Compiling from source on Linux

You will need a copy of the higan source-code. If you download an official release from the higan homepage, you will need 7-zip or a compatible tool to extract it. Alternatively, you may obtain higan source code from the unofficial git repo using the Git source-code management tool, or by clicking the download button on the right-hand side of the web-page and choosing an archive format.

You will also need GCC 4.9 or higher, including the C and C++ compiler, GNU Make, and development files (headers, etc.) for the following libraries:

  • GTK 2.x
  • PulseAudio
  • Mesa
  • gtksourceview 2.x
  • Cairo
  • SDL 1.2
  • libXv
  • libAO
  • OpenAL
  • udev

On a Debian-derived Linux distribution (including Ubuntu and Mint), you can install everything you need with a command like:

sudo apt-get install build-essential libgtk2.0-dev libpulse-dev \
    mesa-common-dev libgtksourceview2.0-dev libcairo2-dev libsdl1.2-dev \
    libxv-dev libao-dev libopenal-dev libudev-dev

Once you have all the dependencies installed, you may build and install higan.

Note: Run these commands as yourself, do not run them as root (no sudo, no su, etc.), because higan does not support being installed system-wide.

  1. Put the higan source code in some convenient location, like ~/higan-src
  2. Open a terminal window
  3. Type cd ~/higan-src (or wherever you put the higan source) and press Enter
  4. Type make -C higan and press Enter to build the main higan executable
  5. Type make -C icarus and press Enter to build the icarus import tool

Installing a compiled build on Linux

Assuming you have successfully compiled higan as described in the previous section:

  1. Open a terminal window
  2. Type cd ~/higan-src (or wherever you put the higan source) and press Enter
  3. Type make -C higan install and press Enter to install higan and its supporting files
  4. Type make -C icarus install and press Enter to install icarus and its game database
  5. If the higan source includes a shaders subdirectory, type make -C shaders install to install the example video shaders.

This installs higan and its associated data files into the ~/.local directory hierarchy.

To confirm higan is installed correctly, type higan in a terminal and press Enter. If the higan window appears, everything is working. On the other hand, if you get an error message like “command not found”, you should double-check that the directory ~/.local/bin is included in your $PATH environment variable by running the following command in a terminal:

echo "$PATH" | tr ':' '\n' | grep ~/.local/bin

If the above command prints the full path of ~/.local/bin (for example: /home/yourname/.local/bin) then you should be good. If it prints nothing, you need to add the following line to ~/.profile:

export PATH=~/.local/bin:$PATH

(this line must be in ~/.profile because most GUIs do not read any other files at login)

If you also have a ~/.bash_profile, make sure it reads the contents of ~/.profile with a line like this:

source ~/.profile

You will need to log out and log back in for changes to ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile to take effect.

Uninstalling a compiled build on Linux

To uninstall higan, as installed by the above instructions:

  1. Open a terminal window
  2. Type cd ~/higan-src (or wherever you put the higan source) and press Enter
  3. Type make -C higan uninstall and press Enter
  4. Type make -C icarus uninstall and press Enter

To remove higan’s configuration, you should also delete the following directories if they exist:

  • ~/.config/higan/
  • ~/.config/hiro/
  • ~/.local/share/higan/
  • ~/.local/share/hiro/

To remove the games imported into higan’s library (including in-game saves and save-states), delete the directory ~/Emulation.

You may also wish to delete the higan source directory.