---
id: build-env
title: Creating a build/development environment
sidebar_label: Building Meshtastic
---

This project uses the simple PlatformIO build system. PlatformIO is an extension to Microsoft VSCode.

## GUI Installation

1. Install [Python](https://www.python.org/downloads/).
2. Install [Git](https://git-scm.com/downloads) or [GitHub Desktop](https://desktop.github.com/)
3. Install [Microsoft Visual Studio Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/)
4. Install [PlatformIO](https://platformio.org/platformio-ide).
5. Click the PlatformIO icon on the side bar. 
        ![platformio icon](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/47490997/89482668-77c7ea00-d7ee-11ea-8785-5faf8ff99800.png)
6. Under `Quick Access, Miscellaneous, Clone Git Project` enter the URL of the Meshtastic repo found [here](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-device).
        ![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/47490997/89483047-4c91ca80-d7ef-11ea-91f4-1d53d4e8acd9.png)
7. Select a file location to save the repo.
8. Once loaded, open the `platformio.ini` file.
9. At the line `default_envs` you can change it to the board type you are building for ie. `tlora-v2, tlora-v1, tlora-v2-1-1.6, tbeam, heltec, tbeam0.7` (boards are listed further down in the file).
10. The hardware can be configured for different countries by adding a definition to the `configuration.h` file. `#define HW_VERSION_US` or `HW_VERSION_EU433, HW_VERSION_EU865, HW_VERSION_CN, HW_VERSION_JP`. Other country settings can be found in `MeshRadio.h`. The default is `HW_VERSION_US`.
11. Click the PlatformIO icon on the side bar. Under `Project Tasks` you can now build or upload.

:::note
To get a clean build you may have to delete the auto-generated file `./.vscode/c_cpp_properties.json`, close and re-open Visual Studio and WAIT until the file is auto-generated before compiling again.
:::

## Manual Installation on Linux
1. On a Linux distro (like Ubuntu), ensure you have pre-requisites installed:

```
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3 python3-dev g++ zip
```

2. Install PlatformIO (which is usually via wget/curl command).

```
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/platformio/platformio-core-installer/master/get-platformio.py -O get-platformio.py
chmod +x get-platformio.py
python3 get-platformio.py
```

3. Clone the repo https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-device

4. Change into the Meshtastic-device and then download submodules

```
cd Meshtastic-device
git submodule update --init --recursive
```

Note: If you get an error like this:

```
Compiling .pio/build/rak4631_5005/src/plugins/PositionPlugin.cpp.o
src/nrf52/NRF52CryptoEngine.cpp:3:10: fatal error: ocrypto_aes_ctr.h: No such file or directory
```

then you need to run that submodule command from the main Meshtastic-device directory.


5. Activate the Platformio python virtual environment

```
source ~/.platformio/penv/bin/activate
```

6. Build everything (optionally just build what you really need by editing platformio.ini)

```
./bin/build-all.sh
```

7. See the newly built bits in release/archive/firmware-1.2.49.XXX.zip (where XXX is the git commit)