This is a guide to building GPSD from a bare source tree. It includes guidance on how to cross-build the package.
Some hints for people building binary packages are in packaging/README.PACKAGERS.
(This file is marked up in asciidoc.)
You can download the most recent development snapshot from: https://gitlab.com/gpsd/gpsd/tree/master
You can download the latest gpsd tarball from: http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/gpsd/
Under Linux, assuming you have all your build prerequisites in place, these lines will do, and need to be run as root:
# become root, don't forget the dash ('-')
su -
tar -xzf gpsd-X.YY.tar.gz
cd gpsd-X.YY
scons && scons check
# if that passes, and you want udev support, not recommended:
scons udev-install
If you get any errors, you need to read the detailed instructions that follow.
If 'scons' fails, it is possible that your target system has moved to Python 3 and removed the program 'python'. Python.org says that if you have an installed Python, there should be a program in your path called 'python'. This is specified in PEP 394. This rule is not always followed. You can work around this by linking python3 to python like this
ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python
Both 'scons' and 'gpsd' work fine on either Python 2 or Python 3. Which python you have installed should be transparent to the user, if python is installed correctly.
Occasionally, builds may fail in completely bizarre ways due to a corrupted scons database. This seems to relate to ^Cing the build at an inopportune moment. If you suspect that, see "Reverting to a clean state" below and then try again.
Native-build success should be expected on the following platforms, provided you have the prerequisites listed in the next section installed:
-
Any desktop or server Linux distribution.
-
OpenWRT and derivatives such as CeroWRT.
-
FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
-
Android, using the official Google toolchain from the NDK
We consider failure to build and function on any of these platforms a serious bug; if you encounter it, please complain on the development list <[email protected]>.
Port difficulty to any system conforming to POSIX-2001.1 should be minimal.
A Cygwin port is in progress but not complete.
Cross-compilation to embedded Linuxes (in addition to the OpenWRT family) is usually fairly straightforward. An illustrative build transcript is included at the end of this file.
Necessary components for any build:
C compiler |
gpsd and client library are written in C |
scons |
for executing the build recipe |
Python2.x(x>=6) or 3.y(y>=2) |
for scons and some helper scripts |
On Gentoo, a basic build only requires this package:
dev-build/scons |
for executing the build recipe |
C99 conformance is required in the compiler. The C code depends on one C11 feature (supported by GCC, clang, and pretty much any C compiler that also speaks C++): anonymous unions. We could eliminate these, but the cost would be source-level interface breakage if we have to move certain structure members in and out of unions.
Some portions of the code using shared-memory segments are improved by the C11 stdatomic.h features for lockless concurrency. These are: the SHM export mode in shmexport.c, the code for writing clock corrections to NTP in ntpshmwrite.c, and the code for reading NTP corrections in ntpshmread.c. These features have been supported in GCC since 4.7 and clang since 3.1.
GPSD is normally built and tested with GCC. Do not compile with a version older than 4.1.1; there are several known issues with older versions, including (a) non-standards-conformant floating-point generation that messes up regression testing, (b) a compiler bug affecting RTCM2 code generation, (c) the option -Wno-missing-field-initializers is unavailable, leading to a flood of warnings (this is due to generated code and cannot be fixed).
clang produces a gpsd that passes all regression tests.
If you get a build failure including the text "error adding symbols: DSO missing from command line" or the complaint "ERROR: CC doesn’t work", you nay have tripped over stale data in the builder’s configuration cache. Clean the directory with "scons -c" then manually remove .sconsign.*dblite and retry your build.
You will need Python 2.x at minor version 6 or later or Python 3 at at minor version 3 or later.
While Python is required to build GPSD from source (the build uses some code generators in Python), it is not required to run the service daemon. In particular, you can cross-compile onto an embedded system without having to take Python with you.
scons finds the python used for scons separately from the python that should be used for the target. It seems to look for the target python as "python", which as above is supposed to exist per python norms. However, some packaging systems avoid a bare python, preferring to bind a program to a particular release as it is built. On systems without a "python" command, invoking scons as: scons target_python=python3.7 seems to help.
You will need both basic Python and (if your package system makes the distinction) the Python development package used for building C extensions. Usually these are called "python" and "python-dev". You will know you are missing the latter if your compilation fails because of a missing Python.h.
The xgps and xgpsspeed clients will only be installed if these Python extensions are installed:
python-gi |
Python bindings for gobject-introspection libraries |
python-gi-cairo |
Python bindings for Cairo toolkit under GI |
On Gentoo systems those packages are named:
dev-python/pygobject |
dev-python/pycairo |
The ubxtool and zerk clients will only be usable in direct-serial mode if this Python extension is installed:
pyserial |
Python Serial Port extension |
On Gentoo systems that package is named:
dev-python/pyserial |
The *gpsplot( client requires Matplotlib to do its job of creating dynamic plots.
On Gentoo systems that package is named:
dev-python/matplotlib |
You will need scons version 2.3.0 (from 2013-03-02) or later to build the code. (Note that there is no evidence of recent testing of scons older than about 3.1.)
Having the following optional components on your system will enable various additional capabilities and extensions:
C++ compiler |
allows building libgpsmm C++ wrapper for client library |
Qt 4.53+ |
allows building libQgpsmm C++ wrapper for client library |
(n)curses |
curses screen-painting library, used by cgps and gpsmon |
pps-tools |
adds support for the KPPS API, for improved timing |
libusb |
Userspace access to USB devices |
dbus |
D-Bus support |
If you have libusb-1.0.0 or later, the GPSD build will autodetect this and use it to discover Garmin USB GPSes, rather than groveling through /proc/bus/usb/devices (which has been deprecated by the Linux kernel team).
On Gentoo systems those packages are named:
dev-qt/qtcore |
Basic Qt |
dev-qt/qtnetwork |
Qt network components |
sys-libs/ncurses |
curses screen-painting library, used by cgps and gpsmon |
net-misc/pps-tools |
adds support for the KPPS API, for improved timing |
virtual/libusb |
Userspace access to USB devices |
sys-apps/dbus |
D-Bus |
Debian/Ubuntu, and Fedora/RHEL, derived systems often split packages into binary, and development packages. Raspbian is Debian derived. This does not apply to Gentoo derived systems.
These development packages usually have a "-dev" suffix. Installing the development package usually installs the binary package for you.
The development Debian/Ubuntu/Raspbian pacakages are:
libncurses5-dev |
curses screen-painting library, used by cgps and gpsmon |
libusb-1.0-0-dev |
userspace USB programming library development files |
libdbus-1-dev |
D-Bus Development package |
Newer Ubuntu (24 and up?) changed the ncurses version:
libncurses6-dev |
curses screen-painting library, used by cgps and gpsmon |
The development Fedora/RHEL packages are:
ncurses-devel |
curses screen-painting library, used by cgps and gpsmon |
You can build libQgpsmm if you have Qt (specifically QtCore and QtNetwork modules) version 4.5.3 or higher. You will also need a C++ compiler supported by Qt (tested on GCC 4.4.0/mingw on Windows and GCC 4.1.2 on linux). Please refer to Qt’s documentation at http://qt.nokia.com/doc/4.6/platform-specific.html for platform specific building documentation
Depending on how your distribution packages ncurses you may also require libtinfo5, a separate terminfo library.
On some older versions of Ubuntu (notably 11.10) there is a packaging defect that may cause your build to blow up in SCons. It’s a missing package info file for the tinfo library. To fix this, install the file packaging/tinfo.pc in /usr/lib/pkgconfig/tinfo.pc. 13.10 fixed this.
If your kernel provides the RFC 2783 KPPS (kernel PPS) API, gpsd will use that for extra accuracy. Many Linux distributions have a package called "pps-tools" that will install KPPS support and the timepps.h header file. We recommend you do that. If your kernel is built in the normal modular way, this package installation will suffice.
For building from the source tree, or if you change the man page source, Asciidoctor is to generate nroff -man source from asciidoc markup. The following packages are used in this process:
asciidoctor |
Documentation front end with light markup |
If both are present, then AsciiDoctor is preferred.
On Gentoo systems this packages is named:
dev-ruby/asciidoctor |
Documentation front end with light markup |
The build degrades gracefully in the absence of any of these. You should be able to tell from scons messages which extensions you will get.
Under Ubuntu and most other Debian-derived distributions, an easy way to pick up the prerequisites is: "apt-get build-dep gpsd". Note that your sources.list will need "deb-src" lines for this, not just "deb" lines.
If you are custom-building a Linux kernel for embedded deployment, you will need some subset of the following modules:
pl2303 |
Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port |
ftdi_sio |
FTDI 8U232AM / FT232 |
cypress_m8 |
M8/CY7C64013 |
cp210x |
Cygnal Integrated Products devices |
garmin_gps |
Garmin USB mice including GPS-18 |
cdc_am |
USB Communication Device Class Abstract Control Model interface |
pps-gpio |
For KPPS support on ARM systems |
pps-ldisc |
For KPPS support with RS-232 ports |
pps_parport |
For KPPS support with a parallel port |
These are listed in rough order of devices covered as of 2013; the PL23203 by itself accounts for over 70% of deployed USB mice. We recommend building with pl2303, ftdi_sio, cypress_m8, and cp210x.
We’ve received a bug report that suggests the Python test framework requires legacy PTY support (CONFIG_LEGACY_PTYS) from the Linux kernel. You should make sure you’re in the 'dialout' group in order to have permission to use these devices.
To build gpsd for your host platform from source, simply call 'scons' in a working-directory copy. (Cross-build is described in a later section.)
To clean the built files, run 'scons -c' or 'scons --clean'. Run 'rm -f .sconsign.*dblite' to clear the scons database. Doing both should return your working directory to a near pristine state as far as building is concerned. Some user created files may remain, and source code changes will not have been reverted..
When in doubt, restart with a clean copy of the source.
You can specify the installation prefix, as for an autotools build, by running "scons prefix=<installation_root>". The default value is "/usr/local". The environment variable DESTDIR also works in the usual way.
If your linker run fails with missing math symbols, see the FIXME comment relating to implicit_links in the scons recipe; you probably need to build with implicit_link=no. If this happens, please report your platform, ideally along with a way of identifying it from Python, to the GPSD maintainers.
After building, please run 'scons check' to test the correctness of the build. It is not necessary to install first. Python is required for regression tests. If any of the tests fail, you probably have a toolchain issue. The most common such problem is failures of strict C99 conformance in floating-point libraries.
Once you have verified that the code is working, "scons install" will install it in the system directories. "scons uninstall" will undo this. Note: because scons is a single-phase build system, this may recompile everything. If you want feature-configuration options, you need to specify them here.
To enable hotplugging of USB GPSes under Linux, you may do 'scons udev-install' to put the appropriate udev rules and wrapper files in place.
You will need php and php-gd installed to support the PHP web page generator included with the distribution. To install it, copy the file 'gpsd.php' to your HTML document directory. Then see the post-installation instructions in INSTALL.adoc for how to configure it.
Adding prefix=/usr/foo will cause scons to install to /usr/foo instead of the default /usr/local, much as --prefix=/usr/foo works with autoconf.
In addition, there are a number of other scons command-line variables that can be used to control the location of various install directories. Many of these, such as bindir — which unsurprisingly defaults to "bin" — are unlikely to be ever used. Generally, these can be set to absolute paths or relative paths. Relative paths are under prefix. See SConscript and search for "bindir" to see the list.
Some of these variables are typically used to adapt to differing layout conventions. For example, pkgsrc would use docdir=share/doc/gpsd as per-package documentation is placed in prefix/share/doc/PKGNAME, and mandir=man as man pages are in prefix/man rather than prefix/share/man.
The includedir= argument sets the location to which gpsd’s include files (gps.h, libgpsmm.h) are installed. So using prefix=/usr/foo and includedir=/usr/bar/include will install everything but includes in /usr/foo and put the includes in /usr/bar. This is highly unlikely to be desired, but given to illustrate the behavior.
The includedir=/usr/foo/include argument has no other effects; in particular it does add -I/usr/foo/include to compilation lines.
This section explains how to configure the build to find prerequisites. It can be skipped by those who find that the build succeeds.
Software that is needed to build gpsd may in general be in various locations. (While many GNU/Linux users doing a straightforward build will have all prerequisites in /usr, most other operating systems have additional software in other than /usr, and even on Linux one may wish to build a separate copy of gpsd with alternate versions of prerequisites.)
The build will invoke the compiler and linker, so that headers and libraries in the default compiler and linker search paths will be found without any additional configuration.
In addition, scons will use pkgconfig to find some prerequisites. These will be found if the pc files are in the default pkgconfig search path, and the resulting -I and -L flags added to the compile and link lines.
The gpsd scons build scripts also support passing in CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS via environment variables, similar to how these are used with autoconf and almost all other build systems. As an example, CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/foo/include will cause -I/usr/foo/include to be added to compilation lines.
A cheat sheet for building gpsd from git source on a freshly installed Gentoo. Perform these steps, in order, as root.
The '--noreplace' option to 'emerge' prevents reinstalling packages that are already installed.
# install the required build tools emerge --noreplace dev-build/scons dev-vcs/git # optional, to support the KPPS API, for improved timing emerge --noreplace net-misc/pps-tools # optional, for cgps and gpsmon emerge --noreplace sys-libs/ncurses # optional, for ubxtool and zerl serial port support emerge --noreplace dev-python/pyserial # optional, to support Garmin USB devices emerge --noreplace virtual/libusb # optional, to support Bluetooth GPS devices emerge --noreplace net-wireless/bluez # Skip the following optionals on a minimal system: # optional, to build man page and html pages emerge --noreplace dev-ruby/asciidoctor # Optionals for desktop (X) systems: # optional, for xgps and xgpsspeed emerge --noreplace dev-python/pygobject dev-python/pycairo # optional, for gpsplot emerge --noreplace dev-python/matplotlib # D-Bus support emerge --noreplace sys-apps/dbus # To build Qt compatible library. emerge --noreplace dev-qt/qtcore dev-qt/qtnetwork # "scons check" requires bc emerge --noreplace sys-devel/bc # prerequisites now installed # make a place to keep the source mkdir -p /usr/local/src/GPSD cd /usr/local/src/GPSD # grab a shallow clone of gpsd from git. git clone --depth 1 https://gitlab.com/gpsd/gpsd.git cd gpsd # clean the tree, just in case scons -c # build the project scons # check the results scons check # and install if it looks good scons install
gpsd will build, install and run on macOs. Install the Xcode application from the Apple store. Then install Homebrew (https://brew.sh/) to get all the stuff you need, like git, scons, python, etc.
As a normal user, install homebrew, then install scons and asciidoctor. Installing scons pulls in python3. Brew will become root as needed, so starting asd a normal user is just security theater.
$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)" $ brew install scons asciidoctor
Now you need to become root. Make a place for the gpsd source to live, use git to install it there, then go there. Build gpsd with "scons", then install it with "scons install"
# mkdir -p /usr/local/src/GPS # cd /usr/local/src/GPS # git clone https://gitlab.com/gpsd/gpsd.git # cd gpsd # scons && scons install
gpsd will build, install and run on OS X (osX). The easiest way to do so is to first install the MacPorts package. Follow their install procedure at: http://www.macports.org/install.php
Then use their port command to install scons. Optionally git if you want to access the development source. Optionally install asciidoctor to build the documentation.
# port install scons # port install git # port install asciidoctor
Currently the osX port does not work with Qt5. To see the build failure:
# port install qt5 # scons --config=force qt_versioned=5
If you have Qt5 installed, and want to avoid the build failure, build this way:
# scons --config=force qt=no
While running gpsd, or scons check, you may run out of shared memory segments. If so, you will see this error message:
gpsd:ERROR: shmat failed: Too many open files
By default OS X allows a very small number of shared segments. You can check your allowed maximum number of shared segments, then increase the maximum number, with these commands:
# sysctl kern.sysv.shmseg=8 kern.sysv.shmseg: 32 -> 8 # sysctl -a | fgrep shmseg kern.sysv.shmseg: 8 # sysctl kern.sysv.shmseg=16 kern.sysv.shmseg: 8 -> 16 # sysctl -a | fgrep shmseg kern.sysv.shmseg: 16
If you are using a USB based GPS you will likely need the Prolific PL2303 driver. You can find it here: http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/ShowProduct.aspx?p_id=229&pcid=41
gpsd will build, install and run on the Raspberry Pi (RasPi) and Pi 2 using Debian Jessie. Other distributions based on Debian (raspbian, etc) will work fine as well. The gpsd package in Debian Wheezy is known to be flaky, be sure to update to a new version of gpsd from source.
Before compiling gpsd from source, you will need to update your system as root. Switching to the latest Raspbian distribution (Buster) is strongly recommended.
# apt-get update # apt-get dist-upgrade # rpi-update # reboot
Multiple versions of gpsd can not co-exist on the same system. You need to ensure gpsd from a package is not on the system:
# apt purge gpsd
Then install the required packages:
# apt-get install scons libncurses5-dev python-dev pps-tools # apt-get install git-core
Git-core is required to build from a git repository. pps-tools is for PPS timing.
The rest of the installation is just as for any other source based install, as already described above.
The main difference between Bullseye and Buster (below) is that Python 2 is not in Bullseye by default. It is available. gpsd is Python 3 compatible, so that’s what we will use on Bullseye.
Multiple versions of gpsd can not co-exist on the same system. You need to ensure gpsd from a package is not on the system. Also check for and remove any libgps?? packages.
# dpkg-query -l libgps* gpsd* ..... # apt purge gpsd libgps28
Then update your system, and install the packages required by gpsd:
# apt-get update # apt-get dist-upgrade # reboot # apt-get install scons libncurses-dev python-dev pps-tools # apt-get install git-core # apt-get install build-essential manpages-dev pkg-config
If "apt-get install scons …" fails, check the file "/etc/apt/sources.list".
Git-core is required to build from a git repository. pps-tools is for PPS timing. Build-essential installs the compiler and associated tools. Manpages-dev is for the associated man pages. Pkg-config is a helper for scons.
Gtk3 is only required to run xgps and xgpsspeed. You do not need a local X11 server installed, but it still pulls in a lot of packages.
# apt-get install python-gi-dev # apt-get install libgtk-3-dev
Ubxtool and zerk may optionally use the pyserial module for direct connection to the GNSS receiver:
# apt-get install python3-serial
gpsd may optional connect to dbus with the libdbus package:
# apt-get install libdbus-1-dev
gpsplot uses matplotlib, which is in the package python3-matplotlib.
# apt install python3-matplotlib
Several programs written in Python (xgps, xgpsspeed, etc.) are installed locally. So if you intend to use them, set your PYTHONPATH. You may wish to add it to your shell’s log-in scripts to make it permanent. For more information on PYTHONPATH, see: https://docs.python.org/3/using/cmdline.html#envvar-PYTHONPATH
Something like this, but see the output from the "scons install" command and other scons commands.
# export PYTHONPATH=${PYTHONPATH}:/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages
Some very old Garmin USB devices need libusb:
# apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev
If you wish to build the documentation, be warned it pulls in a lot of packages. Build the documentation is a prerequisite to building the HTML files for the website (www/), and also to make a source tarball (scons dist). To install the tools to build the documentation:
apt-get install asciidoctor
The rest of the installation is just as for any other source based install:
# git clone https://gitlab.com/gpsd/gpsd.git # cd gpsd # scons -c && scons && scons check && scons install
These Buster instructions seem to also work for Devuan and Maemo Leste.
Multiple versions of gpsd can not co-exist on the same system. You need to ensure gpsd from a package is not on the system:
# apt purge gpsd libgps23
Then update your system, and install the packages required by gpsd:
# apt-get update # apt-get dist-upgrade # reboot # apt-get install scons libncurses-dev python-dev pps-tools # apt-get install git-core # apt-get install build-essential manpages-dev pkg-config
If "apt-get install scons" fails, check the file "/etc/apt/sources.list".
Git-core is required to build from a git repository. pps-tools is for PPS timing. Build-essential installs the compiler and associated tools. Manpages-dev is for the associated man pages. Pkg-config is a helper for scons.
Gtk3 is only required to run xgps and xgpsspeed. You do not need a local X11 server installed, but it still pulls in a lot of packages.
# apt-get install python-gi-dev python-cairo-dev # apt-get install python-gobject-2-dev libgtk-3-dev
Ubxtool and zerk may optionally use the pyserial module for direct connection to the GNSS receiver:
# apt-get install python-serial
gpsd may optional connect to dbus with the libdbus package:
# apt-get install libdbus-1-dev
Some very old Garmin USB devices need libusb:
# apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev
If you wish to build the documentation, be warned it pulls in a lot of packages. Build the documentation is a prerequisite to building the HTML files for the website (www/), and also to make a source tarball (scons dist). To install the tools to build the documentation:
apt-get install asciidoctor
The rest of the installation is just as for any other source based install:
# git clone https://gitlab.com/gpsd/gpsd.git # cd gpsd # scons --config=force && scons install
Multiple versions of gpsd can not co-exist on the same system. You need to ensure gpsd from a package is not on the system:
# apt purge gpsd
Then install the required packages:
# apt-get install scons libncurses5-dev python-dev pps-tools # apt-get install git-core
Git-core is required to build from a git repository. pps-tools is for PPS timing.
The rest of the installation is just as for any other source based install, as already described above.
Multiple versions of gpsd can not co-exist on the same system. You need to ensure gpsd from a package is not on the system:
# apt purge gpsd
Wheezy, being older, requires updating the tools for compiling and testing gpsd:
You need scons at 2.3.0 or higher to build. If your scons is less than 2.3.0 you will need to get a newer scons from wheezy-backport. Partial instructions are detailed here: https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/
Basically you need to add this line to /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy-backports main
Then do another update:
apt-get update
Which may lead you to this error if you lack a full set of debian keys:
W: GPG error: http://http.debian.net wheezy-backports Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 8B48AD6246925553
Partial but detailed instructions to fix that are here:
https://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt
Use either of the following code blocks. The first is more robust:
apt-get install debian-archive-keyring
gpg --keyserver pgpkeys.mit.edu --recv 8B48AD6246925553 gpg -a --export 46925553 | apt-key add - apt-get update
You can now install scons from the wheezy-backports repository:
apt-get -t wheezy-backports install scons
and other tools:
# apt-get install scons libncurses5-dev python-dev pps-tools # apt-get install git-core
Git-core is required to build from a git repository. pps-tools is for PPS timing.
The rest of the installation is just as for any other source based install, as described above.
If you have Raspbian Buster, that is not this.
Preliminary install notes.
Multiple versions of gpsd can not co-exist on the same system. You need to ensure gpsd from a package is not on the system:
# apt purge gpsd
Then install the required packages:
apt install gcc scons python-gi python-gi-cairo g++ apt install python-gobject libgtk-3-dev apt install libncurses5-dev libtinfo-dev pps-tools apt install gir1.2-gtk-3.0
At some point Ubuntu renamed "python-gi" to "python3-gi".
If you wish to build the documentation, be warned it pulls in a lot of packages. Build the documentation is a prerequisite to building the HTML files for the website (www/), and also to make a source tarball (scons dist). To install the tools to build the documentation:
apt install asciidoctor
The rest of the installation is just as for any other source based install, as described above.
Preliminary install notes.
If you have Raspbian Buster, that is not this.
Multiple versions of gpsd can not co-exist on the same system. You need to ensure gpsd from a package is not on the system:
# apt purge gpsd
Then install the required packages:
apt install gcc scons python-gi python-gi-cairo g++ apt install libncurses5-dev libtinfo-dev pps-tools apt install gir1.2-gtk-3.0
If you wish to build the documentation, be warned it pulls in a lot of packages. Build the documentation is a prerequisite to building the HTML files for the website (www/), and also to make a source tarball (scons dist). To install the tools to build the documentation:
apt install asciidoctor
The rest of the installation is just as for any other source based install, as described above.
gpsd will build, install and run on FreeBSD. Due to the missing CAN bus support (linux/can.h), NMEA2000/CAN is not supported on FreeBSD.
Use their pkg command to install scons, and optionally git if you want to access the development source.
If you want to build the QT bindings, you’ll also need the qt5-network and pkgconf packages.
# pkg install scons # pkg install git # ln -s /usr/local/bin/python2.7 /usr/local/bin/python # ln -s /usr/local/bin/python2.7 /usr/local/bin/python2 # ln -s /usr/local/bin/python3.6 /usr/local/bin/python3 # git clone https://gitlab.com/gpsd/gpsd.git # cd gpsd # scons --config=force && scons install
OpenBSD names scons differently, and uses a different Python. On OpenBSD 13.0, you need to do this to install scons and Python:
# pkg install scons-py38 # ln -s /usr/local/bin/python3.8 /usr/local/bin/python3
FreeBSD fails to create the python links as required by PEP394. So you need to add them yourself, as above.
gpsd will build, install and run on NetBSD.
Use their 'pkg_add' command to install pkgin. Then use pkgin to install the required tools.
# export PKG_PATH=\ "http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/amd64/8.1/All" # pkg_add -v pkgin # echo http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/amd64/8.1/All > \ /usr/pkg/etc/pkgin/repositories.conf # pkgin update # pkgin install python37 py37-curses # ln -s /usr/pkg/bin/python3.7 /usr/pkg/bin/python # ln -s /usr/pkg/bin/python3.7 /usr/pkg/bin/python3 # pkgin install py37-scons # pkgin install ncurses # pkgin install openssl mozilla-rootcerts # mozilla-rootcerts install # pkgin install git # git clone https://gitlab.com/gpsd/gpsd.git # cd gpsd # scons --config=force && scons install
gpsd will build, install and run on OpenBSD.
First, update your system. Then all you need for a basic gpsd install is scons and git. Then create the missing python link.
# syspatch -c # syspatch # pkg_add -u # pkg_add scons # pkg_add git # ln -s /usr/local/bin/python2 /usr/local/bin/python
Yes, OpenBSD 7.0 still uses Python 2.7.
Then install the normal way.
# git clone https://gitlab.com/gpsd/gpsd.git # cd gpsd # scons --config=force && scons install
OpenBSD 7.2 may require the linker flag -fPIC in order to completely build. Set LDFLAGS="-fPIC".
gpsd currently will build, install and run on Fedora 32, to 37. Any supported architecture should work.
Upgrade your packages, install the gcc compiler and tools. Clone the gpsd source, and then build it. Fedora recommends a reboot after using dnf.
# dnf upgrade --refresh # dnf install -y gcc-c++ python3-devel scons asciidoctor bzip2 # dnf install -y xz git dnf-plugins-core # git clone https://gitlab.com/gpsd/gpsd.git # cd gpsd # scons # dnf builddep -y buildtmp/packaging/rpm/gpsd.spec # scons -c # scons && scons check && scons install
If you wish to make an rpm of your build:
# scons dist # dnf install -y chrpath fedora-packager rpmdevtools # rpmdev-setuptree # cp gpsd-3*.tar.* ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/ # rpmbuild -ba gpsd-3*/packaging/rpm/gpsd.spec
gpsd currently will build, install and run on CentOS 7.
Install the gcc compiler and tools. Install EPEL.
Note: there is no EPEL for i386.
Use the yum command to install git if you want to access the development source.
# yum group install "Development Tools" # yum install git # yum install \ https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm # yum install scons # yum install python-devel # yum install ncurses-devel # yum install pps-tools-devel # git clone https://gitlab.com/gpsd/gpsd.git # cd gpsd # scons
The header gpsd.h contains the value BUILD_LEAPSECONDS. This is set, at release time, to the leap second value current at that time.
Ideally gpsd would be reading the standard leapseconds.cache file provided by most distributions for the current leap second.
Most of the drivers supply the current leap second, after the GNSS receiver sends it in a message to gpsd. But none of the standard NMEA 0183 messages supply the current leap second. Thus the need for a fall back leap second value.
The leap second value is mainly used to check for invalid UTC time from the GNSS receiver. If the receiver is affected by the GPS Week Number Roll Over (WKNO) bug, then the UTC time it reports will be off by 1024 weeks.
All GNSS receivers may be using the wrong leap second internally on startup. This may happen if it has been less than about 12 minutes since power-up; the receiver has not yet received the current leapsecond offset as part of the periodic almanac download. Page 18, subframe 4, of the almanac contains the leap second data.
The gpsd daemon may be using the wrong leap second internally if the compiled in leap second is no longer valid, and the GNSS receiver has not reported the current leap second to gpsd.
By giving command-line options to scons you can configure certain rarely-used optional features in, or compile standard features out to reduce gpsd’s footprint. "scons --help" will tell the story; look under "Local Options" and consult the source code if in doubt.
Here are a few of the more important feature switches. Each description begins with the default for the switch.
dbus_export=no: for systems using D-Bus: gpsd includes support for shipping fixes as D-Bus notifications, compiled in by default. This may lead to complaint messages during testing on systems that don’t support D-Bus. Build with the option "dbus_export=no" to disable it
qt=yes: libQgpsmm is a Qt version of the libgps/libgpsmm pair. Thanks to the multi-platform approach of Qt, it allows the gpsd client library to be available on all the Qt supported platforms. Please see http://qt.nokia.com/doc/4.6/supported-platforms.html for a status of Qt supported platforms as of version 4.6.
minimal=no: people building for extremely constrained environments may want to set this. It changes the default for all boolean (feature) options to false; thus, you get only the options you specify on the command line. Thus, for example, if you want to turn off all features except socket export. Note the nmea0183 driver is always built.
scons minimal=yes socket_export=yes
will do that.
scons minimal=yes gpsd=False gpsdclients=False
generates only libgps.a
scons minimal=yes shared=True gpsd=False gpsdclients=False
generates only libgps.so
'scons check' will run a comprehensive regression-test suite. You should do this, at minimum, every time you build from source on a new machine type. GPSD does enough bit-twiddling and floating point that it is very sensitive to toolchain problems; you’ll want to be sure those aren’t going to bite you in production.
So that the tests will run fast and be easy to do often, we make the test framework shove data through the pty and socket layers way faster than would ever occur in production. If you get regression-test failures that aren’t repeatable and look like the test framework is sporadically failing to feed the last line or two of test loads, try using the slow=yes option with scons check. If that fails, try increasing the delay value via the WRITE_PAD environment variable (above the value reported in the test output). If you have to do this, please report your experience to the GPSD maintainers.
Both the builds and the tests are highly parallelizable via the scons -j option, which can gain a substantial speedup on a multicore machine. Because the output from the various jobs is interleaved, it may be more difficult to understand error results with multiple jobs. In that event, simply rerun without the -j option for more straightforward output.
If coveraging is enabled (coveraging=yes), then Python programs run during testing are run via Python coveraging. This prefixes the relevant commands with the content of the python_coverage option, whose default value of "coverage run" is appropriate if the standard Python coverage package is installed and accessible in the command path. It can be set to a different value if necessary, or set to the empty string to disable Python coveraging. The latter happens automatically (with a message) if the tool cannot be found. When running multiple jobs with "-j", if python_coverage has its default value, "--parallel" is automatically appended to the command. With a non-default setting, accommodating parallelism is the user’s responsibility.
For instructions on how to live-test the software, see the file INSTALL.adoc.
Sometimes, changes are made to code that cause the output to be different. Examples are bug fixes and changes to precision. In these cases, the regression tests must be updated. This is dangerous, and one must guard against the possibility of introducing a bug and recording that bug’s output as the desired state.
A suggested procedure is
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Create a minimal commit with the breaking change. Do not include any other changes.
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On master, without the new commit, run the regression tests and verify that they pass. Do this on a machine with a history of zero flaky behavior with the regression tests.
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Apply the minimal commit.
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Run "scons gps-makeregress".
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Merge the regression changes into the commit. Mentiion in the commit message that regression tests were regenerated.
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Review the diff for sanity, and if ok, push it.
The scons equivalent of 'make clean' is 'scons -c' or 'scons --clean'. This will revert your source tree to a clean state nearly as though you had just cloned or downloaded it; some scons housekeeping stuff is left in place.
If you interrupted a regression test, 'scons testclean' will remove generated test programs.
If you’re building in a clone of the git repository, you can use "git clean -dxf" to remove all untracked files. Note, however, that this will remove any files you have created on your own, in addition to build products and scons temporaries. You can alternatively use "git clean -dxn" to see what would be removed without actually removing anything, or "git clean -dxi" to remove things selectively. Using "git clean" after "scons -c" usually results in a fairly short list.
Samuel Cuella reports:
I use the official google toolchain from the Android NDK (Native Development Kit). You can also use the toolchain from code sourcery I guess. I cross-compile from a "regular" (with GNU userland) linux box.
People who port software from linux to android tend to use either the NDK or code sourcery’s.
If you are going to include "official" guidelines, I would go for recommending the official toolchain from the NDK.
Here are the scons switches I use:
scons wordsize=32 snapshot=off arch=arm sample=shell scons -j3 prefix=/usr libdir=$prefix/lib udevdir=/lib/udev \ gpsd_user=gpsd gpsd_group=uucp socket_export=1 sirf=1
With the following environment variables:
TOOL_HOME=/home/samuel/android-official-last/
export TOOL_PREFIX=${TOOL_HOME}/bin/arm-linux-androideabi
export CXX=$TOOL_PREFIX-g++
export AR=$TOOL_PREFIX-ar
export RANLIB=$TOOL_PREFIX-ranlib
export CC=$TOOL_PREFIX-gcc
export LD=$TOOL_PREFIX-ld
export CCFLAGS="-march=armv7-a -mtune=cortex-a8 -mfpu=vfp"
export ARM_TARGET_LIB=${TOOL_HOME}/sysroot
scons wordsize=32 snapshot=off arch=arm sample=shell
The scons recipe is intended to support cross-building, in particular for embedded deployment of the software. A session transcript illustrating how to do that, with some routine messages suppressed and replaced with […], follows. The script assumes you’re cloning from the GPSD project site or a mirror. Notes and explanation follow the transcript.
$ git clone [...] Cloning into gpsd... [...] $ cd gpsd
Edit .scons-options-cache (may not exist) and add lines, describing what your target architecture and build preferences are.
$ cat .scons-option-cache libgpsmm = False libQgpsmm = False python = False prefix = '/work/buildroot/output/staging/usr/' sysroot = '/work/buildroot/output/staging/' target = 'arm-indigo-linux-gnueabi' $ scons scons: Reading SConscript files ... [...] Altered configuration variables: libgpsmm = False (default True): build C++ bindings libQgpsmm = False (default True): build QT bindings python = False (default True): build Python support and modules. prefix = /work/buildroot/output/staging/usr/ (default /usr/local): installation directory prefix sysroot = /work/buildroot/output/staging (default ): cross-development system root target = arm-indigo-linux-gnueabi (default ): cross-development target scons: done reading SConscript files. scons: Building targets ... [...] scons: done building targets. $ file gpsd gpsd: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.36, not stripped
The author of this transcript notes:
The sysroot option tells the compiler and linker to use libraries and headers from the given path as if they were placed at / prefix. During this build the option allows linking with target ncurses (with the option of having more packages at the --sysroot path) and including correct headers without specifying -I and -L options.
In the options cache file gpsd is configured to install to /work/buildroot/output/staging/usr path, so gpsd clients could be compiled against libgps.so using /work/buildroot/output/staging as sysroot option.
"arm-indigo-linux-gnueabi" as target means that arm-indigo-linux-gnueabi-gcc and related tools are available in PATH; your cross-compiler is likely to have a different target prefix.
You may also find it useful to set manbuild=no.
When you start gpsd with the -D3 option, you may be presented with some common errors that result from a marginal build.
This means your gpsd binary was constructed in a way that does not support strict IEEE 754 Floating Point operation. In this case, the regression tests ("scons check") will likely fail.
A possible workaound for the i686 (32-bit) mode build with gcc is to set the CCFLAGS to force a compliant mode. Like this:
$ export CCFLAGS="-msse2 -mfpmath=sse" $ scone -c $ scons [...]
One way to start gpsd is on-demand by a hotplug script detecting USB device activations. Look at the gpsd.rules and gpsd.hotplug files to see how this is accomplished. Relevant productions in the build recipe are "udev-install" and "udev-uninstall"; relevant build options include "udevdir".
You may need to start gpsd unconditionally at boot time. Do this if you need to support serial port devices, or want to use gpsd to set the time on your host. there’s a model init.d script under packaging/deb and a systemd setup under systemd/.