Building the Qt port on Linux

These instructions apply to Linux in general with source packages.

Dependencies

The code should be easily built on any Linux distribution which has development packages for Qt installed.

The Qt port requires Qt version 4.3 or later.

The Qt port requires gperf.

The Qt port requires sqllite.

The Qt port requires bison.

The Qt port requires flex version 2.5.33 or later.

The Qt port requires libxslt.

Build WebKit

You'll need to ​check out the source code from Subversion. The Qt port is part of the WebKit source tree, so you don't need anything extra.

Finally, set the QTDIR environment variable to Qt 4.x's installation path and make sure Qt 4.x's qmake is the first qmake in your PATH (typically by running export PATH=$QTDIR/bin:$PATH). If your qmake binary has a different name, e.g. when using Debian, use the --qmake= option to specify the name.

Build WebKit and the Qt test browser with

WebKit/WebKitTools/Scripts/build-webkit --qt

Testing the port

A very simple test browser is built along with the port and can be executed with

WebKit/WebKitTools/Scripts/run-launcher --qt

Common Build Errors

Using Qt 4.2

../../../WebKitQt/Api/qwebnetworkinterface_p.h:134: error: ‘QSslError’ 
was not declared in this scope
../../../WebKitQt/Api/qwebnetworkinterface_p.h:134: error: template 
argument 1 is invalid
../../../WebKitQt/Api/qwebnetworkinterface_p.h:135: error: 
‘QAuthenticator’ has not been declared
../../../WebKitQt/Api/qwebnetworkinterface_p.h:136: error: expected ‘,’ 
or ‘...’ before ‘&’ token
../../../WebKitQt/Api/qwebnetworkinterface_p.h:136: error: ISO C++ 
forbids declaration of ‘QNetworkProxy’ with no type
make[1]: *** [tmp/ResourceHandleQt.o] Error 1

This error is caused by not having the minimum version of Qt installed. Install the minimum version of Qt, set the 'QTDIR' environment variable pointing to this version and try building WebKit again.

Missing gperf

../../../WebCore/html/HTMLDocument.cpp: In member function 'virtual void WebCore::HTMLDocument::determineParseMode(const WebCore::String&)':
../../../WebCore/html/HTMLDocument.cpp:389: error: expected initializer before '*' token
../../../WebCore/html/HTMLDocument.cpp:390: error: 'doctypeEntry' was not declared in this scope
../../../WebCore/html/HTMLDocument.cpp:398: error: 'doctypeEntry' was not declared in this scope
../../../WebCore/html/HTMLDocument.cpp:401: error: 'PubIDInfo' has not been declared
../../../WebCore/html/HTMLDocument.cpp:405: error: 'PubIDInfo' has not been declared

This error is typically caused by not having gperf installed. Install gperf, run touch WebCore/html/DocTypeStrings.gperf and try building WebKit again.

Missing SQLite development package

../../../WebCore/loader/icon/SQLDatabase.cpp:30:21: error: sqlite3.h: No such file or directory
../../../WebCore/loader/icon/SQLDatabase.cpp:36: error: "SQLITE_ERROR" was not declared in this scope
../../../WebCore/loader/icon/SQLDatabase.cpp:37: error: "SQLITE_DONE" was not declared in this scope
../../../WebCore/loader/icon/SQLDatabase.cpp:38: error: "SQLITE_OK" was not declared in this scope
../../../WebCore/loader/icon/SQLDatabase.cpp:39: error: "SQLITE_ROW" was not declared in this scope

This error is typically caused by not having the development component of libsqlite3 installed. Install the development package and try building WebKit again.

Missing flex

.../WebKitBuild/Release/lib/libWebKitQt.so: undefined reference to `WebCore::CSSParser::lex()'

This error is typically caused by not having flex installed. Install flex, run touch WebCore/css/tokenizer.flex and try building WebKit again.

Incompatible version of bison

bison -d -p kjsyy JavaScriptCore/kjs/grammar.y -o grammar.tab.c && mv grammar.tab.c tmp/grammar.cpp && mv grammar.tab.h tmp/grammar.h
JavaScriptCore/kjs/grammar.y:364.3-366.9: type clash (`node' `') on default action
JavaScriptCore/kjs/grammar.y:366.10: parse error, unexpected ":", expecting ";" or "|"

This error is caused by having an incompatible version of bison installed. The single reported case of this error occurred with bison 1.75, and was resolved by updating to bison 2.3.

GCC 4.2 incompatibility

../../../WebCore/rendering/RenderTable.cpp: In member function 'int
WebCore::RenderTable::calcBorderLeft() const':
../../../WebCore/rendering/RenderTable.cpp:722: error: no matching function for
call to 'max(unsigned int&, const short unsigned int:12&)'
../../../WebCore/rendering/RenderTable.cpp:735: error: no matching function for
call to 'max(unsigned int&, const short unsigned int:12&)'
../../../WebCore/rendering/RenderTable.cpp:749: error: no matching function for
call to 'max(unsigned int&, const short unsigned int:12&)'
../../../WebCore/rendering/RenderTable.cpp:751: error: no matching function for
call to 'max(unsigned int&, const short unsigned int:12&)'
../../../WebCore/rendering/RenderTable.cpp: In member function 'int
WebCore::RenderTable::calcBorderRight() const':
../../../WebCore/rendering/RenderTable.cpp:781: error: no matching function for
call to 'max(unsigned int&, const short unsigned int:12&)'
../../../WebCore/rendering/RenderTable.cpp:794: error: no matching function for
call to 'max(unsigned int&, const short unsigned int:12&)'
../../../WebCore/rendering/RenderTable.cpp:808: error: no matching function for
call to 'max(unsigned int&, const short unsigned int:12&)'
../../../WebCore/rendering/RenderTable.cpp:810: error: no matching function for
call to 'max(unsigned int&, const short unsigned int:12&)'
make[1]: *** [tmp/RenderTable.o] Error 1

Apply the patch attached to bug report ​http://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13985

Dependencies for specific Linux distributions

Installing dependencies on Ubuntu Edgy

To install required dependencies on Ubuntu edgy, do

sudo aptitude install libqt4-dev

or install the libqt4-dev package from Synaptic.

You might also need to install gperf, libxslt1-dev, and bison to resolve some dependencies.

sudo aptitude install gperf libxslt-dev bison flex libicu36-dev

Installing dependencies on Ark Linux

On Ark Linux, install the required dependencies using

apt-get install devel-core qt4-devel qmake gperf libxslt-devel bison sqlite-devel

Alternatively, install the needed packages (see list above) through Mission Control -> Install Software.