Building Redox

Congrats on making it this far! Now you will build Redox. This process is for x86-64 machines (Intel/AMD). There are also similar processes for i686 and AArch64/Arm64.

The build process fetches files from the Redox Gitlab server. From time to time, errors may occur which may result in you being asked to provide a username and password during the build process. If this happens, first check for typos in the git URL. If that doesn't solve the problem and you don't have a Redox GitLab login, try again later, and if it continues to happen, you can let us know through chat.

To avoid bugs from different build environments (operating systems) we are using Rootless Podman for major parts of the build. Podman is invoked automatically and transparently within the Makefiles.

The TL;DR version is here. More details are available in Advanced Podman Build.

You can find out more about Podman here.

(Don't forget to read this page to know our build system organization and how it works)

Podman Build Overview

Podman is a container manager that creates containers to execute a Linux distribution image. In our case, we are creating an Debian image, with a Rust installation and all the dependencies needed to build the system and programs.

The build process is performed in your normal working directory, e.g. ~/tryredox/redox. Compilation of the Redox components is performed in the container, but the final Redox image (build/$ARCH/$CONFIG/harddrive.img or build/$ARCH/$CONFIG/livedisk.iso) is constructed using FUSE running directly on your host machine.

Setting PODMAN_BUILD to 1 in .config, on the make command line (e.g. make PODMAN_BUILD=1 all) or in the environment (e.g. export PODMAN_BUILD=1; make all) will enable Podman.

First, a base image called redox_base will be constructed, with all the necessary packages for the build system. A "home" directory will also be created in build/podman. This is the home directory of your container alter ego, poduser. It will contain the rustup install, and the .bashrc. This takes some time, but is only done when necessary. The tag file build/container.tag is also created at this time to prevent unnecessary image builds.

Then, various make commands are executed in containers built from the base image. The files are constructed in your working directory tree, just as they would for a non-Podman build. In fact, if all necessary packages are installed on your host system, you can switch Podman on and off relatively seamlessly, although there is no benefit of doing so.

The build process is using Podman's keep-id feature, which allows your regular User ID to be mapped to poduser in the container. The first time a container is built, it takes some time to set up this mapping. After the first container is built, new containers can be built almost instantly.

TL;DR - New or Existing Working Directory

New Working Directory

If you have already read the Building Redox instructions, but you wish to use Podman Build, follow these steps.

  • Make sure you have the curl command. e.g. for Pop!_OS/Ubuntu/Debian:
which curl || sudo apt-get install curl
  • Make a directory, get a copy of podman_bootstrap.sh and run it. This will clone the repository and install Podman.
mkdir -p ~/tryredox

cd ~/tryredox

curl -sf https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/redox/raw/master/podman_bootstrap.sh -o podman_bootstrap.sh

time bash -e podman_bootstrap.sh
  • You may be asked which QEMU installation you want. Please select full.
  • You may be asked which Podman container runtime you want to use, crun or runc. Choose crun, but runc will also work.
  • Update your path to include cargo and the Rust compiler.
source ~/.cargo/env
  • Change to the redox directory.
cd ~/tryredox/redox
  • Verify if the file .config was created in the redox base directory, and contains the line PODMAN_BUILD?=1.
  • Build the system. This will take some time.
time make all

Existing Working Directory

If you already have the build system, you can do the following steps:

  • Change to your working directory
cd ~/tryredox/redox
  • Update the build system and wipe all binaries
make pull clean
  • Install Podman. If your Linux distribution is not supported please check the installation instructions to know what dependencies are needed. Or, run the following in your redox base` directory:
./podman_bootstrap.sh -d
  • Enable Podman. The first container setup can take 15 minutes or more, but it is comparable in speed to native build after that.
nano .config

PODMAN_BUILD?=1
  • Build Redox
make all

Run in a virtual machine

You can immediately run your image build/x86_64/desktop/harddrive.img in a virtual machine with the following command:

make qemu

Note that if you built the system using build.sh to change the CPU architecture or filesystem contents, you should also use it to run the virtual machine.

./build.sh -a i686 -c server qemu

will build build/i686/server/harddrive.img (if it does not exist) and run it in the QEMU emulator.

The emulator will display the Redox GUI (Orbital). See Using the emulation for general instructions and Trying out Redox for things to try.

Run without a GUI

To run the virtual machine without a GUI, use:

make qemu vga=no

If you want to capture the terminal output, read this section.

If you have problems running the virtual machine, you can try make qemu kvm=no or make qemu iommu=no to turn off various virtualization features. These can also be used as arguments to build.sh.

QEMU Tap For Network Testing

Expose Redox to other computers within a LAN. Configure QEMU with a "TAP" which will allow other computers to test Redox client/server/networking capabilities.

Join the chat if this is something you are interested in pursuing.

Building A Redox Bootable Image

Read this section.

Note

If you intend on contributing to Redox or its subprojects, please read the CONTRIBUTING.md document, so you understand how our build system works and setup your repository fork appropriately. You can use ./bootstrap.sh -d in the redox folder to install the prerequisite packages if you have already done a git clone of the sources.

If you encounter any bugs, errors, obstructions, or other annoying things, please join the chat or report the issue to the Redox repository or a proper repository for the component. Thanks!

build.sh

build.sh is a shell script that allows you to easily specify the CPU architecture you are building for, and the filesystem contents. When you are doing Redox development, you should set them in .config (see Configuration Settings). But if you are just trying things out, use build.sh to run make for you. e.g.:

  • ./build.sh -a i686 -c server live - Run make for an i686 (32-bits Intel/AMD) CPU architecture, using the server configuration, config/i686/server.toml. The resulting image is build/i686/server/livedisk.iso, which can be used for installation from a USB.

  • ./build.sh -f config/aarch64/desktop.toml qemu - Run make for an ARM64 (AArch64) CPU architecture, using the desktop configuration, config/aarch64/desktop.toml. The resulting image is build/aarch64/desktop/harddrive.img, which is then run in the emulator QEMU.

If you use build.sh, it's recommended that you do so consistently, as make will not be aware of which version of the system you previously built with build.sh. Details of build.sh and other settings are described in Configuration Settings.