Installing on Ubuntu from source¶

This page gives instructions for installing SuperCollider on Ubuntu and its derived distributions (e.g. Linux Mint, Elementary OS). It covers building and installing SuperCollider and the sc3-plugins from source.

Building SuperCollider¶

Packages you need¶

You will need to install quite a few packages to build SuperCollider and the sc3-plugins. Below is a list of this software, along with the terminal commands to get it.

sudo apt-get install build-essential libsndfile1-dev libasound2-dev libavahi-client-dev \
 libicu-dev libreadline6-dev libncurses5-dev libfftw3-dev libxt-dev libudev-dev pkg-config \
 git cmake \
 qt5-default qt5-qmake qttools5-dev qttools5-dev-tools qtdeclarative5-dev qtpositioning5-dev \
 libqt5sensors5-dev libqt5opengl5-dev qtwebengine5-dev libqt5svg5-dev libqt5websockets5-dev

JACK dependency¶

You will also need JACK installed on your system. There are two version of JACK available: JACK1 and JACK2. If you are unsure of which version of JACK to install, we recommend choosing JACK2. It can be installed using the following command:

sudo apt-get install libjack-jackd2-dev

SuperCollider requires JACK for sound on Linux. The package qjackctl provides a convenient graphical user interface for JACK, which facilitates JACK configuration, as well as making inter-application audio and MIDI connections.

You can run the following terminal command to find out which JACK version you have installed. The command simulates an actual installation:

apt-get -s install jackd1 jackd2

Getting the SuperCollider source code¶

Simply clone the SuperCollider git repository to a sensible location on your system:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/supercollider/supercollider.git

With the --recursive flag, the repository’s submodules are also cloned.

Cloning the repository will create a folder called supercollider containing the source code.

Getting the submodules¶

If you cloned the SuperCollider repository without the --recursive flag, you will need to manually initialise and update the submodules. From within the supercollider directory, run the following:

git submodule update --init

Running cmake¶

Create a directory inside the supercollider folder called build and move to it:

mkdir build && cd build

From within supercollider/build, run the following:

cmake  ..

(Notice the space between cmake and the dots.)

Running the following will post a list of all available flags that can be set in order to configure your build.

cmake -L ..

For example, if you wish to build SuperCollider without emacs support, run:

cmake -DSC_EL=OFF ..

For a release type build, run:

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..

For a native build, run:

cmake -DNATIVE=ON ..

You should choose this option unless you are compiling the code to run on a different machine.

It’s possible to set multiple flags at once like so:

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DNATIVE=ON -DSC_EL=OFF ..

Building and Installing¶

Use the following commands to build and install SuperCollider:

make
sudo make install

If your CPU has multiple cores, you can take advantage of make’s -j option. For example, a CPU containing 4 cores can run:

make -j4
sudo make install

If building SuperCollider for the first time, run:

sudo ldconfig

Uninstalling SuperCollider¶

From within your supercollider/build folder, run the following:

sudo make uninstall

Installing the sc3-plugins¶

The sc3-plugins are an optional set of extension plugins for the SuperCollider3 audio synthesis server. These third-party plugins provide additional synthesis, analysis, and other capabilities for the sound server.

Please note that these UGens are, on average, less stable and well-maintained than the core collection included with SuperCollider. Use at your own risk!

Getting the source code for the sc3-plugins¶

Simply clone the sc3-plugins git repository to a sensible location on your system:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/supercollider/sc3-plugins.git

With the --recursive flag, the repository’s submodules are also cloned.

Cloning the repository will create a folder called sc3-plugins containing the source code.

Getting the submodules for plugins¶

If you cloned the sc3-plugins repository without the --recursive flag, you will need to manually initialise and update the submodules. From within sc3-plugins, run the following:

git submodule update --init

Running cmake for plugins¶

Create a directory inside the sc3-plugins folder called build and move to it:

mkdir build && cd build

From within sc3-plugins/build, run the following command, replacing /path/to/your/supercollider/source with the path to the SuperCollider source code on your system:

cmake -DSC_PATH=/path/to/your/supercollider/source ..

Running the following will post a list of all available flags that can be set in order to configure your build.

cmake -L ..

It’s a good idea to set the cmake flags CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE and NATIVE to the same values that where used when building SuperCollider. In the end, your cmake configuration command might look something like this:

cmake -DSC_PATH=/path/to/your/supercollider/source -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DNATIVE=ON ..

Finally, building the plugins¶

From within sc3-plugins/build, run the following:

make
sudo make install

If your CPU has multiple cores, you can take advantage of make’s -j option. For example, a CPU containing 4 cores can run:

make -j4
sudo make install

If building the sc3-plugins for the first time, run:

sudo ldconfig

Checking the installation worked¶

If you have the IDE open, close it. Now open it again and boot the server.

Enter the following into the blank text window and run it:

{VOSIM.ar(Impulse.ar(100), 500, 3, 0.99)}.play

You should hear a buzzing sound. If you don’t, double check and attempt the instructions again.

Uninstalling the sc3-plugins¶

To uninstall the sc3-plugins, from the sc3-plugins/build directory, run the following:

sudo make uninstall

Getting help¶

If you still don’t have any luck with the above, ask a question at the SuperCollider Discourse site here, providing as much information as you can.