Build Instructions

Table of Contents

• Building a released version
  • Ubuntu / Debian
  • OS X
  • Windows
  • Other / General
• Building from Git
  • Ubuntu / Debian
  • OS X
  • Windows
  • Other / General
• Post Install
  • Linux

The process for building LCM may depend on whether you're building from a released version or from source control.

Building a released version

These instructions assume you've already downloaded a released version of LCM, available at:

https://github.com/lcm-proj/lcm/releases

Replace X.Y.Z below with the specific version number you're building.

Ubuntu / Debian

Required packages:

• build-essential
• libglib2.0-dev

Strongly recommended packages:

• openjdk-6-jdk
• python-dev

From a terminal, run the following commands.

$ unzip lcm-X.Y.Z.zip
$ cd lcm-X.Y.Z
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo ldconfig

OS X

There are several ways to build LCM on OS X, none of which are necessarily better than the others.

Homebrew

Install Homebrew packages

$ brew install glib pkg-config

Install Java. Type javac in a terminal, then follow the instructions

Download and build LCM

$ unzip lcm-X.Y.Z.zip
$ cd lcm-X.Y.Z
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install

Windows

Requirements:

• GLib for Windows (http://www.gtk.org). You'll need the following packages
  • GLib (Run-time, dev)
  • gettext-runtime (Run-time)

Building:

1. Follow the instructions in WinSpecific/README.txt to setup GLib.
2. Open WinSpecific/LCM.sln in MS Visual Studio and build the solution.

Other / General

On other POSIX.1-2001 systems (e.g., other GNU/Linux distributions, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc.) the only major requirement is to install the GLib 2.x development files. If possible, a Java development kit and Python should also be installed. Then follow the

Building from Git

Ubuntu / Debian

Required packages:

• build-essential
• autoconf
• automake
• autopoint
• libglib2.0-dev
• libtool

Strongly recommended packages:

• openjdk-6-jdk
• python-dev

From a terminal, run the following commands.

$ git clone https://github.com/lcm-proj/lcm lcm
$ cd lcm
$ ./bootstrap.sh
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

OS X

Homebrew

Install Homebrew packages

$ brew install glib pkg-config automake libtool

Install Java. Type javac in a terminal, then follow the instructions

Download and build LCM

$ git clone https://github.com/lcm-proj/lcm lcm
$ cd lcm
$ ./bootstrap.sh
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install

Windows

Same as building from a released version, as above.

Other / General

To build from Git in other GNU/Linux distributions, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc., you'll need to install autotools. Then follow the terminal commands shown above for Ubuntu.

Post Install

Linux

Some Linux distributions, such as Arch, do not contain the default install location (/usr/local/lib</) in the ld.so.conf search path. In this case, create a ld.so.conf file for lcm:

$ export LCM_INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/lib
$ echo $LCM_INSTALL_DIR > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/lcm.conf

In addition, pkgconfig can be configured to find lcm.pc.

$ export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:$LCM_INSTALL_DIR/pkgconfig

Python users may need to add the lcm install location to Python's site packages search path using a .pth file.

$ export PYTHON_VERSION=$(python -c "import sys; print(\"%s.%s\" % sys.version_info[:2])")
$ export PYTHON_USER_SITE=$(python -m site --user-site)
$ echo "$LCM_INSTALL_DIR/python$PYTHON_VERSION/site-packages" > $PYTHON_USER_SITE/lcm.pth

Lua users may need to add to LUA_CPATH

$ export LUA_VERSION=$(lua -e "print(string.sub(_VERSION, 5))")
$ export LUA_CPATH=$LUA_CPATH:$LCM_INSTALL_DIR/lua/$LUA_VERSION/?.so