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This guide has now been included in the main readme - please reference that one instead.

Build Environment Setup

Windows (Vista and later)

  1. If you have ever installed WinAVR, uninstall it.
  2. Install MHV AVR Tools. Disable smatch, but be sure to leave the option to add the tools to the PATH checked.
  3. Install MinGW. During installation, uncheck the option to install a graphical user interface. DO NOT change the default installation folder. The scripts depend on the default location.
  4. Clone this repository. This link will download it as a zip file, which you'll need to extract. Open the extracted folder in Windows Explorer.
  5. Double-click on the 1-setup-path-win batch script to run it. You'll need to accept a User Account Control prompt. Press the spacebar to dismiss the success message in the command prompt that pops up.
  6. Right-click on the 2-setup-environment-win batch script, select "Run as administrator", and accept the User Account Control prompt. This part may take a couple of minutes, and you'll need to approve a driver installation, but once it finishes, your environment is complete!
  7. Future build commands should be run from the standard Windows command prompt, which you can find by searching for "command prompt" from the start menu or start screen. Ignore the "MHV AVR Shell".

Mac

If you're using homebrew, you can use the following commands:

brew tap osx-cross/avr
brew install avr-libc
brew install dfu-programmer

This is the recommended method. If you don't have homebrew, install it! It's very much worth it for anyone who works in the command line.

You can also try these instructions:

  1. Install Xcode from the App Store.
  2. Install the Command Line Tools from Xcode->Preferences->Downloads.
  3. Install [DFU-Programmer][dfu-prog].

Linux

Install AVR GCC, AVR libc, and dfu-progammer with your favorite package manager.

Debian/Ubuntu example:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc-avr avr-libc dfu-programmer

Vagrant

If you have any problems building the firmware, you can try using a tool called Vagrant. It will set up a virtual computer with a known configuration that's ready-to-go for firmware building. OLKB does NOT host the files for this virtual computer. Details on how to set up Vagrant are in the vagrant guide.

Verify Your Installation

  1. If you haven't already, obtain this repository (https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware). You can either download it as a zip file and extract it, or clone it using the command line tool git or the Github Desktop application.
  2. Open up a terminal or command prompt and navigate to the qmk_firmware folder using the cd command. The command prompt will typically open to your home directory. If, for example, you cloned the repository to your Documents folder, then you would type cd Documents/qmk_firmware. If you extracted the file from a zip, then it may be named qmk_firmware-master instead.
  3. To confirm that you're in the correct location, you can display the contents of your current folder using the dir command on Windows, or the ls command on Linux or Mac. You should see several files, including readme.md and a quantum folder. From here, you need to navigate to the appropriate folder under keyboards/. For example, if you're building for a Planck, run cd keyboards/planck.
  4. Once you're in the correct keyboard-specific folder, run the make command. This should output a lot of information about the build process. More information about the make command can be found below.

Customizing, Building, and Deploying Your Firmware

The Make command

The make command is how you compile the firmware into a .hex file, which can be loaded by a dfu programmer (like dfu-progammer via make dfu) or the Teensy loader (only used with Teensys). You can run make from the root (/), your keyboard folder (/keyboards/<keyboard>/), or your keymap folder (/keyboards/<keyboard>/keymaps/<keymap>/) if you have a Makefile there (see the example here).

By default, this will generate a <keyboard>_<keymap>.hex file in whichever folder you run make from. These files are ignored by git, so don't worry about deleting them when committing/creating pull requests.

  • The "root" (/) folder is the qmk_firmware folder, in which are doc, keyboard, quantum, etc.
  • The "keyboard" folder is any keyboard project's folder, like /keyboards/planck.
  • The "keymap" folder is any keymap's folder, like /keyboards/planck/keymaps/default.

Below is a list of the useful make commands in QMK:

  • make - cleans automatically and builds your keyboard and keymap depending on which folder you're in. This defaults to the "default" layout (unless in a keymap folder), and Planck keyboard in the root folder
    • make keyboard=<keyboard> - specifies the keyboard (only to be used in root)
    • make keymap=<keymap> - specifies the keymap (only to be used in root and keyboard folder - not needed when in keymap folder)
  • make quick - skips the clean step (cannot be used immediately after modifying config.h or Makefiles)
  • make dfu - (requires dfu-programmer) builds and flashes the keymap to your keyboard once placed in reset/dfu mode (button or press KC_RESET). This does not work for Teensy-based keyboards like the ErgoDox EZ.
    • keyboard= and keymap= are compatible with this
  • make all-keyboards - builds all keymaps for all keyboards and outputs status of each (use in root)
  • make all-keyboards-default - builds all default keymaps for all keyboards and outputs status of each (use in root)
  • make all-keymaps [keyboard=<keyboard>] - builds all of the keymaps for whatever keyboard folder you're in, or specified by <keyboard>
  • make all-keyboards-quick, make all-keyboards-default-quick and make all-keymaps-quick [keyboard=<keyboard>] - like the normal "make-all-*" commands, but they skip the clean steps

Other, less useful functionality:

  • make COLOR=false - turns off color output
  • make SILENT=true - turns off output besides errors/warnings
  • make VERBOSE=true - outputs all of the avr-gcc stuff (not interesting)

The Makefile

There are 3 different make and Makefile locations:

  • root (/)
  • keyboard (/keyboards/<keyboard>/)
  • keymap (/keyboards/<keyboard>/keymaps/<keymap>/)

The root contains the code used to automatically figure out which keymap or keymaps to compile based on your current directory and commandline arguments. It's considered stable, and shouldn't be modified. The keyboard one will contain the MCU set-up and default settings for your keyboard, and shouldn't be modified unless you are the producer of that keyboard. The keymap Makefile can be modified by users, and is optional. It is included automatically if it exists. You can see an example here - the last few lines are the most important. The settings you set here will override any defaults set in the keyboard Makefile. It is required if you want to run make in the keymap folder.

The config.h file

There are 2 config.h locations:

  • keyboard (/keyboards/<keyboard>/)
  • keymap (/keyboards/<keyboard>/keymaps/<keymap>/)

The keyboard config.h is included only if the keymap one doesn't exist. The format to use for your custom one is here. If you want to override a setting from the parent config.h file, you need to do this:

#undef MY_SETTING
#define MY_SETTING 4

For a value of 4 for this imaginary setting. So we undef it first, then define it.

You can then override any settings, rather than having to copy and paste the whole thing.