Compile Canoeboot from source

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If you need to build Canoeboot from source, this guide is for you.

Canoeboot’s build system is named cbmk, short for CanoeBoot MaKe, and this document describes how to use it. With this guide, you can know how to compile canoeboot from the available source code.

The following document describes how cbmk works, and how you can make changes to it: canoeboot maintenance manual

Do not run the build system on a eCryptfs file system, because it has very short file name limits and Canoeboot’s build system deals with very long file names. We commonly get reports from this by Linux Mint users who encrypt their home directory with eCryptfs; regular LUKS encryption will do nicely.

You must ensure that you have the correct operating system, CPU, RAM, disk space and so on.

System requirements are documented in the cbmk maintenance manual.

Canoeboot’s build system defaults to a single build thread, but you can change it by doing e.g.

export XBMK_THREADS=4

This would make cbmk run on 4 threads.

More specifically: when compiling source trees via script/trees, -jTHREADS is passed, where THREADS is the number of threads. This is also set when running xz commands for compression, using the -t option.

Please read about environmental variables in the build instructions, before running cbmk. You should set your variables accordingly, though you do not technically need to; some of them may be useful, e.g. XBMK_THREADS (sets the number of build threads).

This version, if hosted live on canoeboot.org, assumes that you are using the cbmk git repository, which you can download using the instructions on the code review page.

Canoeboot’s build system uses Git, extensively. You should perform the steps below, even if you’re using a release archive.

Before you use the build system, please know: the build system itself uses Git extensively, when downloading software like coreboot and patching it.

You should make sure to initialize your Git properly, before you begin or else the build system will not work properly. Do this:

git config --global user.name "John Doe"
git config --global user.email johndoe@example.com

Change the name and email address to whatever you want, when doing this.

You may also want to follow more of the steps here: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-First-Time-Git-Setup

How to compile Canoeboot

Actual development/testing is always done using cbmk directly, and this includes when building from source. Here are some instructions to get you started:

Make sure date/hwclock report the correct time and date on your system, because parts of the build process download from HTTPS servers and wrong time or date can cause connections to be dropped during negotiation.

Check config/dependencies/ for list of supported distros.

Canoeboot includes a script that automatically installs build dependencies according to the selected Linux distro.

For example:

./mk dependencies ubuntu

or

./mk dependencies debian

or

./mk dependencies fedora41

or

./mk dependencies arch

NOTE: For versioned files, such as fedora41, typically other versions will be available too, e.g. fedora38. Make sure to check config/dependencies/, so that you know whether or not a file is available for your distro.

NOTE: In case of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS or derived distros for that specific release, use the dedicated configuration file:

./mk dependencies ubuntu2004

Technically, any Linux distribution can be used to build canoeboot. However, you will have to write your own script for installing build dependencies.

Debian Trixie, the testing release as of 3 January 2025, and Debian Sid, provide gnat and gcc as you expect, but gnat resolves to gnat-13 and installs gcc-13 as a dependency, while gcc resolves to gcc-14 and other toolchain components correspond to this version.

The GCC/GNAT versions need to match during build time, so Canoeboot’s build system hacks the PATH environmental variable, setting up symlinks, matching GNAT to GCC or GNAT to GCC. When you run ./mk dependencies debian, you get GNAT 13 and GCC 14. This seems to make most boards compile; in our testing, the KGPE-D16 board failed to compile in this configuration. This PATH hack is only done for compiling the coreboot crossgcc toolchain, and nothing else; after that, coreboot’s toolchain is used.

GNAT is used by coreboot, because some of the Intel graphics devices are initialised natively, with code written in Ada spark (called libgfxinit).

When updating from Debian stable to Debian Trixie(testing) or Sid, you should also check for orphaned packages, using aptitude search '~o'. Do this, removing what was leftover from the old release, and make sure to re-run the Debian dependencies script, but do it like this:

./mk dependencies debian --reinstall

For better reliability, you should, after running the dependencies script, remove gnat and install gnat-14 instead, which is available on this day of 3 December 2025, but currently marked experimental. When you install GNAT 14, GNAT 13 is removed but gnat (in PATH) still won’t resolve to anything. Canoeboot still accomodates this, detecting and matching the GCC and GNAT versions, which would in this instance match version 14 between them, so that gnat and gcc are both in PATH at build time, resolving to v14.x. When we tested with this configuration, the KGPE-D16 images also compiled.

NOTE: Ubuntu 24.10 also has the issue described above. Some other distros may also have it, if they’re based on Debian Testing/Sid or Ubuntu 24.10.

Canoeboot has support for the Sony PlayStation (PS1/PSX), based on the PCSX-Redux Open BIOS. If you’re doing a full release build, and/or specifically building the PSX BIOS, you need a MIPS cross compiler.

Arch-based systems have a mipsel cross compiler available from AUR, and most Debian-based systems have a mipsel cross compiler in apt; for these, the normal dependencies installation command will provide them. We know Void Linux and Fedora don’t have a MIPS compiler, for instance.

If your distro doesn’t have the MIPS compiler available, the PlayStation page provides instructions for manual installation; please do this in addition to the normal dependencies.

Canoeboot MaKe (cbmk) automatically runs all necessary commands; for example, ./mk -b coreboot will automatically build the required payloads if not already compiled.

As a result, you can now (after installing the correct build dependencies) run just a single command, from a fresh Git clone, to build all ROM images:

./mk -b coreboot

or even just build specific ROM images, e.g.:

./mk -b coreboot x60

or get a list of supported build targets:

./mk -b coreboot list

If you wish to build payloads, you can also do that. For example:

./mk -b grub

./mk -b seabios

./mk -b u-boot

Previous steps will be performed automatically. However, you can still run individual parts of the build system manually, if you choose. This may be beneficial when you’re making changes, and you wish to test a specific part of cbmk.

Check the cbmk maintenance manual for guidance. You may for example want to modify a config, e.g.:

./mk -m coreboot x200_8mb

Or perhaps add a new board! The maintenance manual will teach you how the Canoeboot build system (cbmk) works!

So you compiled your Canoeboot image? Congratulations!

Before you flash, please make sure that you dumped two copies of the original firmware just in case (verifying the hashes of each dump, to ensure that they match), using the -r option in flashprog.

NOTE: Canoeboot standardises on flashprog now, as of 3 May 2024, which is a fork of flashrom.

Markdown file for this page: https://canoeboot.org/docs/build/index.md

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