Desktop

Instructions to get started with Skia on desktop systems (Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows).

1. Download Skia

   git clone 'https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools.git'
   export PATH="${PWD}/depot_tools:${PATH}"
   git clone 'https://skia.googlesource.com/skia.git'
   cd skia
   

   (On Windows without git, swap steps 1 and 2)

2. Install system-specific prerequisites.

   • Linux
   • Mac OS X
   • Windows

3. Sync dependencies and config. Build. Run tests.

   python bin/sync-and-gyp
   ninja -C out/Debug
   out/Debug/dm
   

Gyp Options

Skia relies on Gyp to generate build files. Read about specifying options for Gyp to set the compile-time settings, compiler (e.g. use clang instead of gcc), build systems, and build directory.

Run unit and correctness tests

DM (“diamond master”) is the Skia test app.

ninja -C out/Debug dm
out/Debug/dm

Run Skia samples

SampleApp is the Skia sample program.

ninja -C out/Debug SampleApp
out/Debug/SampleApp

Build non-debug binaries

The usual mode you want for testing is Debug mode (SK_DEBUG is defined, and debug symbols are included in the binary). If you would like to build the Release mode:

ninja -C out/Release

Performance tests

Build and run nanobench (performance tests). In this case, we will build with the “Release” configuration, since we are running performance tests.

ninja -C out/Release nanobench
out/Release/nanobench
out/Release/nanobench --skps .../path/to/*.skp

Keeping up to date

git fetch origin
git checkout origin/master

Contribute to Skia

How to use Git and Git-cl to contribute to Skia.