

 * '''libxerces''' (Xerces XML parser; the C++, not the Java version)

 * '''libxalan''' (Xalan XSL library, depends on Xerces; again, the C++, not the Java version)

 * '''libXcursor''' (required to support color mouse pointers in guest)

 * '''Qt 3.3.x''' (with x >= 5 if possible)

 * '''libIDL'''

 * '''libSDL'''

 * '''ALSA'''

 * '''libhal'''

On 64-bit systems you need the following packages as well:

 * '''ia32-libs'''

 * '''libc6 i386 development headers'''


On Debian-based systems, the following command should install the required packages:

{{{
apt-get install bcc iasl xsltproc xalan libxalan110-dev uuid-dev zlib1g-dev \
                libidl-dev libsdl1.2-dev libxcursor-dev libqt3-headers \
                libqt3-mt-dev libasound2-dev libstdc++5 libhal-dev
}}}

On 64-bit Debian-based systems, the following command should install the required additional packages:
{{{
apt-get install ia32-libs libc6-dev-i386
}}}

On Gentoo, the following should do:
{{{
emerge -av sys-devel/bin86 sys-devel/dev86 sys-power/iasl libxslt xerces-c \
           xalan-c libXcursor =qt-3* libIDL libsdl libhal-dev
}}}

Note that !VirtualBox makes use of YASM as its assembler which is part of the source repository as the currently available releases of YASM contain various bugs. As soon as a working release becomes officially available, we will add YASM to the list of prerequisites.

Building on a 64bit host still requires 32bit libraries and build tools as the Guest Additions which are part of the build process are 32bit.

== Building !VirtualBox ==

 1. Change to the root directory of the sources and execute the configure script: `./configure`. If it finds everything it needs, it will create a file called '!AutoConfig.kmk' containing paths to the various tools on your system. Also, it will create an environment setup script called `env.sh`.  This step only has to be done once (if something changes in your build tool setup, you might have to repeat it but keep in mind that both output files will be overwritten).

 2. Whenever you want to build !VirtualBox, you have to open a shell and source the generated environment setup script 'env.sh', i.e. do
{{{
source ./env.sh
}}}

 3. To build a release package, type `kmk all`. This produces the required binaries in `out/linux.x86/release/bin/`. (If you want to build a debug version, type `kmk BUILD_TYPE=debug`.) In case you have more than one CPU core, you could take advantage of our parallel build system by supplying `-j3` (number of cores + 1) as an option to kmk.


== Running your build ==

You can run !VirtualBox directly from the build target directory (`out/linux.x86/release/bin/`). But first of all, you must build and install the !VirtualBox kernel module, whose sources will have been copied to the build target directory. 

So, issue the following: 
{{{
cd out/linux.x86/release/bin/src
make
sudo make install
cd ..
}}}
Then it should have been installed to your modules directory and you can load it using {{{modprobe vboxdrv}}}. Make sure you give yourself read and write access to {{{/dev/vboxdrv}}}.

Next you should start the !VirtualBox XPCOM daemon using
{{{
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./VBoxSVC&
}}}
Finally, you can start one of the frontends, e.g.
{{{
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./VirtualBox
}}}
Note that the {{{LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.}}} is required because we have to find our {{{.so}}} files and the output directory is not in the system's library path.