General build instructions are available in the top-level README. The commands used for the continuous integration builds and for the official releases are available in the .gitlab-ci.yml file.
This page contains more detailed instructions to compile a full-featured version of Gmsh, including the compilation of common dependencies: OpenCASCADE and FLTK. In addition to CMake and C++ and C compilers, you should have (preferably optimized) versions of the BLAS and LAPACK libraries on your system (e.g. OpenBLAS, ATLAS or the MKL).
OpenCASCADE
OpenCASCADE is a free CAD kernel that Gmsh uses extensively for constructive solid geometry and for importing STEP files. You don't need OpenCASCADE to build geometrical models with Gmsh's built-in (geo) kernel, but you'll need it to import STEP and IGES files.
On most Linux distributions you can just install the occt development package(s), e.g. libocct-foundation-dev, libocct-data-exchange-dev, etc.
On other platforms, or if you just want to compile OpenCASCADE from source, first make sure that you have the Freetype libraries installed on your system (OpenCASCADE depends on them). If not available, download and install them (here for Freetype 2.8):
curl -O http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/freetype/freetype-2.8.tar.gz
tar zxvf freetype-2.8.tar.gz
cd freetype-2.8
./configure
# Notes:
# * if you don't have root access, add --prefix==path-to-install
make
sudo make install
# Notes:
# * if you don't have root access, remove "sudo"To compile OpenCASCADE (here for OCCT 7.3.0):
curl -L -o occt.tgz "http://git.dev.opencascade.org/gitweb/?p=occt.git;a=snapshot;h=refs/tags/V7_3_0;sf=tgz"
tar zxf occt.tgz
cd occt-V7_3_0
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_MODULE_Draw=0 -DBUILD_MODULE_Visualization=0 -DBUILD_MODULE_ApplicationFramework=0 ..
# Notes:
# * if you installed dependencies (e.g. Freetype) in non-standard locations, add the option -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=path-of-installed-dependencies
# * if you don't have root access, add -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=path-to-install
# * to build static libraries, add -DBUILD_LIBRARY_TYPE=Static
make
sudo make install
# Notes:
# * if you don't have root access, remove "sudo"FLTK
Gmsh's graphical user interface uses the FLTK widget toolkit. You only need FLTK if you plan to use Gmsh's graphical (interactive) features.
On most Linux distributions you can just install the fltk development package(s), e.g. libfltk1.3-dev.
On other platforms, or if you just want to compile FLTK from source (here for FLTK 1.3.4):
curl -O http://fltk.org/pub/fltk/1.3.4/fltk-1.3.4-2-source.tar.gz
tar zxvf fltk-1.3.4-2-source.tar.gz
cd fltk-1.3.4-2
./configure
# Notes:
# * if you don't have root access, add --prefix==path-to-install
make
sudo make install
# Notes:
# * if you don't have root access, remove "sudo"Gmsh
You can then compile Gmsh as follows:
git clone http://gitlab.onelab.info/gmsh/gmsh.git
cd gmsh
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
# Notes:
# * if you installed dependencies (e.g. OpenCASCADE and FLTK) in non-standard locations, add the option -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=path-of-installed-dependencies
# * to enable parallel meshing, add the option -DENABLE_OPENMP=1
# * to build the Gmsh app as well as the dynamic Gmsh library (to develop e.g. using the C++ or the Python Gmsh API), add the option -DENABLE_BUILD_DYNAMIC=1
# * for a list of all available configuration options see http://gmsh.info/doc/texinfo/gmsh.html#Compiling-the-source-code
make