Compiling Marble
This page describes how to build and install Marble
To obtain pre-built packages of Marble for your favourite operating system, please have a look at our Download section.
You might be able to obtain a more recent version of this document here
NOTE: This file describes how to build Marble as a stand-alone
application. If you are building Marble as part of the KDE-EDU
module, then you should instead read the file INSTALL in the top
level directory of this module and ignore this one. This is
most likely ../INSTALL.
Prerequisites for building Marble are:
- Qt 4.5 or newer
- cmake version 2.6 or newer
- (optional): kdelibs from the KDE subversion repositories. We have found that revision 1004263 (Marble v.0.8.0) as part of the KDE 4.3 branch works fine. Note that kdelibs is under heavy development, and some revisions might not work.
1. Getting the Marble Source Code
You can check out the unstable development version ("Marble trunk" using the subversion tool ("SVN") via the command:
svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/kdeedu/marble
If you have a KDE developer account you might want to use:
svn co https://svn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/kdeedu/marble
If you want to check out the latest stable version please check out KDE 4.3 branch instead by using one of these commands (depending on whether you've got a developer account or not):
svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/branches/KDE/4.3/kdeedu/marble
In case you have a KDE developer account the subversion command is:
svn co https://svn.kde.org/home/kde/branches/KDE/4.3/kdeedu/marble
As an alternative you can download a compressed archive of the source code on our Download Page. However we recommend to get it from SVN as updating the source code later on will be much more convenient.
2. Compiling Marble
You can build and install Marble in two different ways:
- As a Qt-only application.
- As a KDE application, using kdelibs and KDE based classes.
Choose one of them and follow our instructions on how to do it. If you want to install Marble's data into a directory that is different from the system default (e.g. your home directory) then we suggest that you take section "3. Adjust Marble's search path for the maps and data" into account.
NOTE: If you wish to build Marble with debug info include the argument -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debug in the cmake command below.
A. Build Marble as a Qt only application.
1. Create a build directory
Create a build directory parallel to the source directory. Suppose that the source directory is named 'marble'. Then create a new directory called 'marble-build'.
2. Configure the build tree
Go into the build directory and type
cmake -DQTONLY=ON ../marble
3. Build marble
Also in the build directory, type:
make
4. Install marble
Finally, also from the build directory, type:
make install
and start Marble either from the menu or via the command line:
marble
If you're on (K)Ubuntu or Debian you need to adjust your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/lib
To make this change persistent you need to add this line to your .bashrc or your "/etc/environment" file.
B. Build Marble as a KDE application.
1. Create a build directory
This is the same step as for a Qt-only build:
Create a build directory parallel to the source directory. Suppose that the source directory is named 'marble'. Then create a new directory called 'marble-build'.
2. Configure the build tree
Go into the build directory and type
cmake ../marble
From now on the steps are the same as for a Qt-only build.
3. Build marble
make
4. Install marble
make install
and start Marble either from the menu or via the command line:
marble
3 Adjust Marble's search path for the maps and data
If you want to install Marble's data into a different place than the system default then read on: There are several ways to adjust the path where Marble is drawing it's data from:
3.1 At Compiletime
Use the cmake option -DMARBLE_DATA_PATH to specify the built-in system path that Marble gathers its data from:
Example:
cmake -DQTONLY=ON -DMARBLE_DATA_PATH /mnt1/marble/data ~/marble
3.2 "At Runtime"
There are two solutions to adjust the data path for a precompiled Marble binary:
a) Enter a key and a value
marbleDataPath="/smb/marble/data"
to the config file "marblerc" or "~/.config/KDE/Marble\ Desktop\ Globe.conf" and (re)start the application.
b) Start Marble using the command line option --marbleDataPath:
marble --marbleDataPath ~/marble/data
Last update: 2009-08-09
The KDE Education Project