Compile and Install

Disclaimer: This page explains how to turn the GRASS GIS source code into an installable binary package ("compilation") for different operating systems. If you just want to get ready-to-use binaries, go here, otherwise read on...

How to do compilation and installation of GRASS GIS?

Here we explain the procedure to compile GRASS from GitHub, but it also applies to official GRASS 7 releases.

For installation of precompiled binary packages, see the main Installation Guide.

For detailed information on compilation, please see the INSTALL file in the source code.

Prerequisites

Extra libraries

GRASS GIS needs at least two extra libraries: PROJ and GDAL/OGR. It is recommended to download them as ready-to-use packages for your software platform (Linux distribution, Windows, Mac...).

Other libraries needed to run GRASS are listed on the requirements page.

To compile, you will also need the respective "-devel" packages; see below for details.

Download GRASS GIS source code

First, download the GRASS GIS source code.

Generic Compilation and installation procedure

• It is wise that compilation processes are carried out as a normal user: If you want to get the source code in a place where you do not have write permissions (e.g. in /usr/local/src/) just follow this:

     cd /usr/local/src/ 
     su -c 'mkdir grass7'
     su -c 'chown yourlogin:yourgroup grass7'

Otherwise if you have permissions just continue as a normal user:

     mkdir $HOME/src
     cd $HOME/src/
     git clone https://github.com/OSGeo/grass.git grass_master

• run configure with parameters to adapt the compile process to your own system. To see what options can be passed to it, run:

./configure --help | less 

It may (!) look like this:

     ./configure \
         --with-cxx \
         --with-sqlite \
         --with-python \
         --with-geos \
         --with-gdal=/usr/bin/gdal-config \
         --with-cairo --with-cairo-ldflags=-lfontconfig \
         --with-freetype \
         --with-freetype-includes=/usr/include/freetype2 \
         --with-proj --with-proj-share=/usr/share/proj

You may have to explicitly state the path for certain packages (i.e., gdal). The Unix 'locate' command will come in handy for finding the path of the package you need (you may have to run locate as root ex: sudo locate gdal-config).

Please note that the paths mentioned may widely vary due to the distribution used. See Platform Specific Notes below.

Depending on your needs it may be a good idea to include debugging hooks.

See GRASS_Debugging#Compile_Time_Setup.

CFLAGS="-ggdb -Wall -Werror-implicit-function-declaration" ./configure ...

At the end of configuration process you should get report not much different from this:

 GRASS is now configured for:  x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
 
 Source directory:           /home/user/software/grass_master
 Build directory:            /home/user/software/grass_master
 Installation directory:     ${prefix}/grass79
 Startup script in directory:${exec_prefix}/bin
 C compiler:                 gcc -O2 -march=native -std=gnu99 -fexceptions -fstack-protector -m64 -fdiagnostics-color 
 C++ compiler:               c++ -g -Wall
 Building shared libraries:  yes
 OpenGL platform:            X11
 
 MacOSX application:         no
 MacOSX architectures:       
 MacOSX SDK:                 
 
 BLAS support:               yes
 BZIP2 support:              no
 C++ support:                yes
 Cairo support:              yes
 DWG support:                no
 FFTW support:               yes
 FreeType support:           yes
 GDAL support:               yes
 GEOS support:               yes
 [...]

• Let's compile it (takes a little while...)!

     make -j2

• At the end, you should get report not much different from this:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Following modules are missing the 'description.html' file in src code:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GRASS GIS compilation log
-------------------------
Started compilation: Mon 19 Aug 2019 10:47:57 PM CEST
--
Errors in:
No errors detected.
--
Finished compilation: Mon 19 Aug 2019 10:55:12 PM CEST
(In case of errors please change into the directory with error and run 'make')

• If there is any error, change directory to directory with error and run "make" again. Report occurring bug to GRASS mailing list
• Once the installation process is finished, you're ready to install GRASS system wide.

     su -c 'make install'

• enjoy GRASS:

     grass79

What else?

If you want to use QGIS, then also compile the GRASS-GDAL/OGR plugin. This is also useful to access your GRASS-data from other application using GDAL/OGR like thuban.

• Compile and install GRASS and QGIS with GDAL/OGR Plugin (enables QGIS to read GRASS data directly)

Compile and install GDAL-GRASS plugin

• See Compile and install GDAL-GRASS plugin

Platform Specific Notes

Linux

Linux comes in various flavours, i.e. distributions.

Distribution related packaging

• Arch Linux: https://github.com/czka/AUR-grass7
• Centos: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/grass
• Debian: https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/DebianUbuntuPackaging
• EPEL: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/grass
• Fedora: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/grass
• Ubuntu: https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/DebianUbuntuPackaging

Alpine Linux

# install compiler tools and libraries
apk add build-base bzip2-dev cairo-dev fftw-dev freetype-dev g++ gcc gdal-dev geos-dev git \
        gnutls-dev libc6-compat libjpeg-turbo-dev libpng-dev make openjpeg-dev openblas-dev \
        postgresql-dev proj-dev python3-dev py3-numpy-dev sqlite-dev tar tiff-dev unzip vim \
        wget zip zstd-dev

# install needed tools and libraries when using GRASS GIS
apk add attr bash bison bzip2 cairo curl fftw flex freetype gdal gdal-tools gettext geos gnutls \
        jsoncpp libbz2 libexecinfo libjpeg-turbo libpng libunwind musl musl-utils ncurses openjpeg \
        openblas py3-numpy py3-pillow py3-six postgresql proj-datumgrid proj-util sqlite sqlite-libs \
        subversion tiff zstd zstd-libs

# get source code
cd ~
wget -c https://grass.osgeo.org/grass78/source/snapshot/grass-7.8.git_src_snapshot_latest.tar.gz

# unpack
tar xvfz grass-7.8.git_src_snapshot_latest.tar.gz
rm -f grass-7.8.git_src_snapshot_latest.tar.gz

# change into source code (update path name as needed)
cd grass-7.8.git_src_snapshot_2021_05_01/

# minimal configuration
./configure \
  --with-cxx \
  --with-gdal=/usr/bin/gdal-config \
  --with-proj --with-proj-share=/usr/share/proj \
  --with-geos \
  --with-sqlite \
  --without-nls \
  --without-wxwidgets \
  --without-fftw \
  --without-cairo \
  --without-freetype \
  --enable-largefile \
  --without-opengl \
  --without-odbc

# compilation
nice make -j2

Arch Linux

• Easiest method : use AUR (Arch User Repository) package

Up-to-date links to Arch Linux GRASS PKGBUILDs are on https://grass.osgeo.org/download/software/linux/.

Please note that at this time AUR package has a problem : a symlink of python2 is created to work with grass whereas executable script call python3 ... Workaround is to comment symlink in AUR GRASS PKGBUILD

• Compile from source code

If you want to compile it yourself, you could follow steps below :

Install dependencies :

pacman -S bzip2 cairo fftw fontconfig freetype2 gcc-libs gdal geos glibc glu libpng libtiff libx11 libgl netcdf pdal proj python-gdal python-numpy python-pillow python-wxpython readline zlib zstd

Download and extract sources : https://grass.osgeo.org/download/software/sources/

We can now start building GRASS 7

export PATH=~/usr/bin:$PATH && \
./configure \
--enable-debug \
--with-readline \
--with-freetype=yes \
--with-freetype-includes="/usr/include/freetype2/" \
--with-geos \
--with-odbc \
--with-pthread \
--with-fftw-includes="/usr/include/" \
--with-fftw-libs=/usr/lib/ \
--with-wxwidgets \
--with-postgres \
--with-pdal \
--with-netcdf \
--with-bzlib \
--with-zstd

Now let's compile and install it

make
make install

It's done, you can enjoy GRASS 7 in Arch, just type "grass78" (Please adjust version after grass) in the terminal to launch it.

Generic procedure for Debian-based distributions (Ubuntu, ...)

WORK IN PROGRESS

1. Install official GRASS package

sudo apt install grass grass-dev

2. Enable source code download

# do backup first
sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.orig
sudo sed -i '/^#\sdeb-src /s/^# *//' /etc/apt/sources.list

3. Install GRASS dependencies

sudo apt build-dep grass

4. Download GRASS source code

git clone https://github.com/osgeo/grass

5. Compile GRASS from source code

cd grass

Configure:

grass --config build | sh

Optionally install missing dependecies (can happen when official GRASS package is not compatible with GRASS master), eg.

sudo apt install libzstd-dev

Compile:

make -j2

6. Run locally or install

./bin.x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/grass79 --version

or

sudo make install
grass79 --version

Debian

• Official DebianGIS packaging control files, available on git server:

 git://git.debian.org/git/pkg-grass/grass.git

 http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/pkg-grass/grass.git/

GRASS 7 on Debian Stretch

(Updated from above with package changes required for Debian Stretch)

Install needed packages for GRASS 7.2 - 7.6:

 apt-get install cmake libboost-all-dev flex bison debhelper dpatch autoconf2.13 autotools-dev \
   python-dev g++ gcc gettext graphviz libcairo2-dev libfftw3-dev libfreetype6-dev libgdal20 \
   libgdal-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libglw1-mesa-dev libncurses5-dev libproj-dev libreadline-dev \
   libsqlite3-dev libtiff5-dev libwxgtk3.0-dev libxmu-dev libxmu-headers libxt-dev mesa-common-dev \
   proj-bin proj-data python-numpy python-wxgtk3.0 python-wxtools wx-common zlib1g-dev netcdf-bin \
   libnetcdf-dev libgegl-dev  doxygen python-sphinx postgresql libgeotiff-dev libblas-dev \
   mariadb-server libatlas-dev liblapack3 liblapack-dev opencl-headers ocl-icd-libopencl1 \
   subversion liblas-bin liblas-c-dev python-gdal libpdal-dev libpdal-plugin-python pdal

Install needed packages for GRASS 7.8+ (Python 3 support!):

 apt-get install cmake libboost-all-dev flex bison debhelper dpatch autoconf2.13 autotools-dev \
   g++ gcc gettext graphviz libcairo2-dev libfftw3-dev libfreetype6-dev libgdal20 python3-dev \
   libgdal-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libglw1-mesa-dev libproj-dev libreadline-dev libgeos-c1v5 \
   libsqlite3-dev libtiff5-dev libwxgtk3.0-dev libxmu-dev libxmu-headers libxt-dev mesa-common-dev \
   proj-bin proj-data python3-numpy python3-six wx-common zlib1g-dev netcdf-bin \
   libnetcdf-dev libgegl-dev  doxygen python3-sphinx postgresql libgeotiff-dev libblas-dev \
   libatlas-dev liblapack3 liblapack-dev opencl-headers ocl-icd-libopencl1 \
   subversion liblas-bin liblas-c-dev python3-gdal libpdal-dev libpdal-plugin-python pdal
   
   # ? python3-wxgtk4.0 libmariadb

Download and unpack source code or fetch from GitHub: https://github.com/OSGeo/grass

Configuration:

 CFLAGS="-Wall -Werror-implicit-function-declaration -fno-common -Wextra -Wunused" \
 CXXFLAGS="-Wall"  \
 ./configure \
  --prefix=/usr/local \
  --with-gdal --with-proj --with-proj-share=/usr/share \
  --with-glw --with-nls --with-readline \
  --with-cxx --enable-largefile \
  --with-freetype --with-freetype-includes=/usr/include/freetype2 \
  --with-sqlite --with-cairo --with-python=/usr/bin/python-config \
  --with-wxwidgets --with-geos \
  --with-blas --with-blas-includes=/usr/include/atlas/ \
  --with-lapack --with-lapack-includes=/usr/include/atlas/ \
  --with-netcdf=/usr/bin/nc-config --with-odbc=yes \
  --with-openmp=yes --with-pthread=no --with-postgres=yes \
  --with-postgres-includes=/usr/include/postgresql \
  --with-postgres-libs=/usr/lib/postgresql \
  --with-mysql=yes --with-mysql-includes=/usr/include/mysql

Compile:

 make -j2

Install:

 make install

GRASS 7 on Debian Buster

-- To be updated --

Install needed packages for GRASS 7.8+ (Python 3 support!):

 apt-get install cmake libboost-all-dev flex bison debhelper dpatch autoconf2.13 autotools-dev \
   g++ gcc gettext graphviz libcairo2-dev libfftw3-dev libfreetype6-dev libgdal20 python3-dev \
   libgdal-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libglw1-mesa-dev libproj-dev libreadline-dev libgeos-c1v5 \
   libsqlite3-dev libtiff5-dev libwxgtk3.0-dev libxmu-dev libxmu-headers libxt-dev mesa-common-dev \
   proj-bin proj-data python3-numpy python3-six wx-common zlib1g-dev netcdf-bin \
   libnetcdf-dev libgegl-dev  doxygen python3-sphinx postgresql libgeotiff-dev libblas-dev \
   liblapack3 liblapack-dev opencl-headers ocl-icd-libopencl1 \
   subversion liblas-bin liblas-c-dev python3-gdal libpdal-dev libpdal-plugin-python pdal \
   python3-wxgtk4.0 default-libmysqlclient-dev

Download and unpack GRASS GIS 7.8 source code or fetch from GitHub: https://github.com/OSGeo/grass

Configuration:

 CFLAGS="-Wall -Werror-implicit-function-declaration -fno-common -Wextra -Wunused" \
 CXXFLAGS="-Wall"  \
 ./configure \
  --prefix=/usr/local \
  --with-gdal --with-proj --with-proj-share=/usr/share \
  --with-glw --with-nls --with-readline \
  --with-cxx --enable-largefile \
  --with-freetype --with-freetype-includes=/usr/include/freetype2 \
  --with-sqlite --with-cairo --with-python=/usr/bin/python-config \
  --with-wxwidgets --with-geos \
  --with-blas --with-blas-includes=/usr/include/atlas/ \
  --with-lapack --with-lapack-includes=/usr/include/atlas/ \
  --with-netcdf=/usr/bin/nc-config --with-odbc=yes \
  --with-openmp=yes --with-pthread=no --with-postgres=yes \
  --with-postgres-includes=/usr/include/postgresql \
  --with-postgres-libs=/usr/lib/postgresql \
  --with-mysql=yes --with-mysql-includes=/usr/include/mysql

Compile:

 make -j2

Install:

 make install

GRASS 8 on Debian 11 (bullseye)

Install needed packages for GRASS 8.2:

 apt-get update && \
 apt-get install bison debhelper-compat dh-python doxygen fakeroot flex graphviz \
   libblas-dev libbz2-dev libcairo2-dev libfftw3-dev libfreetype6-dev \
   libgdal-dev libgeos-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libjpeg-dev liblapack-dev libmotif-dev \
   default-libmysqlclient-dev libncurses5-dev libnetcdf-dev libpng-dev libpq-dev \
   libproj-dev libreadline-dev libsqlite3-dev libtiff-dev libxmu-dev libzstd-dev \
   netcdf-bin pkg-config proj-bin python3 python3-dev python3-numpy python3-pil python3-ply \
   python3-six python3-wxgtk4.0 wget unixodbc-dev zlib1g-dev

Download and unpack GRASS GIS 8.2 source code (or fetch from GitHub: https://github.com/OSGeo/grass):

 wget https://grass.osgeo.org/grass82/source/grass-8.2-latest.tar.gz
 tar xvfz grass-8.2-latest.tar.gz
 cd grass-8.2.*

Configuration:

 CFLAGS="-Wall -Werror-implicit-function-declaration -fno-common -Wextra -Wunused" \
 CXXFLAGS="-Wall"  \
 ./configure \
  --prefix=/usr/local \
  --with-gdal --with-proj --with-proj-share=/usr/share \
  --with-glw --with-nls --with-readline \
  --with-cxx --enable-largefile \
  --with-freetype --with-freetype-includes=/usr/include/freetype2 \
  --with-sqlite --with-cairo --with-python=/usr/bin/python-config \
  --with-wxwidgets --with-geos \
  --with-netcdf=/usr/bin/nc-config --with-odbc=yes \
  --with-openmp=yes --with-pthread=no

Compile:

 make -j2

Install:

 make install

Ubuntu

There is a dedicated page on how to Compile the GRASS GIS source code & install it in Ubuntu.

Linux Mint

The detailed compilation guide for Ubuntu may just work. However, here is a short guide for Mint:

# Linux Mint 21+

# be sure to have an updated system
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

# installation of required libraries and compile tools
# recommended to give Python3 precedence over Python2 (which is end-of-life since 2019)
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python python /usr/bin/python3 1

# install compiler tools and further dependencies (tested with Linux Mint 21)
# this is a single command, please copy-paste it entirely into the terminal:
sudo apt-get install \
  build-essential \
  flex make bison gcc libgcc1 g++ cmake ccache \
  libproj-dev proj-data proj-bin \
  libgeos-dev \
  libgdal-dev python3-gdal gdal-bin \
  python3 python3-dev \
  python3-opengl \
  python3-wxgtk4.0 \
  python3-dateutil libgsl-dev python3-numpy \
  wx3.0-headers wx-common libwxgtk3.0-gtk3-dev libwxbase3.0-dev \
  libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev gettext \
  libbz2-dev libzstd-dev libfreetype6-dev \
  libtiff5-dev libpnglite-dev libcairo2 libcairo2-dev \
  sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev libpq-dev \
  libfftw3-3 libfftw3-dev \
  libboost-thread-dev libboost-program-options-dev \
  subversion \
  checkinstall \
  libglu1-mesa-dev libxmu-dev \
  ghostscript wget -y

GUI - update wxpython:

pip3 install -U -f https://extras.wxpython.org/wxPython4/extras/linux/gtk3/ubuntu-22.04 wxPython

Next steps:

• create a subdirectory in your HOME tree for storing the GRASS GIS source code (and later compilation)
• get source code, one of the two options:
  • a) download GRASS GIS source code weekly snapshot (e.g. take the "8.x.git snapshot"), or
    • unpack source code
  • b) current source code from GitHub:
    • git clone https://github.com/OSGeo/grass.git
• change into the source code directory

# in the source code directory, "configure" the source code to prepare for compilation:
./configure \
  --with-cxx \
  --enable-largefile \
  --with-proj-share=/usr/share/proj \
  --with-gdal=/usr/bin/gdal-config \
  --with-geos \
  --with-sqlite \
  --with-nls \
  --with-zstd \
  --with-cairo --with-cairo-ldflags=-lfontconfig \
  --with-freetype=yes --with-freetype-includes="/usr/include/freetype2/" \
  --with-fftw \
  --with-opengl-libs=/usr/include/GL \
  --without-postgres \
  --without-pdal \
  --without-netcdf \
  --without-mysql \
  --without-odbc \
  --without-openmp

# compile GRASS GIS
make -j2

# install compiled GRASS GIS on system
sudo make install

# use GRASS GIS! Start on command line
grass

Mandriva

Installation of dependencies (urpmi will ask you a few more):

Mandriva 2009: (take out the '64' everywhere if you are on 32bit)

 # as root
   urpmi flex bison zlib-devel tiff-devel png-devel tcl-devel tk-devel sqlite3-devel \
         mesagl1-devel mesaglu1-devel lib64xmu6-devel gcc-c++ gettext \
         lib64wxgtk2.8 lib64wxgtk2.8-devel lib64wxgtkgl2.8 wxgtk2.8 \
         lib64wxPythonGTK2.8 lib64wxPythonGTK2.8-devel wxPythonGTK wxPythonGTK-wxversion
   exit

Mandriva 2010: (take out the '64' everywhere if you are on 32bit) - see also SPEC file

 # as root
   # installation of PROJ and GDAL
   urpmi proj proj-devel gdal gdal-devel gcc-gfortran lib64openssl1.0.0 \
         lib64openssl1.0.0-devel postgresql8.4-devel lib64pq8.4

   # installation of compilation environment
   urpmi flex bison zlib-devel tiff-devel png-devel tcl-devel tk-devel sqlite3-devel \
         lib64mesagl1-devel lib64mesaglu1-devel lib64xmu6-devel gcc-c++ gettext \
         lib64wxgtk2.8 lib64wxgtk2.8-devel lib64wxgtkgl2.8 wxgtk2.8 \
         lib64wxPythonGTK2.8 lib64wxPythonGTK2.8-devel wxPythonGTK wxPythonGTK-wxversion
   exit

Then, to configure GRASS, run (64 bit stuff optional of course):

 #  as user
 ./configure \
   --enable-64bit --with-libs=/usr/lib64 \
   --with-cxx \
   --with-gdal=/usr/local/bin/gdal-config \
   --with-sqlite \
   --with-nls \
   --with-python \
   --with-wxwidgets=/usr/lib/wxPython/bin/wx-config \
   --with-fftw \
   --with-ffmpeg --with-ffmpeg-includes="/usr/include/libav* /usr/include/libpostproc /usr/include/libswscale" \
   --with-motif \
   --with-mysql --with-mysql-includes=/usr/include/mysql --with-mysql-libs=/usr/lib64 \
   --with-freetype --with-freetype-includes=/usr/include/freetype2 \
   --enable-largefile

  # compilation (use -j2 ior -j4 parameter on multi-core CPUs to accelerate):   
   make

Installation:

   su
   # this will install into /usr/local/
   make install
   exit

Enterprise Linux

Enterprise Linux (EL) and derivatives (that is, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS and Scientific Linux) is a popular and robust platform for servers and computing-heavy workstations, and is therefore a good fit for GIS specific requirements.

See: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Enterprise_Linux_GIS

Scientific Linux

See Centos

CentOS

You first need to add the EPEL repository for PROJ.4 and GDAL, see here

Preparation Centos 5 (old):

 yum install epel-release

 # Note: CentOS 5 comes with Python 2.4 which lacks python-config, hence two extra tweaks are needed.
 yum install flex bison zlib-devel tcl-devel tk-devel gcc-c++ gettext \
             libtiff-devel libpng-devel sqlite-devel \
             mesa-libGL-devel mesa-libGLU-devel mesa-libGLw-devel \
             mesa-libOSMesa-devel libXmu-devel python-devel gtk2-devel\
             ncurses-devel postgresql-devel make

Preparation Centos 6 | Scientific Linux 6:

 yum install epel-release

 yum install flex bison make zlib-devel gcc-c++ gettext \
             sqlite-devel mesa-libGL-devel mesa-libGLU-devel \
             libXmu-devel libX11-devel fftw-devel libtiff-devel \
             lesstif-devel python-devel numpy wxPython wxGTK-devel \
             proj proj-devel proj-epsg proj-nad libxml2 gdal gdal-devel geos geos-devel \
             python-dateutil python-imaging python-matplotlib python-argparse
 # only GRASS GIS 6: install also tcl-devel tk-devel

Preparation Centos 7 | Scientific Linux 7:

 yum install epel-release

 yum install flex bison make zlib-devel gcc-c++ gettext \
             sqlite-devel mesa-libGL-devel mesa-libGLU-devel \
             libXmu-devel libX11-devel fftw-devel libtiff-devel \
             lesstif-devel python-devel numpy wxPython wxGTK-devel \
             proj proj-devel proj-epsg proj-nad libxml2 gdal gdal-devel geos geos-devel \
             netcdf netcdf-devel blas-devel lapack-devel atlas-devel \
             python-dateutil python-imaging python-matplotlib python-sphinx \
             doxygen subversion

Preparation Centos 8 | Scientific Linux 8:

 dnf install epel-release

 dnf install flex bison make zlib-devel gcc-c++ gettext \
             fftw-devel libtiff-devel sqlite-devel \
             proj proj-devel proj-datumgrid libxml2 \
             geos geos-devel git \
             netcdf netcdf-devel atlas-devel \
             blas-devel lapack-devel libpq-devel \
             python3-devel python3-numpy \
             python3-dateutil python3-imaging python3-matplotlib \
             gdal gdal-libs gdal-python-tools python3-gdal gdal-devel \
             wxGTK3-devel mesa-libGL-devel mesa-libGLU-devel \
             libXmu-devel libX11-devel

GRASS GIS 7 compilation and installation

Download source code (e.g., --> "Download latest 7.8 code)" and configure GRASS 7 (suggestion: save this as script):

./configure \
 --with-cxx \
 --enable-largefile \
 --with-proj --with-proj-share=/usr/share/proj \
 --with-gdal=/usr/bin/gdal-config \
 --with-sqlite \
 --with-python \
 --with-cairo --with-cairo-ldflags=-lfontconfig \
 --with-freetype --with-freetype-includes=/usr/include/freetype2 \
 --with-wxwidgets=/usr/bin/wx-config \
 --with-openmp \
 --with-blas --with-blas-includes=/usr/include/atlas-x86_64-base/ \
 --with-lapack --with-lapack-includes=/usr/include/atlas-x86_64-base/ \
 --with-fftw \
 --with-geos \
 --with-netcdf \
 --without-ffmpeg \
 --without-mysql \
 --without-postgres \
 --without-odbc \
 --without-fftw

Compile:

   make

or on a multicore system (number depends of available cores):

   make -j4

For a system wide installation, run as root user:

   make install

OR simply run it directly from the source code directory (substitute ARCH with i686 or x86_64):

   bin.$ARCH/grass78 -gui

In this case, for convenience, add it to the search path:

   mkdir $HOME/bin
   cd $HOME/bin
   # example:
   ln -s $HOME/software/grass78_release/bin.x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/grass78 .

Now use it subsequently with

   grass78 -gui

Installation grass78 on a HPC system with Centos 7 and no root privileges: This assumes that python3, fftw, proj, gdal and geos are available on the HPC system, either as modules or as installed software.

Download and prepare some dependencies (freetypes and zstd)

   mkdir -p $HOME/grass/freetypes
   cd $HOME/grass/freetypes
   wget path/to/freetype-2.9.1.tar.gz
   tar -xf freetype-2.9.1.tar.gz

   mkdir $HOME/grass/zstd
   cd mkdir $HOME/grass/zstd
   wget path/to/v1.4.4/zstd-1.4.4.tar.gz
   tar -xf zstd-1.4.4.tar.gz
   make install PREFIX=./

Add the ZSTD path to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH

   tee -a $HOME/.bashrc > /dev/null << EOT
   export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$HOME/grass/zstd/zstd-1.4.4/lib
   EOT

The configure command could look like this

   ./configure \
       -prefix=$HOME/grass \
       --enable-64bit --with-fftw-includes=/path/to/fftw/include/ \
       --with-fftw-libs=/path/to/fftw/lib/ \
       --with-freetype-includes=$HOME/grass/freetypes/freetype-2.9.1/include/ \
       --with-netcdf --with-geos --with-blas --with-lapack --with-postgres \
       --with-zstd-includes=$HOME/grass/zstd/zstd-1.4.4/lib/ \
       --with-zstd-libs=$HOME/grass/zstd/zstd-1.4.4/lib/ \
       --with-gdal=/path/to/gdal-config  # This could be the path to a gdal version compiled from source

Finally usual:

   make; make install

Gentoo

 ./configure \
   --with-freetype=yes --with-freetype-includes="/usr/include/freetype2/"

See also http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sci-geosciences/grass

Fedora

GRASS GIS 8 on Fedora

Preparation for the compilation of GRASS GIS 8+ source code (F36+):

 dnf install gcc gcc-c++ bison flex ncurses-devel gettext proj-devel \
             gdal gdal-devel sqlite-devel xml2 mesa-libGL-devel cairo-devel \
             fftw-devel mesa-libGLU-devel libXmu-devel libX11-devel geos geos-devel \
             libtiff-devel python3-devel numpy wxGTK3-devel git subversion \
             python3-dateutil python3-imaging python3-matplotlib-wx doxygen python3-sphinx \
             libzstd-devel libzstd python3-six python3-numpy python3-wxpython4 \
             proj-data PDAL-devel PDAL-libs

 # optionally also:  netcdf-devel postgresql-devel 
 #                   atlas-devel lapack-devel lapack-devel 
 #                   laszip laszip-devel
 #                   proj-data-at proj-data-au proj-data-be ...

Note 1: the optional ffmpeg-devel comes from the rpmfusion-free repository (configuration).

Download and unpack the source code:

• GRASS GIS 8: weekly snapshot - GitHub repository

Configure: This is an example how to configure the source code on a Fedora system:

 ./configure \
  --with-cxx \
  --with-gdal=/usr/bin/gdal-config \
  --with-proj --with-proj-share=/usr/share/proj \
  --with-geos \
  --with-pdal \
  --with-sqlite \
  --with-nls \
  --with-wxwidgets=/usr/bin/wx-config \
  --with-fftw \
  --with-cairo --with-cairo-ldflags=-lfontconfig \
  --with-freetype --with-freetype-includes=/usr/include/freetype2 \
  --enable-largefile \
  --without-odbc

Extra 1: If you also want FFMPEG support - it requires 'dnf install fftw-devel' from the rpmfusion-free repository. Then add to the configuration lines above:

    --with-ffmpeg --with-ffmpeg-includes="/usr/include/ffmpeg /usr/include/ffmpeg/libav* /usr/include/ffmpeg/libpostproc /usr/include/ffmpeg/libswscale" \

Extra 2: For LAPACK/BLAS support (addons i.spec.unmix, v.kriging etc), install "dnf install lapack lapack-devel blas blas-devel atlas atlas-devel". Then add to the configuration lines above:

 --with-blas --with-blas-includes=/usr/include/atlas-x86_64-base/ \
 --with-lapack --with-lapack-includes=/usr/include/atlas-x86_64-base/ \

Extra 3: For ZSTD support (Zstandard compression algorithm), first install "dnf install libzstd libzstd-devel zstd". After installing the zstd related packages, add to the configuration lines above:

 --with-zstd \

Finally compile the configured source code:

   make
  or on multicore (number depends of available cores):
   make -j4
  and
   make install # requires root permissions unless you become owner of /usr/local/

Then use GRASS GIS 8 and enjoy!

openSUSE

To build GRASS on openSUSE:

Application:Geo repo to be added (see Install package Application:Geo

# example for Leap 42 version:
sudo zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Application:Geo/openSUSE_Leap_42.3/Application:Geo.repo
sudo zypper refresh

RPM packages to be installed:

 sudo zypper install bison flex freetype2-devel fftw3-devel gcc-c++ \
   libgdal-devel libgeos-devel libjpeg-devel libpng-devel libtiff-devel \
   man proj libproj-devel readline-devel netcdf-devel ncurses-devel \
   mysql-devel postgresql-devel sqlite-devel unixODBC-devel \
   tcl-devel tk-devel xorg-x11-Mesa-devel libXmu-devel \
   python-numpy python-dateutil python-devel python-opengl \
   python-wxWidgets python-xml python-dateutil wxWidgets-devel \
   zlib-devel doxygen python-sphinx

Source code configuration:

 ./configure \
 	--enable-largefile \
	--with-proj-share=/usr/share/proj \
	--with-cxx \
	--with-lapack=yes \
	--with-x \
	--with-motif \
	--with-gdal=/usr/bin/gdal-config \
	--with-postgres --with-postgres-includes=/usr/include/pgsql \
	--with-mysql --with-mysql-includes=/usr/include/mysql \
	--with-fftw \
	--with-readline \
	--with-netcdf \
	--with-curses \
	--with-geos \
	--with-nls \
	--with-sqlite \
	--with-freetype \
	--with-freetype-includes=/usr/include/freetype2 \
	--with-wxwidgets \
	--with-odbc \
	--with-python

Then compile with "make [-j2]".

RPM SPEC files

• OpenSuSe
• Fedora
• ...

Zaurus

... see here for instructions

macOS

Compiling GRASS GIS for macOS is not fundamentally different from for other *nix systems. It is on the contrary quite similar, but what differ is the lack of a default package management system for software GRASS GIS depends on. This leaves the mac user to either: (1) compile the dependencies one-by-one; (2) using the frameworks generously shared by William Kyngesburye; (3) compiling with one of the third-party package management systems avaliable; or (4) a combination thereof.

If you are interested in installing a precompiled version, please check out the official download site.

To date, maybe the easiest way to compile for Mac is by using GRASS GIS app build script which is based on the instructions below for building using Anaconda. It will install dependencies, package and install an app bundle with just a command in Terminal.

Compilation and installation

For more up-to-date instructions please read:

• Compiling on macOS using Anaconda
• Compiling on macOS using Homebrew
• Compiling on macOS using MacPorts

Legacy instructions

The following compilation and installation instructions are rather outdated as a whole. They do, however, contain parts and snippets that still may be very instructive and useful.

• Compiling on MacOSX
• Compiling on MacOSX using Fink
• build scripts for dependencies

Troubleshooting:

• solving errors at starting GRASS GIS: MacOSX GRASS errors

FreeBSD / NetBSD

The recommended compiler tools are GCC, GNU make, GNU coreutils (for install), and flex. All are available through the respective package managing tools (pkg_add for FreeBSD and pkgin install for NetBSD) and for recent *BSD versions most likely installed by default.

GRASS 6.x and GRASS 7 should compile on FreeBSD 8.0 or later and NetBSD 5.0 or later (maybe also on updated NetBSD 4.x).

It is highly recommended to install GDAL/OGR and PROJ4 first. These libraries and tools are available as ports for FreeBSD and packages for NetBSD.

Optional functionality is listed with ./configure --help, and related libraries and tools might need to be installed first.

You then may need to edit include/Make/Platform.make and set

ICONVLIB            = -liconv

Solaris

• 2008 Oct 15: see this post on the grass mailing list

11 SPARC/i86pc

The recommended compiler tools are GCC, GNU make, GNU coreutils (for install), and flex. All are available through the Solaris package manager.

Most dependencies are available through the Solaris package manager. GDAL and proj4 can either be compiled from source or installed e.g. from OpenCSW. If packages are installed from OpenCSW, the linker flags need to be set with

     LDFLAGS="-Wl,-R/opt/csw/lib -L/opt/csw/lib -Wl,-R/opt/csw/gxx/lib -L/opt/csw/gxx/lib"

See also the OpenCSW documentation.

10 SPARC/i86pc

• get gcc compiler and tools. There are several sources: Solaris Companion CD (SFW pkg, installs in /opt/sfw/), Blastwave ([1], CSW pkg, installs in /opt/csw/) or Sunfreeware ([2], SMC pkg, installs in /usr/local/).

Needed Packages from Sunfreeware: SMCbinut, SMCbison, SMCcoreu, SMCfindu, SMCflex, SMCgawk, SMCgcc, SMCgrep, SMCgzip, SMCless, SMClibt, SMClicon, SMCmake, SMCncurs, SMCproj, SMCsed, SMCtar, SMCtcl, SMCtiff, SMCtk, SMCunzip, SMCzlib.

• compile and install fftw-library ([3]). You need to re-compile the library with:

     ./configure --with-pic --enable-shared; make ; make install. 

The pre-built packages don't work.

• compile and install gdal library (see documentation of gdal, [4]).

• compile and install any additional libraries (e. g. GEOS, [5]).

• set compiler flags and path. e. g.:

     # on ultra-sparc machine:
     CFLAGS="-O3 -mcpu=v9"
     CXXFLAGS="-O3 -mcpu=v9"
     PATH="/usr/local/bin:/opt/sfw/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin"
     export CFLAGS CXXFLAGS PATH

Path has to be changed for the packages (Sunfreeware: /usr/local/bin, Solaris Companion: /opt/sfw/bin, Blastwave: /opt/csw/bin).

• Next configure, e. g.:

     ./configure --with-postgres-includes=/usr/include/pgsql/ \
     --with-postgres-libs=/usr/lib --with-postgres=yes \
     --with-includes=/usr/local/include/ncurses

If you use n(ew)curses, you have to include the path /usr/local/include/ncurses.

then:

     make
     su
     make install

If the shared libraries are not found at runtime of the modules, use 'crle' to add the paths of the libraries for the dynamic linker, e. g. as root:

     crle -l /lib:/usr/lib:/usr/local/lib:/opt/sfw/lib:/usr/X11/lib

Be careful not to omit a library path, the system may be unusable if you forget the /lib path.

AIX

A recent GNU make (>= 3.81) and GNU coreutils are required. These are available with the IBM AIX toolbox or through third-party AIX software repositories, e.g. bullfreeware and perzl.org. Note that 'make' does not work, only 'gmake' works.

General instructions to compile on AIX are e.g. here

On AIX, compilation results by default in 32 bit applications and static libraries. The IBM documentation explains how to build 64 bit applications and shared libraries with GCC.

GRASS 6: Using the IBM xlc compiler:

• see this mailing list thread

Mike wrote in 2009:

After attempting all the suggestions, I finally used --disable-shared on the configure command, and all but a handful of modules successfully compiled. I was able to individually address the ones that failed through Makefile edits and several small source code/header file edits.

The environment variables and configure command that worked were:

# xlc compiler:
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/opt/freeware/bin:$PATH
export OBJECT_MODE=64
export LIBICONV=/opt/freeware
export CC="xlc_r -q64"
export CFLAGS="-O -qstrict"
export CXX="xlC_r -q64"
export CXXFLAGS="-O -qstrict"
export AR="ar -X64"
export F77="xlf_r -q64"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/afs/isis/pkg/libpng/include -I/usr/local/include -I$LIBICONV/include -I/usr/lpp/X11/include/X11"
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib -L$LIBICONV/lib -L/usr/lib -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lc"

./configure --prefix=/afs/isis/pkg/grass-6.4.0 \
  --enable-64bit \
  --disable-shared \
  --with-includes="/usr/include/fontconfig /usr/include/X11 /usr/include/X11/Xft /usr/include/X11/ext" \
  --x-includes=/usr/include/X11 \
  --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib \
  --with-fftw-includes=/afs/isis/pkg/fftw-3.2.2/include \
  --with-fftw-libs=/afs/isis/pkg/fftw-3.2.2/lib \
  --with-gdal=/afs/isis/pkg/gdal/bin/gdal-config \
  --with-proj-includes=/afs/isis/pkg/proj/include \
  --with-proj-libs=/afs/isis/pkg/proj/lib \
  --with-proj-share=/afs/isis/pkg/proj/share/proj \
  --with-tcltk-includes=/usr/local/include \
  --with-tcltk-libs=/usr/local/lib \
  --with-opengl-includes=/usr/include/GL

GRASS 7: Using the IBM xlc compiler:

Get and install (in this order):

• GNU tar
• GNU make (>= 3.81)
• SQLite
• PROJ.4 (for ./configure parameters, see here)
• GDAL (for ./configure parameters, see here)
• GRASS GIS 7

The environment variables and configure command that worked:

## AIX 5.x

export LIBPATH=/opt/freeware/lib64:/opt/freeware/lib
# make 'ar' happy
export OBJECT_MODE=64

PREFIX=$HOME/private/bin
./configure \
  --prefix=$PREFIX \
  --disable-shared \
  --enable-largefile \
  --with-cxx \
  --with-proj-includes=$PREFIX/include/ \
  --with-proj-libs=$PREFIX/lib/ \
  --with-proj-share=$PREFIX/share/proj/ \
  --with-sqlite \
  --with-sqlite-includes=$PREFIX/include/ \
  --with-sqlite-libs=$PREFIX/lib/ \
  --with-tiff=no \
  --with-png=no \
  --with-fftw=no \
  --with-cairo=no \
  --with-freetype=no

GRASS 7: Using the GNU gcc compiler:

Get and install (in this order):

• if needed, GNU tar
• if needed (the name is often 'gmake' and not 'make') GNU make (>= 3.81)
• SQLite
• PROJ.4 (for ./configure parameters, see here)
• GDAL (for ./configure parameters, see here)
• GRASS GIS 7

The environment variables and configure command that worked for AIX 5.x:

## AIX 5.x

export LIBPATH=/opt/freeware/lib64:/opt/freeware/lib
# make 'ar' happy
export OBJECT_MODE=64

PREFIX=$HOME/private/bin
CFLAGS='-ansi -D_ALL_SOURCE=1 -D_POSIX_SOURCE=1 -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L -Dinline=' ./configure \
  --prefix=$PREFIX \
  --disable-shared \
  --enable-largefile \
  --with-cxx \
  --with-proj-includes=$PREFIX/include/ \
  --with-proj-libs=$PREFIX/lib/ \
  --with-proj-share=$PREFIX/share/proj/ \
  --with-sqlite \
  --with-sqlite-includes=$PREFIX/include/ \
  --with-sqlite-libs=$PREFIX/lib/ \
  --with-tiff=no \
  --with-png=no \
  --with-fftw=no \
  --with-cairo=no \
  --with-freetype=no

The environment variables and configure command that worked for AIX 7.x:

## AIX 7.x
export CC="gcc"
export CXX="g++"
PREFIX=$HOME/bin

LDFLAGS="-Wl,-bsvr4,-R,/opt/freeware/lib -L/opt/freeware/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/freeware/include" ./configure \
  --prefix=$PREFIX \
  --enable-largefile \
  --enable-shared \
  --with-includes=/opt/freeware/include --with-libs=/opt/freeware/lib \
  --with-cxx \
  --with-proj-includes=$PREFIX/include/ \
  --with-proj-libs=$PREFIX/lib/ \
  --with-proj-share=$PREFIX/share/proj/ \
  --with-gdal=$PREFIX/bin/gdal-config \
  --with-sqlite \
  --with-sqlite-libs=$PREFIX/lib --with-sqlite-includes=$PREFIX/include \
  --with-png=no \
  --with-tiff=no \
  --with-fftw=no \
  --with-cairo=no \
  --with-opengl=no \
  --with-freetype=no

MS-Windows

MS-Windows/Cygwin

• See the Cygwin wiki pages

MS-Windows/native

Compile

• GRASS Windows Native Binary Building Guide (GRASS 6.4.x + 7.x)
• GRASS Windows Native Binary Building Guide (GRASS 6.3.x)
• See/adapt idea for unattended install of QGIS (et al) from OSGeo4W from the QuantumGIS Blog.

See also WinGRASS Current Status for latest updates.

Common problems and solutions

During compilation, error can occur if certain packages are not installed. Here a list of problems with solution:

• error: X11/Xlib.h: No such file or directory
  • this suggests that you don't have the X headers installed
  • Solution: Install the libx11-dev package

• error: g.list: error while loading shared libraries: libgdal1.6.0.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
  • this error appears in the shell right after the user clicks GUI's "Start GRASS" button. The GUI shows an error about geographic extent and gets closed afterwards.
  • It happens when you launch bin.i686 executable on 64bit system. Be careful and choose the right architecture.

• error: lib/python/ctypes
  • This error appears during the compilation: free(): invalid pointer Aborted (core dumped)
  • It happens when you have multiple libproj versions on your system (check it with command ldd PATH_TO_GRASS_INSTALL/lib/libgrass_gproj.so | grep proj - when this is not your problem, you should obtain exactly one result)
  • Solution: Try to reinstall libproj-dev and proj-data

Static compilation

In order to get static rather than dynamically linked binaries, configure like this:

 ./configure --disable-shared --enable-static

This will however break the wxGUI and GRASS 7 completely because "ctypes" wants to link against shared libs, or there is something in the static libs that "ctypes" does not like.

Optimization

GCC and other compilers support optimization

If you would like to set compiler optimisations, for a possibly faster binary, type (don't enter a ";" anywhere):

       CFLAGS=-O ./configure

or,

       setenv CFLAGS -O
       ./configure

whichever works on your shell. Use -O2 instead of -O if your compiler supports this (note: O is the letter, not zero). Using the "gcc" compiler, you can also specify processor specific flags (examples, please suggest better settings to us):

 CFLAGS="-mcpu=athlon -O2" # AMD Athlon processor with code optimisations
 CFLAGS="-march=amdfam10"  # AMD Phenom II X4 64bit processor with gcc >=4.3
 CFLAGS="-mcpu=pentium"    # Intel Pentium processor
 CFLAGS="-mcpu=pentium4"   # Intel Pentium4 processor
 CFLAGS="-O2 -msse -msse2 -mfpmath=sse -minline-all-stringops" # Intel XEON 64bit processor
 CFLAGS="-mtune=nocona -m64 -minline-all-stringops"            # Intel Pentium 64bit processor

To find out optional CFLAGS for your platform, enter:

 gcc -dumpspecs

See also: http://gcc.gnu.org/

A real fast GRASS version (and small binaries) will be created with LDFLAGS set to "stripping" (but this disables debugging):

 CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=<cpu_see_above> -Wall" LDFLAGS="-s" ./configure

Configure options and their meanings

For configure there are many options and some GRASS modules are built only if some options are set. Here are listed common configuration options with short explanation.

• --prefix=/path - Sets path where GRASS will be installed. GRASS will reside in /path/grass-version.
• --enable-largefile - Enables large (>2Gb on 32bit systems) support. For current large file support status look at Large File Support page.
• --with-cxx - Enables compilation of C++ code. Required for r.terraflow module.
• --with-readline - Enables readline support. If readline is enabled, you can use its history/editing facilities when entering r.mapcalc expressions on stdin.
• --with-glw - Enables GLw support. The GLw library provides OpenGL "canvas" widgets for Athena and Motif.

That switch is unnecessary for normal compilation. It's only
required for r3.showdspf, which isn't normally built; if you 
want it, you have build it manually 
(e.g. "make -C raster3d/r3.showdspf").
As similar functionality is now provided by NVIZ, r3.showdspf
is deprecated.
r3.showdspf uses the Motif widget (so you also need a 
Motif library, e.g. Lesstif or OpenMotif).
Glynn Clements at GRASS-user mailing list

Parallelized compilation on multi-core CPUs

You can dramatically accelerate the compilation of the GRASS code with the -j flag of "make" if you have a multi-core CPU system. This determines the maximum number of jobs to have running at once, so cores don't have to sit idle waiting for jobs on other cores to complete. A good rule of thumb for this value is number_of_cores * 1.5, but note that setting any higher than the actual number of cores will only affect the timing slightly. For example, on a dual-core processor:

 make -j 4

GRASS-GDAL plugin

• see Compile and install GRASS and QGIS with GDAL/OGR Plugin

Addons

Please note that the installation of Addons can be easily done with the g.extension manager. The compile instructions below are aiming at own development.

Compiled modules

This is the general way which works for C modules as well as scripts (Python or Shell/Bash modules) which has HTML documentation.

Requirements:

Either:

• a binary GRASS package, or
• source code which has been prepared with:

   ./configure [opionally flags]
   make libs

Each of the addon modules should come with a Makefile. To compile it, just run:

   make MODULE_TOPDIR=/path/to/grass64/

Note that the /path/to/grass64 has to be absolute, not relative.

If using Bash it may be useful to set that up as an alias:

   alias gmake64='make MODULE_TOPDIR=/path/to/grass64/'

Installation (perhaps requires "sudo"):

   make MODULE_TOPDIR=/path/to/grass64/ install

Note: Compiled addons may require a re-compilation if you changed/updated your GRASS standard binaries.

If binary comes with a -dev package

(work in progress, this text states how it eventually will be :) Nowadays one does not need to the source code, nor compiling GRASS by oneself to be able to add add-ons. On Debian, you can just install the grass-dev package and then run:

make MODULE_TOPDIR=/usr/lib/grass64/ INST_DIR=/usr/lib/grass64/

The grass-dev package essentially provides GRASS's include header files and Make configuration files.

Scripts

If the addon module is a script, it is sufficient to copy it into the (GRASS binaries) path somewhere. Alternatively, install addons into a separate GRASS addons binaries/scripts directory which is easier to maintain. It avoids getting clobbered every time you reinstall GRASS. To use these separately stored scripts, set and export the GRASS_ADDON_PATH environment variable before starting GRASS and it will automatically be added to the module search path (see the variables help page). To simplify this, do for example:

# add in $HOME/.bashrc:
GRASS_ADDON_PATH=/usr/local/grass/addons/
export GRASS_ADDON_PATH

Make sure that the script is executable, then just call it in GRASS typing the filename. Python scripts need to be called writing the extension as well, like:

GRASS 6.5.svn (spearfish60):~ > v.krige.py