Qt build from source

Windows

On Windows, we exclusively use pre-built Qt binaries.

Linux

For our builds on Linux, we currently only use Qt as included in the distribution's package managers. The following guide has not been tested in a while and might be outdated.

• Install build dependencies. On Ubuntu/Debian, execute:
  • $ sudo apt-get build-dep qt6-default
  • $ sudo apt-get install libxcb-xinerama0-dev
• Find the latest source release archive from https://download.qt.io/official_releases/qt/ (e.g. https://download.qt.io/official_releases/qt/6.7/6.7.1/single/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-6.7.1.tar.xz for release 6.7.1)
• Download archive to e.g. /workspace/qt and open terminal there (we use the version 6.7.1 here, adapt that to the actual version you are using)
• Extract: $ tar xf qt-everywhere-opensource-src-6.7.1.tar.xz
• $ mv qt-everywhere-opensource-src-6.7.1 src-6.7.1
• Remove archive: $ rm qt-everywhere-opensource-src-6.7.1.tar.xz
• $ cd src-6.7.1
• Create separate bin directory for out-of-source build: $ cd .. && mkdir bin-6.7.1 && cd bin-6.7.1
• Configure (make sure to adapt the /dir-to-install-... to the path where you want to install the final build): $../src-6.7.1/configure -release -opensource -confirm-license -nomake examples -nomake tests -nomake tools -skip qtandroidextras -skip qtconnectivity -skip qtdeclarative -skip qtgamepad -skip qtlocation -skip qtmacextras -skip qtsensors -skip qtserialbus -skip qtserialport -skip qtwebchannel -skip qtwebengine -skip qtwebsockets -skip qtwayland -skip qtvirtualkeyboard -qt-xcb -prefix /dir-to-install-qt-6.7.1
• Build: you'll typically want to utilize multiple cores. To compile using e.g. 8 threads, use $ make -j 8
• Install: $ make install
• After you have verified that the build works (by building and running vtk, itk and open_iA using the install directory), and when you're not planning to re-build that same qt version again, you can conserve space by deleting the src-6.7.1 directory