ReactOS Development > Compiling ReactOS

Compiling ReactOS

To compile ReactOS, use the prepackaged ReactOS Build Environments located here. The version disparity between the NT and *nix packages was a result of the NT version including additional utilities and scripts to make downloading a copy of the source code easier for Windows users.

NT Build Environment

The Windows NT package is currently maintained by Daniel Reimer. It version requires a Windows 2000 system or higher. It will not work on 9x/ME. Along with the necessary build tools, versions 0.3.7+ includes a few utilities and extra features to make downloading the source code easier.

*nix Build Environment

The *nix package is maintained by Colin Finck. It requires a host GCC of version 3.4 at least, with C and C++ support. This package has been tested on FreeBSD and various Linux distributions. Support for Mac OS X will likely come in a future release. The host compiler will make all the various tools needed to compile ReactOS, including a patched version of GCC. The *nix BE does not have any of the extra utilities or scripts the NT BE has so the user must set up a local repository themselves.

Commands

These are the general commands you will need to know to build ReactOS.

make: Compiles everything. After any change to the source code, call make to update compiled objects.

make bootcd: Creates an install CD. If ReactOS has not been compiled yet, make bootcd will do the compilation. However, if there has been changes to the source code since the last make, make bootcd will not register them and build a new CD based off the last manual build.

make livecd: Creates a LiveCD. make livecd is identical to make bootcd in how it treats the source code.

make clean: Deletes all compiled objects and then does a clean build of the source code.

clean: A more thorough removal of compiled objects than make clean. In preparation for a truely clean build.