Installation instructions for Linux

This guide will help you install Theos on your Linux machine, Linux within Windows via Windows Subsystem for Linux, or Google Cloud Shell.

Platform	Minimum OS version	Targets supported
Linux Windows 10	Linux kernel 3.16 Windows 10 build 14393	Linux, iOS

All the commands shown in the following instructions are meant to be run as the “user” user, not root. Similarly, Theos is also meant to be run as a normal user, not root.

1. Install the following prerequisites:

    sudo apt-get install fakeroot git perl unzip build-essential libtinfo5
   

   ^{* build-essential and libtinfo5 or the equivalents for your distro.}

   Additionally on WSL:

    sudo update-alternatives --set fakeroot /usr/bin/fakeroot-tcp
   

   Additionally on Google Cloud Shell:

    sudo apt install rsync
   

2. Set up the THEOS environment variable:

    echo "export THEOS=~/theos" >> ~/.profile
   

   For this change to take effect, you must restart your shell. Open a new tab and do echo $THEOS on your shell to check if this is working.

3. Clone Theos to your device:

    git clone --recursive https://github.com/theos/theos.git $THEOS
   

4. Get a toolchain:

   Without Swift support (smaller toolchain size):

    curl -LO https://github.com/sbingner/llvm-project/releases/latest/download/linux-ios-arm64e-clang-toolchain.tar.lzma
    TMP=$(mktemp -d)
    tar -xvf linux-ios-arm64e-clang-toolchain.tar.lzma -C $TMP
    mkdir -p $THEOS/toolchain/linux/iphone
    mv $TMP/ios-arm64e-clang-toolchain/* $THEOS/toolchain/linux/iphone/
    rm -r linux-ios-arm64e-clang-toolchain.tar.lzma $TMP
   

   With Swift support (larger toolchain size):

    sudo apt install zstd
    curl -LO https://github.com/CRKatri/llvm-project/releases/download/swift-5.3.2-RELEASE/swift-5.3.2-RELEASE-ubuntu18.04.tar.zst
    TMP=$(mktemp -d)
    tar -xvf swift-5.3.2-RELEASE-ubuntu18.04.tar.zst -C $TMP
    mkdir -p $THEOS/toolchain/linux/iphone $THEOS/toolchain/swift
    mv $TMP/swift-5.3.2-RELEASE-ubuntu18.04/* $THEOS/toolchain/linux/iphone/
    ln -s $THEOS/toolchain/linux/iphone $THEOS/toolchain/swift
    rm -r swift-5.3.2-RELEASE-ubuntu18.04.tar.zst $TMP
   

   Note that compiling Swift code requires a fairly modern SDK. It is recommended that you use the latest SDK that you can get.

5. Get an iOS SDK:

   You can get patched SDKs from our SDKs repo.

    curl -LO https://github.com/theos/sdks/archive/master.zip
    TMP=$(mktemp -d)
    unzip master.zip -d $TMP
    mv $TMP/sdks-master/*.sdk $THEOS/sdks
    rm -r master.zip $TMP