Advanced Build Instructions

This file covers a few advanced scenarios that go beyond what the basic build guide provides.

Customizing the disk image

To add, modify or remove files of the disk image's file system, e.g. to change the default keyboard layout, you can create a shell script with the name sync-local.sh in the project root, with content like this:

#!/bin/sh

set -e

cat << 'EOF' > mnt/etc/Keyboard.ini
[Mapping]
Keymap=de
EOF

This will configure your keymap to German (de) instead of US English. See Base/res/keymaps/ for a full list. Note that the keymap program itself will also modify the /etc/Keyboard.ini config file, but this way the change will persist across image rebuilds.

CMake build options

There are some optional features that can be enabled during compilation that are intended to help with specific types of development work or introduce experimental features. Currently, the following build options are available:

ENABLE_ADDRESS_SANITIZER and ENABLE_KERNEL_ADDRESS_SANITIZER: builds in runtime checks for memory corruption bugs (like buffer overflows and memory leaks) in Lagom test cases and the kernel, respectively.
ENABLE_MEMORY_SANITIZER: enables runtime checks for uninitialized memory accesses in Lagom test cases.
ENABLE_UNDEFINED_SANITIZER: builds in runtime checks for undefined behavior (like null pointer dereferences and signed integer overflows) in Lagom test cases.
ENABLE_FUZZER_SANITIZER: builds fuzzers for various parts of the system.
ENABLE_EXTRA_KERNEL_DEBUG_SYMBOLS: sets -Og and -ggdb3 compile options for building the Kernel. Allows for easier debugging of Kernel code. By default, the Kernel is built with -Os instead.
ENABLE_ALL_THE_DEBUG_MACROS: used for checking whether debug code compiles on CI. This should not be set normally, as it clutters the console output and makes the system run very slowly. Instead, enable only the needed debug macros, as described below.
ENABLE_ALL_DEBUG_FACILITIES: used for checking whether debug code compiles on CI. Enables both ENABLE_ALL_THE_DEBUG_MACROS and ENABLE_EXTRA_KERNEL_DEBUG_SYMBOLS.
ENABLE_COMPILETIME_FORMAT_CHECK: checks for the validity of std::format-style format string during compilation. Enabled by default.
ENABLE_PCI_IDS_DOWNLOAD: downloads the pci.ids database that contains information about PCI devices at build time, if not already present. Enabled by default.
BUILD_LAGOM: builds Lagom, which makes various SerenityOS libraries and programs available on the host system.
PRECOMPILE_COMMON_HEADERS: precompiles some common headers to speedup compilation.
ENABLE_KERNEL_LTO: builds the kernel with link-time optimization.
INCLUDE_WASM_SPEC_TESTS: downloads and includes the WebAssembly spec testsuite tests
BUILD_<component>: builds the specified component, e.g. BUILD_HEARTS (note: must be all caps). Check the components.ini file in your build directory for a list of available components. Make sure to run ninja clean and rm -rf Build/i686/Root after disabling components. These options can be easily configured by using the ConfigureComponents utility. See the Component Configuration section below.
BUILD_EVERYTHING: builds all optional components, overrides other BUILD_<component> flags when enabled

Many parts of the SerenityOS codebase have debug functionality, mostly consisting of additional messages printed to the debug console. This is done via the <component_name>_DEBUG macros, which can be enabled individually at build time. They are listed in this file.

To toggle a build option, add it to the cmake command invocation with a -D prefix. To enable it, add =ON at the end, or add =OFF to disable it. The complete command should look similarly to this:

$ cmake ../.. -G Ninja -DPROCESS_DEBUG=ON -DENABLE_PCI_IDS_DOWNLOAD=OFF

For the changes to take effect, SerenityOS needs to be recompiled and the disk image needs to be rebuilt.

Component Configuration

For selecting which components of the system to build and install, a helper program, ConfigureComponents is available.

It requires whiptail as a dependency, which is available on most systems in the newt or libnewt package. To build and run it, run the following commands from the Build/i686 directory:

$ cmake ../.. -G Ninja        # Only required if CMake hasn't been run before.
$ ninja configure-components

This will prompt you which build type you want to use and allows you to customize it by manually adding or removing certain components. It will then run a CMake command based on the selection as well as ninja clean and rm -rf Root to remove old build artifacts.

Tests

For information on running host and target tests, see Running Tests. The documentation there explains the difference between host tests run with Lagom and target tests run on SerenityOS. It also contains useful information for debugging CI test failures.

Running SerenityOS with VirtualBox and VMware

Outside of QEMU, Serenity will run on VirtualBox and VMware. If you're curious, see how to install Serenity on VirtualBox or install Serenity on VMware.

Running SerenityOS on bare metal

Bare curious users may even consider sourcing suitable hardware to install Serenity on a physical PC.

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