Build KiCad on (K)Ubuntu 24.04

Software
1

Hallo,

i’m using Kubuntu and need to use various versions of KiCad. For Kubuntu 22.04 I got KiCad 6 and KiCad 7 build from source. Now I’m trying to build KiCad with Kubuntu 24.04, but it doesn’t work. I followed the tutorial like I did the last time. First I added the repository, installed ccmake and the build dependecies.

sudo apt install cmake-curses-gui
sudo add-apt-repository -s --yes ppa:kicad/kicad-dev-nightly
sudo apt update
sudo apt build-dep kicad-nightly

Then I downloaded the source code, unzip the package, create the folder /build/release, navigate into this folder and execute:

ccmake ../../

I press (c) two times to create the configuration and then (g) für “generate”. But then ccmake seems to crash and I see the prompt again, without any hint what went wrong. I tried KiCad 7.0.11 and KiCad 8.0.5.

Does anybody have an idea what I can do to find out what’s going wrong?

2

Try normal cmake, not the curses-gui one. At least it will show you what the issue is.

3

With cmake … it starts building!?

vbox@vbox-k24build:~/KiCad-Build/Build/kicad-8.0.5/build/release$ cmake --build .
[  0%] Configuring Linux metainfo
-- Creating linux metadata
-- Found Git: /usr/bin/git (found version "2.43.0") 
-- Using Git to determine build version string.
-- git describe returned error 128: fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

-- git rev-parse returned error 128: fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

-- git rev-list --count returned error 128: fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

[  0%] Copying file org.kicad.kicad.metainfo.xml
[  0%] Copying file org.kicad.bitmap2component.desktop
[  0%] Copying file org.kicad.eeschema.desktop
[  0%] Copying file org.kicad.gerbview.desktop
[  0%] Copying file org.kicad.kicad.desktop
[  0%] Copying file org.kicad.pcbcalculator.desktop
[  1%] Copying file org.kicad.pcbnew.desktop
[  1%] Copying file kicad-gerbers.xml
[  1%] Copying file kicad-kicad.xml
[  1%] Built target metadata
[  1%] Creating image archive /home/vbox/KiCad-Build/Build/kicad-8.0.5/build/release/resources/images.tar.gz
[  1%] Built target bitmap_archive
[  1%] Building CXX object thirdparty/clipper/CMakeFiles/clipper.dir/clipper.cpp.o
[  1%] Built target clipper
...

Is the missing git repository the reason? On the last system, there was also no git repository.

4

I don’t know if it is the one and only error but it seem to be one, I think the error message could not be clearer :upside_down_face:

– git describe returned error 128: fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

so it might be easier to simply checkout the code via git.

5

you also might want to take a look into Linux | Developer Documentation | KiCad

6

If your goal was to build suspense then you have succeeded. If your goal was to get help then it would have been more helpful to state how it ended, if there were any errors, show those errors or if you don’t know what is relevant then post full log.

Reason for what? We literally don’t know what happened because you only showed us what started to happen. It is the reason for some of the messages about git commands but it’s unclear if they prevent kicad from building, maybe they are just warnings.

7

Sorry for my late response. To make a long story short: It wasn’t a technical issue afterall, it was me.

I thought that “[g] generate” starts the building process and not generating the make file. With “make” is starts to build and with “sudo make install” (sudo due to the path /opt/kicad) it installs kicad to the destination path.

I build KiCad 6, 7 and 8 successful. Thanks for your help!

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