Download from GIT

How to get digiKam from git master repository

Stage 1: Install external dependencies

digiKam requires a lot of libraries. So, before compiling yourself digiKam, you’ll have to download and install them.

Most of these dependencies will be available as developement packages from your Linux distribution, generally with a “-devel” postfix (as libgphoto2-devel for ex), and can be installed separatly using the system packages manager as apt (Ubuntu, Debian, …), yum (RedHat, Fedora, CentOS, …), zipper (Suse, OpenSuse, …), etc.

Stage 2: Checkout digiKam source code from GIT

To checkout digiKam code from the git repository, enter these command lines in a directory where you have enough space disk:

# git clone https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam.git digikam
# cd digikam

This will checkout the master branch where new features will be added. This code is compatible with Qt5 and Qt6.

Note: for developers who whant to contribute, create a fork from GiLab repository web interface and make your changes in your own repository. When all is ready, from web interface send a Pull Request (PR) for future codes review and backport to master repository.

Stage 3: digiKam Compilation and installation in your Linux system

To compile the source code under linux you have to give these commands in the source code folder. You should use a separate build folder to help cleaning up sources if something goes wrong. All configuration tasks can be performed by bootstrap.linux script.

# ./bootstrap.linux
# cd build
# make -j4
# su
# make install/fast

Note: make -j4 will use 4 CPU cores to compile all source code. If more cores are available on your computer, just change this value accordingly to speed-up compilation.

Files will be installed to the standard path used by your Linux system to host applications (usually /usr).