Compiling on Linux

This page allows you to figure out the steps and programs needed to compile your own version of Cider.

Getting Started

Recommended / Required Development Utilities

While not required, PNPM is recommended for compiling Cider, and you can install it by using:

npm install -g pnpm

Cloning the repository

Open a terminal window in the directory you'd like Git to clone to and enter the following command

git clone https://github.com/ciderapp/Cider.git

Optionally, if you'd like to use the Development branch of Cider to test upcoming features switch your branch by moving your terminal into the directory and using git to checkout the branch by entering the following commands

cd Cider\
git checkout develop

If you'd like to update your repository in the future to keep up to date, use the command (Make sure you're in the directory, you originally cloned in)

git pull

Installing Dependencies

Now for the fun part, by using pnpm, npm or yarn (we'll be using pnpm in this case) enter the following command to automatically obtain all required dependencies for installation.

pnpm install

This step could take a little while on some machines.

Compiling Cider

This step takes a little while on the first compilation so bear with it as it does what it needs to do.

Compiling Cider for specific CPU architectures is a smart thing to do and you can do it by adding switches to the dist argument as displayed.

// For x86_64 machines. (Modern PC's)
pnpm dist -l --x64

// For x86 ONLY machines. (Legacy PC's)
pnpm dist -l --ia32

On some low-end machines this process could take up to ~10 minutes.

This command would build three separate packages of Cider, AppImage, .deb, and .snap packages

Compiling Cider from AUR

If you are on an arch-based Linux distribution and have an AUR helper (pacman/yay/paru/etc.), then you are in luck. Cider has 2 PKGBUILD's in the Arch User Repository.

Assuming you already have access to the AUR and have a friendly AUR helper (we will use yay for this example) enter the following command to automatically obtain all required dependencies for installation.

If you like to live on the bleeding edge, use the cider-git package, this will compile directly from the main branch.

yay -S cider

Running this on Node.js 17 or later will fail. This is due to Node.js 17 no longer writing openssl_fips to config.gypi so it's not there in Node.js 17's process.config. It is suggested to downgrade to nodejs-lts-gallium to resolve this issue.

Installing Cider

Your new Cider installation setup file is ready for you! You can find your setup executable in your cloned folder directory on your system in the subfolder dist/ and from there you'll see your new Setup files. Choose the installer that best matches your distro.

Congrats! You've successfully compiled your own build of Cider!

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