engineering/source/docs/build_on_linux.md

These are common steps to build Notes from source on Linux distributions.

Requirements

It's impossible to create a guide that will work for all Linux distros out there, but thankfully the only major difference between all of them will be package names, so feel free to add the appropriate package names for your favorite distro down here (alphabetically, please).

Distro	Build dependencies1	Runtime dependencies2
Arch Linux3	cmake gcc git qt6-base qt6-declarative	hicolor-icon-theme qt6-base qt6-declarative
Fedora 37 - 39	cmake gcc git libxkbcommon-devel qt6-qtbase-private-devel qt6-qtdeclarative-devel	qt6-qtbase-gui qt6-qtdeclarative
openSUSE Leap 154	cmake gcc git qt6-base-private-devel qt6-declarative-devel	libQt6Concurrent6 libQt6Gui6 qt6-sql-sqlite
Ubuntu 20.045	cmake g++ git qtbase5-private-dev qt5qtdeclarative5-dev	libqt5network5 libqt5sql5 libqt5widgets5 qml-module-qtquick2 qml-module-qtquick-controls2 qml-module-qtquick-window2
Ubuntu 22.04 - 23.04	cmake g++ git qt6-base-private-dev qt6-declarative-dev libgl-dev	libqt6network6 libqt6sql6 libqt6widgets6 qml6-module-qtqml-workerscript qml6-module-qtquick-controls qml6-module-qtquick-layouts qml6-module-qtquick-particles qml6-module-qtquick-templates qml6-module-qtquick-window qt6-qpa-plugins

Build options

Please refer to build_options.md.

Building

First, use git to clone the project and its components, and then navigate into it:

git clone https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes.git --recurse-submodules
cd notes

Let's create a build folder called build:

mkdir build
cd build

After that, we're ready to build Notes!

Invoke CMake to configure and build the project into a folder called build, in Release mode:

cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make -j$(nproc)

To run the binary you just built (e.g. for testing purposes), you can simply execute the notes binary in the build folder:

./notes

If you want to install Notes like a regular, Linux desktop application (with its own desktop file and icons), you can simply run (as root):

make install

Alternatively, you can also create DEB or RPM packages (see the Packaging section below).

Packaging

After building, you could also easily create DEB or RPM packages using CPack:

# Create a DEB package
cpack -G DEB
# Create a RPM package
cpack -G RPM

Please note that it only makes sense to create DEB or RPM packages on the same distro you intend to install and run Notes on.

---

1. These packages are only required to build Notes, meaning you can remove all of them (or some of them) afterward. ↩︎

2. These packages are required to actually run Notes. ↩︎

3. We recommend building and installing through the official AUR package. ↩︎

4. You may need to tell cmake to use use GCC 8 (or newer), e.g. run export CXX=g++-10 before you invoke cmake. ↩︎

5. This distro can only build Notes with Qt 5. ↩︎