This document contains the instructions for building this repository on Linux and Windows.
This repository does not contain a Vulkan-capable driver. Before proceeding, it is strongly recommended that you obtain a Vulkan driver from your graphics hardware vendor and install it.
If you intend to contribute, the preferred work flow is for you to develop your contribution in a fork of this repo in your GitHub account and then submit a pull request. Please see the CONTRIBUTING file in this repository for more details.
To create your local git repository:
git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers
The build process uses CMake to generate makefiles for this project. The build generates the loader, layers, and tests.
This repo has been built and tested on the two most recent Ubuntu LTS versions. It should be straightforward to use it on other Linux distros.
These packages are needed to build this repository:
sudo apt-get install git cmake build-essential bison libx11-xcb-dev libxkbcommon-dev libmirclient-dev libwayland-dev libxrandr-dev
Example debug build (Note that the update_external_sources script used below builds external tools into predefined locations. See Loader and Validation Layer Dependencies for more information and other options):
cd Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers # cd to the root of the cloned git repository ./update_external_sources.sh cmake -H. -Bdbuild -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug cd dbuild make
If you have installed a Vulkan driver obtained from your graphics hardware vendor, the install process should have configured the driver so that the Vulkan loader can find and load it.
If you want to use the loader and layers that you have just built:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=<path to your repository root>/dbuild/loader export VK_LAYER_PATH=<path to your repository root>/dbuild/layers
You can run the vulkaninfo application to see which driver, loader and layers are being used.
The LoaderAndLayerInterface document in the loader folder in this repository is a specification that describes both how ICDs and layers should be properly packaged, and how developers can point to ICDs and layers within their builds.
By default, the Vulkan Loader and Validation Layers are built with support for all 4 Vulkan-defined WSI display systems, Xcb, Xlib, Wayland, and Mir. It is recommended to build these modules with support for these display systems to maximize their usability across Linux platforms. If it is necessary to build these modules without support for one of the display systems, the appropriate CMake option of the form BUILD_WSI_xxx_SUPPORT can be set to OFF. See the top-level CMakeLists.txt file for more info.
Installing the files resulting from your build to the systems directories is optional since environment variables can usually be used instead to locate the binaries. There are also risks with interfering with binaries installed by packages. If you are certain that you would like to install your binaries to system directories, you can proceed with these instructions.
Assuming that you've built the code as described above and the current directory is still dbuild, you can execute:
sudo make install
This command installs files to:
/usr/local/include/vulkan: Vulkan include files/usr/local/lib: Vulkan loader and layers shared objects/usr/local/bin: vulkaninfo application/usr/local/etc/vulkan/explicit_layer.d: Layer JSON filesYou may need to run ldconfig in order to refresh the system loader search cache on some Linux systems.
The list of installed files appears in the build directory in a file named install_manifest.txt. You can easily remove the installed files with:
cat install_manifest.txt | sudo xargs rm
You can further customize the installation location by setting additional CMake variables to override their defaults. For example, if you would like to install to /tmp/build instead of /usr/local, specify:
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/tmp/build -DDEST_DIR=/tmp/build
on your CMake command line and run make install as before. The install step places the files in /tmp/build.
Using the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to customize the install location also modifies the loader search paths to include searching for layers in the specified install location. In this example, setting CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to /tmp/build causes the loader to search /tmp/build/etc/vulkan/explicit_layer.d and /tmp/build/share/vulkan/explicit_layer.d for the layer JSON files. The loader also searches the “standard” system locations of /etc/vulkan/explicit_layer.d and /usr/share/vulkan/explicit_layer.d after searching the two locations under /tmp/build.
You can further customize the installation directories by using the CMake variables CMAKE_INSTALL_SYSCONFDIR to rename the etc directory and CMAKE_INSTALL_DATADIR to rename the share directory.
See the CMake documentation for more details on using these variables to further customize your installation.
Also see the LoaderAndLayerInterface document in the loader folder in this repository for more information about loader operation.
Note that some executables in this repository (e.g., cube) use the “rpath” linker directive to load the Vulkan loader from the build directory, dbuild in this example. This means that even after installing the loader to the system directories, these executables still use the loader from the build directory.
Usage of this repository's contents in 32-bit Linux environments is not officially supported. However, since this repository is supported on 32-bit Windows, these modules should generally work on 32-bit Linux.
Here are some notes for building 32-bit targets on a 64-bit Ubuntu “reference” platform:
If not already installed, install the following 32-bit development libraries:
gcc-multilib g++-multilib libx11-dev:i386
This list may vary depending on your distro and which windowing systems you are building for.
Set up your environment for building 32-bit targets:
export ASFLAGS=--32 export CFLAGS=-m32 export CXXFLAGS=-m32 export PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
Again, your PKG_CONFIG configuration may be different, depending on your distro.
If the libraries in the external directory have already been built for 64-bit targets, delete or “clean” this directory and rebuild it with the above settings using the update_external_sources shell script. This is required because the libraries in external must be built for 32-bit in order to be usable by the rest of the components in the repository.
Finally, rebuild the repository using cmake and make, as explained above.
The test executables can be found in the dbuild/tests directory. Some of the tests that are available:
There are also a few shell and Python scripts that run test collections (eg, run_all_tests.sh).
Some demos that can be found in the dbuild/demos directory are:
You can select which WSI subsystem is used to build the demos using a cmake option called DEMOS_WSI_SELECTION. Supported options are XCB (default), XLIB, WAYLAND, and MIR. Note that you must build using the corresponding BUILD_WSI_*_SUPPORT enabled at the base repo level (all SUPPORT options are ON by default). For instance, creating a build that will use Xlib to build the demos, your cmake command line might look like:
cmake -H. -Bbuild -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DDEMOS_WSI_SELECTION=XLIB
Windows 7+ with additional required software packages:
Before building on Windows, you may want to modify the customize section in loader/loader.rc to so as to set the version numbers and build description for your build. Doing so will set the information displayed for the Properties->Details tab of the loader vulkan-1.dll file that is built.
Build all Windows targets after installing required software and cloning the Loader and Validation Layer repo as described above by completing the following steps in a “Developer Command Prompt for VS2013” window (Note that the update_external_sources script used below builds external tools into predefined locations. See Loader and Validation Layer Dependencies for more information and other options):
cd Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers # cd to the root of the cloned git repository update_external_sources.bat build_windows_targets.bat
At this point, you can use Windows Explorer to launch Visual Studio by double-clicking on the “VULKAN.sln” file in the \build folder. Once Visual Studio comes up, you can select “Debug” or “Release” from a drop-down list. You can start a build with either the menu (Build->Build Solution), or a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+B). As part of the build process, Python scripts will create additional Visual Studio files and projects, along with additional source files. All of these auto-generated files are under the “build” folder.
Vulkan programs must be able to find and use the vulkan-1.dll library. Make sure it is either installed in the C:\Windows\System32 folder, or the PATH environment variable includes the folder that it is located in.
To run Vulkan programs you must tell the icd loader where to find the libraries. This is described in a LoaderAndLayerInterface document in the loader folder in this repository. This specification describes both how ICDs and layers should be properly packaged, and how developers can point to ICDs and layers within their builds.
If you are using Cygwin git instead of win32-native git, you can use the sh script to sync using Cygwin's git (but not also build), then use the bat script to build (but not also sync).
In a cygwin shell do this:
./update_external_sources.sh --no-build
Then in a Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt shell do this:
update_external_sources.bat --no-sync
Install the required tools for Linux and Windows covered above, then add the following.
On Linux:
export ANDROID_SDK_HOME=$HOME/Android/sdk export ANDROID_NDK_HOME=$HOME/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle export PATH=$ANDROID_SDK_HOME:$PATH export PATH=$ANDROID_NDK_HOME:$PATH export PATH=$ANDROID_SDK_HOME/build-tools/23.0.3:$PATH
On Windows:
set ANDROID_SDK_HOME=%LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\sdk set ANDROID_NDK_HOME=%LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\sdk\ndk-bundle set PATH=%LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\sdk\ndk-bundle;%PATH%
On OSX:
export ANDROID_SDK_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk export ANDROID_NDK_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle export PATH=$ANDROID_NDK_PATH:$PATH export PATH=$ANDROID_SDK_HOME/build-tools/23.0.3:$PATH
Note: If jarsigner is missing from your platform, you can find it in the Android Studio install.
Tested on OSX version 10.12.4
Setup Homebrew and components
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
brew install cmake python python3 git
Use the following script to build everything in the repo for Android, including validation layers, tests, demos, and APK packaging:
cd build-android ./build_all.sh
Resulting validation layer binaries will be in build-android/libs. Test and demo APKs can be installed on production devices with:
./install_all.sh -s <serial number>
Note that there are no equivalent scripts on Windows yet, that work needs to be completed. The following per platform commands can be used for layer only builds:
Follow the setup steps for Linux or OSX above, then from your terminal:
cd build-android ./update_external_sources_android.sh ./android-generate.sh ndk-build -j $(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)
Follow the setup steps for Windows above, then from Developer Command Prompt for VS2013:
cd build-android update_external_sources_android.bat android-generate.bat ndk-build
Use the following steps to build, install, and run the layer validation tests for Android:
cd build-android ./build_all.sh adb install -r bin/VulkanLayerValidationTests.apk adb shell am start com.example.VulkanLayerValidationTests/android.app.NativeActivity
Alternatively, you can use the test_APK script to install and run the layer validation tests:
test_APK.sh -s <serial number> -p <plaform name> -f <gtest_filter>
Use the following steps to build, install, and run Cube and Smoke for Android:
cd build-android ./build_all.sh adb install -r ../demos/android/cube/bin/cube.apk adb shell am start com.example.Cube/android.app.NativeActivity
To build, install, and run Cube with validation layers, first build layers using steps above, then run:
cd build-android ./build_all.sh adb install -r ../demos/android/cube-with-layers/bin/cube-with-layers.apk adb shell am start com.example.CubeWithLayers/android.app.NativeActivity adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -c android-intent.category.LAUNCH -n com.example.CubeWithLayers/android.app.NativeActivity --es args "--validate"
vkjson_info for Android is built as an executable for devices with root access.
To use, simply push it to the device and run it:
./build_all.sh adb push obj/local/<abi>/vkjson_info /data/tmp/ adb shell /data/tmp/vkjson_info
The resulting json file will be found in:
/sdcard/Android/<device_name>.json
To build, install, and run the Smoke demo for Android, run the following, and any prompts that come back from the script:
./update_external_sources.sh --glslang cd demos/smoke/android export ANDROID_SDK_HOME=<path to Android/Sdk> export ANDROID_NDK_HOME=<path to Android/Sdk/ndk-bundle> ./build-and-install adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -c android-intent.category.LAUNCH -n com.example.Smoke/android.app.NativeActivity --es args "--validate"
The Qt Creator IDE can open a root CMakeList.txt as a project directly, and it provides tools within Creator to configure and generate Vulkan SDK build files for one to many targets concurrently, resolving configuration issues as needed. Alternatively, when invoking CMake use the -G Codeblocks Ninja option to generate Ninja build files to be used as project files for QtCreator
gslang and SPIRV-Tools repos are required to build and run Loader and Validation Layer components. They are not git sub-modules of Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers but Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers is linked to specific revisions of gslang and spirv-tools. These can be automatically cloned and built to predefined locations with the update_external_sources scripts. If a custom configuration is required, do the following steps:
clone the repos:
git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang.git git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/SPIRV-Tools.git
checkout the correct version of each tree based on the contents of the glslang_revision and spirv-tools_revision files at the root of the Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers tree (do the same anytime that Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers is updated from remote)
on windows
git checkout < [path to Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers]\glslang_revision [in glslang repo] git checkout < [path to Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers]\spirv-tools_revision[in spriv-tools repo]
non windows
git checkout `cat [path to Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers]\glslang_revision` [in glslang repo] git checkout `cat [path to Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers]\spirv-tools_revision` [in spriv-tools repo]
Configure the gslang and spirv-tools source trees with cmake and build them with your IDE of choice
Enable the CUSTOM_GSLANG_BIN_PATH and CUSTOM_SPIRV_TOOLS_BIN_PATH options in the Vulkan-LoaderAndValidationLayers cmake configuration and point the GSLANG_BINARY_PATH and SPIRV_TOOLS_BINARY_PATH variables to the correct location
If building on Windows with MSVC, set DISABLE_BUILDTGT_DIR_DECORATION to On. If building on Windows, but without MSVC set DISABLE_BUILD_PATH_DECORATION to On
Cygwin for windows. Notes:
Ninja on all platforms. The Ninja-build project. Ninja Users Manual