Compiling on Linux and Mac OS X
These instructions are inteded to help users to build Avogadro from the latest code. Be aware that Avogadro may fail to build or work properly at any given time when built using the instructions below.
For the adventurous, there are also Windows Visual Studio 2008 instructions that may or may not work.
Generally, users should first try the binary installers or packages available on the download page, made using a released version of Avogadro.
Contents
Dependencies
It is likely that Subversion, Git, CMake and Qt4 will be available from your distribution's repositories, or in binary form on the Mac.
There are two different ways to install Avogadro, depending on your needs and your user privileges.
If you have superuser rights and want to provide Avogadro to all users on your computer, choose Method A to install Avogadro globally (to /usr/local).
If you don't have superuser rights or you don't want to install files to locations outside your home directory or you're the only user of Avogadro, choose Method B to install Avogadro into your home directory.
Method A: Install Avogadro for all users
Installing Eigen
svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/kdesupport/eigen2
cd eigen2
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
sudo make install
Building Open Babel
Avogadro makes heavy use of code and features from the Open Babel chemistry toolbox. To ensure you have the latest Open Babel code you should build it from the code repository. It is sufficient to use OpenBabel 2.2.0 or more recent:
svn co https://openbabel.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/openbabel/openbabel/trunk openbabel
cd openbabel
./configure
make
make install # must be run as root or with sudo
Building Avogadro
Avogadro's version control system is now Git, with hosting provided by GitHub. If you would rather not install Git it is possible to download a tar or zip file containing the latest sources from here by clicking on the download link. Generally you will want to clone the git repository,
git clone git://github.com/cryos/avogadro.git
cd avogadro
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j3
sudo make install
Running
avogadro
On Mac OS X Avogadro will be in your Applications folder.
Method B: Install Avogadro into your home diretory
These steps are designed to allow you build Avogadro without having to install ('make install') the dependencies. For the purposes of this example we check out all entries to $HOME/src.
Setting up the Environment
By setting these environment variables Avogadro and OpenBabel will use special directories for runtime plugin loading. Avogadro will search the subdirectories colors, engines, extensions and tools for suitable plugins. The environment variable can point to multiple directories separated by colons, i.e. "$HOME/.avogadro/plugins:/usr/local/lib/avogadro".
Avogadro Plugins
export AVOGADRO_PLUGINS=$HOME/build/avogadro/libavogadro/src
Openbabel Formats
export BABEL_LIBDIR=$HOME/src/openbabel/src/formats/.libs:$HOME/src/openbabel/src/formats/xml/.libs
Openbabel Data Files
export BABEL_DATADIR=$HOME/src/openbabel/data
Installing Eigen
cd $HOME/src
svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/kdesupport/eigen2 eigen2
cd eigen2
mkdir $HOME/build/eigen2
cd $HOME/build/eigen2
cmake $HOME/src/eigen2
make -j3
Building Openbabel
This will build the TRUNK version of OpenBabel and allow you to use OpenBabel from the build directory rather than having to install it.
cd $HOME/src
svn co https://openbabel.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/openbabel/openbabel/branches/openbabel-2-2-x openbabel-2.2
cd openbabel-2.2
./configure
make -j3
Building Avogadro
cd $HOME/src
git clone git://github.com/cryos/avogadro.git
mkdir $HOME/build/avogadro
cd $HOME/build/avogadro
cmake \
-DOPENBABEL2_INCLUDE_DIR=$HOME/svn/openbabel/include \
-DOPENBABEL2_LIBRARIES=$HOME/svn/openbabel/src/.libs/libopenbabel.so \
-DOPENBABEL2_VERSION_MET=true $HOME/src/avogadro
make -j3
Running
$HOME/svn/avogadro/build/avogadro/src/avogadro
