Building on Linux

This page is a self-contained guide to building aMule from source on Linux: install the dependencies for your distribution, then build. The general Compilation page documents the full CMake workflow and the complete list of build options. For other platforms, see Windows, macOS, and BSD.

Install Dependencies

Install the packages for your distribution. Then continue with Build below — the build commands are the same for every distribution.

Debian and Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install \
    binutils-dev \
    build-essential \
    cmake \
    gettext \
    libayatana-appindicator3-dev \
    libboost-all-dev \
    libcrypto++-dev \
    libgd-dev \
    libglib2.0-dev \
    libmaxminddb-dev \
    libreadline-dev \
    libupnp-dev \
    libwxgtk3.2-dev \
    pkg-config \
    wx3.2-headers \
    zlib1g-dev

Fedora and RHEL / Rocky Linux

sudo dnf install \
    binutils-devel \
    boost-devel \
    cmake \
    cryptopp-devel \
    gd-devel \
    gettext \
    glib2-devel \
    libayatana-appindicator-gtk3-devel \
    libmaxminddb-devel \
    libupnp-devel \
    make \
    pkgconfig \
    readline-devel \
    wxGTK-devel \
    zlib-devel

RHEL / Rocky Linux

On RHEL 8 and Rocky Linux, some packages (wxGTK, cryptopp) may not be available in the default repositories. Enable EPEL and RPMFusion:

sudo dnf install epel-release
sudo dnf install rpmfusion-free-release

Arch Linux and Manjaro

sudo pacman -S \
    base-devel \
    binutils \
    boost \
    cmake \
    crypto++ \
    gd \
    gettext \
    glib2 \
    libayatana-appindicator \
    libmaxminddb \
    libupnp \
    pkg-config \
    readline \
    wxwidgets-gtk3 \
    zlib

Gentoo

Gentoo installs aMule directly from Portage, so the Build section is only needed for a git build.

# Install the release version
emerge -av net-p2p/amule

Select components with USE flags:

USE flag	Component
daemon	Build amuled
remote	Build amulegui
webserver	Build amuleweb
amulecmd	Build amulecmd
ed2k	Build ed2k link handler
nls	Native-language support
upnp	UPnP port forwarding
geoip	IP→country mapping
debug	Debug symbols (Debugging)

USE="daemon webserver amulecmd nls upnp geoip" emerge -av net-p2p/amule

To build the development version from git, install the build dependencies and then follow the Build section:

emerge -av \
    dev-libs/boost \
    dev-libs/crypto++ \
    dev-libs/glib \
    dev-libs/libmaxminddb \
    dev-libs/libupnp \
    media-libs/libgd \
    sys-libs/readline \
    sys-libs/zlib \
    x11-libs/wxGTK

For debugging on Gentoo with split-debug symbols, see Debugging.

Build

git clone https://github.com/amule-org/amule.git
cd amule

cmake -B build \
    -DBUILD_MONOLITHIC=YES \
    -DBUILD_DAEMON=YES \
    -DBUILD_REMOTEGUI=YES \
    -DBUILD_WEBSERVER=YES \
    -DBUILD_AMULECMD=YES \
    -DBUILD_ED2K=YES \
    -DBUILD_CAS=YES \
    -DBUILD_WXCAS=YES \
    -DENABLE_NLS=YES \
    -DENABLE_UPNP=YES \
    -DENABLE_IP2COUNTRY=YES

cmake --build build -j"$(nproc)"
sudo cmake --install build

This enables a common set of components. See Build Options for the full list, Debug Build for a debug configuration, and Installing / Uninstalling for install prefixes and removal.

Running from the Build Directory

All binaries are placed in build/ and can be run directly without installing:

./build/amule
./build/amuled
./build/amulecmd

Desktop Integration

Icon Cache

cmake --install places org.amule.aMule.png in <prefix>/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/. Distribution packages (.deb, .rpm) refresh the GTK icon-theme cache via post-install scripts; a raw cmake --install does not. If the launcher or dock shows a generic placeholder icon instead of the aMule mule, refresh the cache manually:

gtk-update-icon-cache -f -t <prefix>/share/icons/hicolor/

GNOME Shell's inotify watcher usually picks up new icons on its own within a few seconds, so this is rarely necessary.

SNI Tray Icon

The libayatana-appindicator3 library provides the StatusNotifierItem (SNI) D-Bus backend for the system tray icon (included in the dependency lists above). Without it, the tray icon falls back to the legacy GtkStatusIcon API, which GNOME Shell removed in 3.26 and wlroots compositors (Sway, Hyprland, etc.) never implemented — so the tray icon is silently invisible on vanilla GNOME, Fedora GNOME, and wlroots desktops.

When CMake finds the library it logs:

-- AppIndicator3 found: ... — tray icon uses SNI backend

Troubleshooting

glib-2.0 not found

CMake Error: glib-2.0 development headers not found, but they are required

The amule, amuled, and amulegui binaries call g_set_prgname() to bind the Wayland wl_app_id (and X11 WM_CLASS) to the .desktop filename, so libglib2.0-dev (Debian/Ubuntu) or glib2-devel (Fedora) is required against wxGTK. Install it, then delete the build directory and re-run cmake — pkg-config results are cached:

rm -rf build
cmake -B build ...

wxWidgets version too old

CMake Error: Could NOT find wxWidgets (Required is at least version "3.2.0")

aMule requires wxWidgets ≥ 3.2.0. Ubuntu 22.04 and earlier ship wxWidgets 3.0. Options:

• Use the wxWidgets 3.2 PPA (Ubuntu).
• Enable a third-party repository (RPMFusion on Fedora).
• Build wxWidgets 3.2 from source:

sudo apt install libgtk-3-dev
wget https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/releases/download/v3.2.4/wxWidgets-3.2.4.tar.bz2
tar xf wxWidgets-3.2.4.tar.bz2
cd wxWidgets-3.2.4
./configure --with-gtk=3 --enable-unicode --enable-shared
make -j"$(nproc)"
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

SNI tray icon not found

-- AppIndicator3 not found (looked for ayatana-appindicator3-0.1 and appindicator3-0.1) — tray icon falls back to legacy GtkStatusIcon, invisible on modern GNOME/wlroots

This is a warning, not an error — aMule still builds and runs, but the tray icon will be invisible on GNOME 3.26+ and wlroots compositors. Install libayatana-appindicator3-dev (Debian/Ubuntu) or libayatana-appindicator-gtk3-devel (Fedora) and rebuild to fix it.

crypto++ version too old

CMake Error: crypto++ version <X.Y> is too old

CMake requires Crypto++ ≥ 5.6. Some older distributions (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, RHEL 7) ship an older version. Either build Crypto++ from source (github.com/weidai11/cryptopp) or upgrade to a supported distribution release.

libupnp not found

CMake Error: ENABLE_UPNP=YES but libupnp was not found.

You enabled -DENABLE_UPNP=YES (the default) but the libupnp headers and library are missing. Options:

• Install libupnp: libupnp-dev (Debian/Ubuntu) or libupnp-devel (Fedora).
• Pass -DENABLE_UPNP=NO to disable UPnP port forwarding.
• Pass -DDOWNLOAD_AND_BUILD_DEPS=YES to have CMake download and build libupnp from source (requires Git).

libmaxminddb not found

CMake Error: ENABLE_IP2COUNTRY=YES but maxminddb.h was not found.

You enabled -DENABLE_IP2COUNTRY=YES but the libmaxminddb headers (or shared library) are missing. Either install libmaxminddb (libmaxminddb-dev on Debian/Ubuntu, libmaxminddb-devel on Fedora) or pass -DENABLE_IP2COUNTRY=NO.