How can I build a specific branch of Monero?

Question

I would like to build a specific branch of Monero, and I would like help setting it up to build on Debian. Can someone help me please?

Answer 1

Start by opening a terminal and installing all the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install libgtest-dev && cd /usr/src/gtest && sudo cmake . && sudo make && sudo mv libg* /usr/lib/

sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake pkg-config libboost-all-dev libssl-dev libzmq3-dev libunbound-dev libsodium-dev

cd to the directory you want to download the files to. For example, if you want to go to the home directory (recommended for beginners), use cd ~.

Clone the repository:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/monero-project/monero

^ if you are using a branch from another contributor, then the URL will be different. Adjust accordingly.

cd monero && git submodule init && git submodule update

(Replace monero with bitmonero if this doesn't work)

Check out the desired branch. Replace <branch> with the name of the branch:

git checkout <branch>

You can finally build the binaries. Replace <t> with the number of cores your CPU has.

make -j <t> (eg: make -j 2)

Answer 2

A present date solution that is more compact (installs the submodules and checks out the branch automatically when cloning) is:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install build-essential cmake pkg-config libboost-all-dev libssl-dev libzmq3-dev libunbound-dev libsodium-dev libunwind8-dev liblzma-dev libreadline6-dev libldns-dev libexpat1-dev doxygen graphviz libpgm-dev

cd ~ && git clone --recursive https://github.com/monero-project/monero --branch <branch name> && cd monero && make -j2