Unable to build kicad nightly from source anymore

Mike_Lemon · January 25, 2025, 10:00am

I’m trying to build todays kicad nightly from source on ubuntu 24.04.1 and the way I used to do it was following this tutorial Linux | Developer Documentation | KiCad
but now (after trying to remove kicad and everything related to it completely) I get some error trying to build it saying ngspice is none existing and before removing previous kicad build I had errors related to protobuf lib here’s the recent one:

-- Checking for module 'ngspice'
--   Found ngspice, version 43

*** NGSPICE library missing ***
Most of ngspice packages do not provide the required libngspice library.
You can either compile ngspice configured with --with-ngshared parameter
or run a script that does the job for you:
  cd ./tools/build
  chmod +x get_libngspice_so.sh
  ./get_libngspice_so.sh
  sudo ./get_libngspice_so.sh install

CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake-3.28/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:230 (message):
  Could NOT find ngspice (missing: NGSPICE_INCLUDE_DIR)
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  /usr/share/cmake-3.28/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:600 (_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
  cmake/Findngspice.cmake:162 (find_package_handle_standard_args)
  CMakeLists.txt:862 (find_package)


-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory
ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory

I’d like to completely nuke and remove kicad from my ubuntu and aptitudes repo and start all over to allow installation but I’m not sure how to do that perfectly if anyone has an idea on how to do it?

Here is how I tryed building from source so far(am getting some errors installing the prebuilt apt version of nightly as well):

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


sudo git clone https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad.git /usr/local/my_kicad_nightly && \
cd /usr/local/my_kicad_nightly
sudo mkdir -p build/release
cd build/release

sudo cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo ../../
sudo ninja
sudo ninja install

Mike_Lemon · January 25, 2025, 12:47pm

This is the error being displayed when I try to install the stable prebuilt version of kicad with

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-releases
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad


The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libocct-visualization-7.6 : Depends: occt-misc (= 1:7.6.3+dfsg1-9~ubuntu24.04.1) but 1:7.8.1+dfsg1-3~ubuntu24.04.1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Mike_Lemon · January 25, 2025, 1:07pm

Solved this with this:

sudo apt-get remove occt-misc
sudo apt-get purge occt-misc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install occt-misc=1:7.6.3+dfsg1-9~ubuntu24.04.1
sudo apt-get install libocct-visualization-7.6

Mike_Lemon · January 25, 2025, 3:18pm

So back to stage 1 I got past the ngspice problem apperantly the ngspice install script got removed so borrowed from here: get_libngspice_so.sh · GitHub
but now the protobuf package is missing:

CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:883 (find_package):
  Could not find a package configuration file provided by "Protobuf" with any
  of the following names:

    ProtobufConfig.cmake
    protobuf-config.cmake

  Add the installation prefix of "Protobuf" to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or set
  "Protobuf_DIR" to a directory containing one of the above files.  If
  "Protobuf" provides a separate development package or SDK, be sure it has
  been installed.


-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!

craftyjon · January 25, 2025, 3:33pm

If you are on Ubuntu 24 or older try -DKICAD_USE_CMAKE_FINDPROTOBUF=ON in your cmake command

Mike_Lemon · January 25, 2025, 3:57pm

I might have screwed it up a bit I’ve also installed

sudo git clone https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf.git
sudo mkdir build
cd build
sudo cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -Dprotobuf_BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON -Dprotobuf_BUILD_TESTS=OFF
sudo make -j4 install

and then tryed to build kicad with:

sudo cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DKICAD_USE_CMAKE_FINDPROTOBUF=ON ../../
sudo ninja
sudo ninja install

then saw you comment tryed the same and gave me the same error trying to build kicad so i also tryred to remove the protobuf source build manually from
‘/usr/local/lib/cmake/protobuf’
and
‘/usr/include/protobuf’
tryed you option with:

sudo cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DKICAD_USE_CMAKE_FINDPROTOBUF=ON ../../
sudo ninja
sudo ninja install

but this gives me the following error:

/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h:96:57: error: conversion from ‘google::protobuf::internal::GetTypeNameReturnType’ {aka ‘std::basic_string_view<char>’} to non-scalar type ‘std::string’ {aka ‘std::__cxx11::basic_string<char>’} requested
[47/1507] Building CXX object gerbview/CMa...e_objects.dir/tools/gerbview_control.cpp.o
ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.
$FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS: unknown option: --walker=file,dir,follow,hidden
$FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS: unknown option: n
$FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS: unknown option: --walker=file,dir,follow,hidden

Mike_Lemon · January 25, 2025, 4:05pm

Should I also uninstalled the source built ngspice?
full error message from sudo ninja

FAILED: common/CMakeFiles/common.dir/api/api_handler_editor.cpp.o
/usr/bin/c++ -DBOOST_ATOMIC_DYN_LINK -DBOOST_ATOMIC_NO_LIB -DBOOST_CHRONO_DYN_LINK -DBOOST_CHRONO_NO_LIB -DBOOST_LOCALE_DYN_LINK -DBOOST_LOCALE_NO_LIB -DBOOST_THREAD_DYN_LINK -DBOOST_THREAD_NO_LIB -DGLM_FORCE_CTOR_INIT -DHAVE_STDINT_H -DJSON_HAS_FILESYSTEM=0 -DKIAPI_IMPORTEXPORT=APIIMPORT -DKICAD_BUILD_ARCH_X64 -DKICAD_CONFIG_DIR=kicad -DKICAD_IPC_API -DKICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON -DKICAD_SIGNAL_INTEGRITY -DKICAD_UPDATE_CHECK -DNANODBC_ENABLE_UNICODE -DUSINGZ -DWXUSINGDLL -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D__WXGTK__ -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/. -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/./dialogs -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/./widgets -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/./dialog_about -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/resources/bitmaps_png -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/3d-viewer -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/pcbnew -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/kicad -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/build/release -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/scripting -I/usr/local/share/ngspice/include -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/argparse/include -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/build/release/api/cpp -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/build/release/api/cpp/api -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/pegtl -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/magic_enum/magic_enum -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/libcontext -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/libs/kimath/include -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/libs/core/include -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/clipper2/Clipper2Lib/include -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/other_math -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/rtree -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/libs/kiplatform/include -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/dynamic_bitset -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/expected/include -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/picosha2 -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/json_schema_validator -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/nlohmann_json -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/thread-pool -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/build/release/common -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/fmt/include -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/libs/kinng/include -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/build/release/include/gal/shaders -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/nanosvg -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/dxflib_qcad -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/tinyspline_lib -I/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/compoundfilereader -isystem /usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/pybind11/include -isystem /usr/include/cairo -isystem /usr/include/pixman-1 -isystem /usr/include/freetype2 -isystem /usr/include/harfbuzz -isystem /usr/include/opencascade -isystem /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/wx/include/gtk3-unicode-3.2 -isystem /usr/include/wx-3.2 -isystem /usr/include/python3.12 -isystem /usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/thirdparty/nanodbc -Wno-attributes -pthread -Wall -Wsuggest-override -Wduplicated-branches -Wduplicated-cond -Werror=vla -Wimplicit-fallthrough=5 -Werror=return-type -Wshadow -Wsign-compare -Wmissing-field-initializers -Wempty-body -Wreorder -Wmismatched-tags -Wpessimizing-move -Wredundant-move -Wno-psabi -O2 -g -DNDEBUG -std=c++20 -fPIC -fvisibility=hidden -fvisibility-inlines-hidden -ftrivial-auto-var-init=zero -MD -MT common/CMakeFiles/common.dir/api/api_handler_editor.cpp.o -MF common/CMakeFiles/common.dir/api/api_handler_editor.cpp.o.d -o common/CMakeFiles/common.dir/api/api_handler_editor.cpp.o -c /usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/api/api_handler_editor.cpp
In file included from /usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler_editor.h:24,
                 from /usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/api/api_handler_editor.cpp:21:
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h: In instantiation of ‘void API_HANDLER::registerHandler(HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> (HandlerType::*)(const HANDLER_CONTEXT<RequestType>&)) [with RequestType = kiapi::common::commands::BeginCommit; ResponseType = kiapi::common::commands::BeginCommitResponse; HandlerType = API_HANDLER_EDITOR; HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> = tl::expected<kiapi::common::commands::BeginCommitResponse, kiapi::common::ApiResponseStatus>]’:
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/api/api_handler_editor.cpp:34:54:   required from here
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h:96:57: error: conversion from ‘google::protobuf::internal::GetTypeNameReturnType’ {aka ‘std::basic_string_view<char>’} to non-scalar type ‘std::string’ {aka ‘std::__cxx11::basic_string<char>’} requested
   96 |         std::string typeName = RequestType().GetTypeName();
      |                                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h: In instantiation of ‘void API_HANDLER::registerHandler(HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> (HandlerType::*)(const HANDLER_CONTEXT<RequestType>&)) [with RequestType = kiapi::common::commands::EndCommit; ResponseType = kiapi::common::commands::EndCommitResponse; HandlerType = API_HANDLER_EDITOR; HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> = tl::expected<kiapi::common::commands::EndCommitResponse, kiapi::common::ApiResponseStatus>]’:
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/api/api_handler_editor.cpp:35:50:   required from here
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h:96:57: error: conversion from ‘google::protobuf::internal::GetTypeNameReturnType’ {aka ‘std::basic_string_view<char>’} to non-scalar type ‘std::string’ {aka ‘std::__cxx11::basic_string<char>’} requested
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h: In instantiation of ‘void API_HANDLER::registerHandler(HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> (HandlerType::*)(const HANDLER_CONTEXT<RequestType>&)) [with RequestType = kiapi::common::commands::CreateItems; ResponseType = kiapi::common::commands::CreateItemsResponse; HandlerType = API_HANDLER_EDITOR; HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> = tl::expected<kiapi::common::commands::CreateItemsResponse, kiapi::common::ApiResponseStatus>]’:
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/api/api_handler_editor.cpp:36:54:   required from here
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h:96:57: error: conversion from ‘google::protobuf::internal::GetTypeNameReturnType’ {aka ‘std::basic_string_view<char>’} to non-scalar type ‘std::string’ {aka ‘std::__cxx11::basic_string<char>’} requested
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h: In instantiation of ‘void API_HANDLER::registerHandler(HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> (HandlerType::*)(const HANDLER_CONTEXT<RequestType>&)) [with RequestType = kiapi::common::commands::UpdateItems; ResponseType = kiapi::common::commands::UpdateItemsResponse; HandlerType = API_HANDLER_EDITOR; HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> = tl::expected<kiapi::common::commands::UpdateItemsResponse, kiapi::common::ApiResponseStatus>]’:
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/api/api_handler_editor.cpp:37:54:   required from here
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h:96:57: error: conversion from ‘google::protobuf::internal::GetTypeNameReturnType’ {aka ‘std::basic_string_view<char>’} to non-scalar type ‘std::string’ {aka ‘std::__cxx11::basic_string<char>’} requested
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h: In instantiation of ‘void API_HANDLER::registerHandler(HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> (HandlerType::*)(const HANDLER_CONTEXT<RequestType>&)) [with RequestType = kiapi::common::commands::DeleteItems; ResponseType = kiapi::common::commands::DeleteItemsResponse; HandlerType = API_HANDLER_EDITOR; HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> = tl::expected<kiapi::common::commands::DeleteItemsResponse, kiapi::common::ApiResponseStatus>]’:
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/api/api_handler_editor.cpp:38:54:   required from here
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h:96:57: error: conversion from ‘google::protobuf::internal::GetTypeNameReturnType’ {aka ‘std::basic_string_view<char>’} to non-scalar type ‘std::string’ {aka ‘std::__cxx11::basic_string<char>’} requested
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h: In instantiation of ‘void API_HANDLER::registerHandler(HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> (HandlerType::*)(const HANDLER_CONTEXT<RequestType>&)) [with RequestType = kiapi::common::commands::HitTest; ResponseType = kiapi::common::commands::HitTestResponse; HandlerType = API_HANDLER_EDITOR; HANDLER_RESULT<ResponseType> = tl::expected<kiapi::common::commands::HitTestResponse, kiapi::common::ApiResponseStatus>]’:
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/common/api/api_handler_editor.cpp:39:46:   required from here
/usr/local/my_kicad_nightly/include/api/api_handler.h:96:57: error: conversion from ‘google::protobuf::internal::GetTypeNameReturnType’ {aka ‘std::basic_string_view<char>’} to non-scalar type ‘std::string’ {aka ‘std::__cxx11::basic_string<char>’} requested
[725/2231] Building CXX object common/gal/CMakeFiles/gal.dir/opengl/opengl_gal.cpp.o
ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.

craftyjon · January 25, 2025, 4:10pm

Uninstall your source-built protobuf and use the Ubuntu packages. Use the CMake define I gave above. Blow up your CMakeCache.txt to make sure you aren’t dealing with any stale configuration.

Mike_Lemon · January 25, 2025, 4:39pm

uninstalled the ‘/google/protobuf/’ directories and re downloaded kicad dependancies and repo with:

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


sudo git clone https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad.git /usr/local/my_kicad_nightly && \
cd /usr/local/my_kicad_nightly
sudo mkdir -p build/release
cd build/release

but sudo cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DKICAD_USE_CMAKE_FINDPROTOBUF=ON ../../

Gives me the same previous error:

CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake-3.28/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:230 (message):
  Could NOT find Protobuf (missing: Protobuf_INCLUDE_DIR)
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  /usr/share/cmake-3.28/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:600 (_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
  /usr/share/cmake-3.28/Modules/FindProtobuf.cmake:749 (FIND_PACKAGE_HANDLE_STANDARD_ARGS)
  CMakeLists.txt:881 (find_package)


-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!

Mike_Lemon · January 25, 2025, 4:42pm

Strangly I have tryed installing protobuf through apt with:

sudo apt-get install protobuf-compiler libprotobuf-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
protobuf-compiler is already the newest version (3.21.12-8.2build1).
libprotobuf-dev is already the newest version (3.21.12-8.2build1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 17 not upgraded.

but I can’t see is has recreated the folder ‘/usr/local/include/google/protobuf/’ I removed manually
(I search for “protobuf” using fzf and can’t see it anywhere from ‘/’ directory where does apt usually install it? am I missing something?)