Build instructions (Linux)

Prerequisites

Python 2.7.x. Some distributions like CentOS still use Python 2.6.x so you may need to check your Python version with python -V.
Node.js v0.12.x. There are various ways to install Node. One can download source code from [Node.js] (http://nodejs.org) and compile from source. Doing so permits installing Node to your own home directory as a standard user.
Or try repositories such as [NodeSource] (https://nodesource.com/blog/nodejs-v012-iojs-and-the-nodesource-linux-repositories)
Clang 3.4 or later
Development headers of GTK+ and libnotify

On Ubuntu, install the following libraries:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential clang libdbus-1-dev libgtk2.0-dev \
                       libnotify-dev libgnome-keyring-dev libgconf2-dev \
                       libasound2-dev libcap-dev libcups2-dev libxtst-dev \
                       libxss1 gcc-multilib g++-multilib

Other distributions may offer similar packages for installation via package managers such as yum. Or one can compile from source code.

If You Use Virtual Machines For Building

If you plan to build electron on a virtual machine, you will need a fixed-size device container of at least 25 gigabytes in size. The default disk sizes suggested by VirtualBox are much too small. You will risk running out of space. If creating a Ubuntu virtual machine under VirtualBox, do not partition the disk using LVM, which is the Ubuntu installer default. Instead do all partitioning with ext4 which is offered as an alternative to LVM. This way if your vdi container does run out of space, you can use VirtualBox and gparted utilities to increase the container size without needing to resize LVM Volume Groups as an additional task. You may never have a need for LVM in a virtual machine.

Getting the code

$ git clone https://github.com/atom/electron.git

Bootstrapping

The bootstrap script will download all necessary build dependencies and create build project files. You must have Python 2.7.x for the script to succeed. Downloading certain files could take a long time. Notice that we are using ninja to build Electron so there is no Makefile generated.

$ cd electron
$ ./script/bootstrap.py -v

Building

If you would like to build both Release and Debug targets:

$ ./script/build.py

This script will cause a very large Electron executable to be placed in the directory out/R. The file size is in excess of 1.3 gigabytes. This happens because the Release target binary contains debugging symbols. To reduce the file size, run the create-dist.py script:

$ ./script/create-dist.py

This will put a working distribution with much smaller file sizes in the dist directory. After running the create-dist.py script, you may want to remove the 1.3+ gigabyte binary which is still in out/R.

You can also build the Debug target only:

$ ./script/build.py -c D

After building is done, you can find the electron debug binary under out/D.

Troubleshooting

Make sure you have installed all the build dependencies.

Tests

$ ./script/test.py

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