Building from source in Linux Mint

Questions
1

Hi there!

I’m new to using Linux and would like to ask for some help building SuperCollider 3.14.

On my computer, I already have version 3.13 installed via the Software Manager. However, I’d like to update to 3.14, which unfortunately isn’t available there yet.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I assume I don’t need to install all the packages listed in the README file (like xtlib, libjack, etc.), since SC 3.13 is already running on my machine and those dependencies should already be present.

That said, I tried building a couple of times, but errors occurred.
cmake couldn’t find Qt and libsndfile**, which I found strange, because I assumed they were already installed. I ran a query in the terminal but couldn’t find Qt. Then I installed libsndfile from source and Qt using terminal.

After that, I encountered another error (unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly what it was).

At that point, I was afraid I had messed something up, so I used Timeshift to restore my system to the state it was in before I started the installation process.

please, can someone help me? thanks in advance!

2

You have to install all the packages first . That you have SuperCollider installed is not related as building from source is diffferent. I also suggest to install in your local folder in home and not directly in usr/bin where the distro version is already. You can run multiple versions. It’s also unlikely that you break something especially when you install in your home directory. See the readme on github how to correctly set the installation path.

See also what i wrote here

My installation path is /home/fox/usr/local/supercollider_3_15"

3

It worked, thanks!
I kept the default installation path which according to the instructions is /usr/local, and its said that this is a system wide installation path. I though that this was the home folder but now I realized that it’s not.

you suggestion was to run something like this?
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/$HOME

I don’t have yet a clear understanding of Linux folder structure, so I made this mistake.

Did I overwrote on version 3.13?
Now if i run scide in terminal or SuperCollider IDE from the Linux application menu this opens SC 3.14.

In the post window I get this messagge at startup:

Info: 4 methods are currently overwritten by extensions. To see which, execute:
MethodOverride.printAll

I don’t think I’ve installed extension on this system yet.

this is the output from the post windonw after running MethodOverride.printAll

Overwritten methods in class library:
-------------------------------------

Meta_MIDIClient
---------------
	Meta_MIDIClient:externalSources
		/usr/local/share/SuperCollider/SCClassLibrary/Platform/linux/SystemOverwrites/extMIDIOut.sc
		/usr/local/share/SuperCollider/SCClassLibrary/Common/Control/MIDIOut.sc
	Meta_MIDIClient:externalDestinations
		/usr/local/share/SuperCollider/SCClassLibrary/Platform/linux/SystemOverwrites/extMIDIOut.sc
		/usr/local/share/SuperCollider/SCClassLibrary/Common/Control/MIDIOut.sc
	Meta_MIDIClient:getClientID
		/usr/local/share/SuperCollider/SCClassLibrary/Platform/linux/SystemOverwrites/extMIDIOut.sc
		/usr/local/share/SuperCollider/SCClassLibrary/Common/Control/MIDIOut.sc

Meta_MIDIIn
-----------
	Meta_MIDIIn:connectAll
		/usr/local/share/SuperCollider/SCClassLibrary/Platform/linux/SystemOverwrites/extMIDIOut.sc
		/usr/local/share/SuperCollider/SCClassLibrary/Common/Control/MIDIOut.sc

thanks again!

4

This all looks normal to me. I´m also getting these messages.

you suggestion was to run something like this?
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/$HOME

yes. That´s the way it works. By changing the path you can install several versions in parallel. You also then have to make different folders for the config files. See my starting script from the git link above. You can check in the /usr/bin folder if there are several SuperCollider folders. Could be that you just have the distro version overwritten, which is ok as long it is working.

Also use a limiter always to protect your ears and speaker and keep the volume low. There´s a safety quark in SuperCollider which can easily be installed. Compared to Synth plugins typing a wrong number somewhere can lead to very loud signals. Especially be careful with zeros.

5

thanks so much again for your help!
I see that I have SC in two locations : /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin

If I understand correctly now they both live in separate folders, right?
I did some tests and 3.14 works just fine, so I think I’m leaving it like that.
if I need to remove 3.13 I guess I can just uninstall from software manager, that would not affect 3.14, is that correct?

Just one last question, out of curiosity: how do I launch 3.13 now?

thanks again!

6

My distro version is in

/usr/bin/scide
/usr/share
/usr/share/SuperCollider

So, you can start it with

cd /bin
./scide
7

It works! Thanks a lot!

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