Subsurface on Apple Silicone

Robert Helling helling at atdotde.de
Fri Oct 15 09:55:37 PDT 2021


Hi,

has anybody managed to build Subsurface on Apple Silicone? Because I haven’t.

Here is a log of my frustrations.

Before leaving for the summer vacation, I received a new MacMini at the office featuring the new ARM based Apple hardware that everybody is so excited about. It runs Big Sur.

It took several weeks to find the time to properly take care of it, install all the software I need for work, get permissions right (it seems they changed what admin users can do when the machine is part of an active domain or better what they cannot do, for example install software updates etc etc). But those things I think I have under control by now.

So I move forward and tried to set up a build environment for Subsurface. I encountered halve installed versions of Xcode which on the other hand leave behind zombi installations when removed that confuse auto build when still around when there is a second version as well (this took me two days to understand). But also that is solved. I think.

But now I hit a road block: I am able to build the subsurface object files. But then I came to the understanding that Qt 5.x does not exist in version for Apple’s ARM processors, only for the 86 family (which could be used in Rosetta mode and indeed the official Mac binaries from Dirk’s server work fine on that machine). But I have not been able to convince the Subsurface build system to build 86 family binaries on my ARM machine.

So I see three options to move forward: „Cross-build“ Subsurface for the old hardware platform. Or wait for ARM built binaries of Qt 5.x (which as I understand might never happen at least in the open source world). Or move Subsurface forward to work with Qt 6 (which might be in better shape w.r.t. ARM but I don’t really understand the current situation in detail).

Or ignore this new machine and only try to build Subsurface on my old Intel Mac (which are a bit aged which was the reason in the first place to get the new machine).

Any thoughts? Am I missing something?

Best
Robert
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