Last Updated: 28th May 2024

This document provides steps for building NetSurf.

These instructions use a shell script to perform several operations. This script has only been tested with the bash and zsh bourne style shell interpreters. The latest version of this script should be retrieved from the official NetSurf source repository.

This shell script is used by the NetSurf Developers but you should satisfy yourself that the script is not malicious. It should be noted that building the browser will also be executing shell code and requires a similar level of trust.

Native build

Grab a temporary env.sh

 $ wget https://git.netsurf-browser.org/netsurf.git/plain/docs/env.sh
 $ unset HOST
 $ source env.sh

Install any packages you need

The package install helper installs all packages required to build NetSurf and the NetSurf project libraries. By default no libraries for a graphical toolkit are installed.

$ ns-package-install

If NetSurf is to be built to target a graphical toolkit the development packages for that toolkit can be installed by setting the TARGET_TOOLKIT variable to one of framebuffer, gtk2, gtk3 or qt6

$ TARGET_TOOLKIT=qt6 ns-package-install

If your package manager is not supported, you will have to install third party packages manually.

Update the environment settings after package installation

 $ unset HOST
 $ source env.sh

Get the NetSurf project source code from Git

All the sources for the browser and support libraries is available from the public git server.

Local copies may be easily obtained with the ns-clone command.

 $ ns-clone

Build and install NetSurf project libraries

Updates NetSurf project library sources to latest, builds and installs them.

  $ ns-pull-install

Switch to new NetSurf workspace

Remove the bootstrap script and use the newly installed one

  $ rm env.sh
  $ cd ~/dev-netsurf/workspace
  $ source env.sh

Build and run NetSurf

  $ cd netsurf

To build the native front end (the GTK front end on Linux, BSDs, etc) you could do:

$ make
$ ./nsgtk3

To build the framebuffer front end, you could do:

  $ make TARGET=framebuffer
  $ ./nsfb

More detailed documentation on using the framebuffer frontend are available.

Cross Compiling

If you are cross compiling, you can follow the above steps, but when sourcing env.sh, you should set HOST environment variable to the appropriate triplet for your cross compiler. For example, to cross compile for RISC OS:

$ HOST=arm-unknown-riscos source env.sh

After that, the commands such as ns-package-install and ns-pull-install will do what is appropriate for the platform you are building for.

To do the final build of NetSurf, pass the appropriate TARGET to make. For example, to cross compile for RISC OS:

$ make TARGET=riscos

Finally, you can package up your build to transfer to the system you are developing for. For example, to produce a package for RISC OS:

$ make TARGET=riscos package

Getting a cross compiler set up

We maintain cross compilation environments and an SDK for a number of platforms. These may be found in our toolchains repository.

$ git clone git://git.netsurf-browser.org/toolchains

Pre-built versions of the toolchains for 64bit x86 Debian systems are available via our automated build and test infrastructure

Not working?

If the above steps are inapplicable, or don't work, you can build manually. Follow the instructions in the BUILDING-* documents in the docs/ directory the NetSurf browser source tree.