Compile Blender 2.90 on Linux

Blender 2.90 is currently in the alpha stage shipping with new features and improvements, here is the complete release note of changes that will take place in this release.

First, we need to get the dependencies and packages required to build Blender 2.90 alpha

Initial dependencies for Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint and Elementary OS.

sudo apt update

sudo apt install git build-essential

Initial dependencies for Fedora/CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

sudo dnf update

sudo dnf install @development-tools git
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Create the blender-git directory

mkdir ~/blender-git

Set blender-git as the current directory

cd ~/blender-git

Cloning the repository locally.

git clone https://git.blender.org/blender.git
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Download pre-compiled libraries.

The pre-compiled libraries for Intel and AMD will help you compile and build a feature-complete Blender much faster. The libraries are built on CentOS 7 , but they are compatible and work fine on any Linux. (I have tested this on Linux Mint 20).

mkdir ~/blender-git/lib
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cd ~/blender-git/lib

svn checkout https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/lib/linux_centos7_x86_64
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For automatic dependency, installation follow this guide.

Let’s update and build Blender 2.90

cd ~/blender-git/blender
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make update

make

The making process will take time, the speed depends on the CPU core count, memory, and disk IO speed, CPU cores, the higher, and the faster-compiling speed.

After the process is complete the Blender executable will be located.

~/blender-git/build_linux/bin
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If the building fails after an update, it sometimes helps to remove the ~/blender-git/build_linux folder to get a completely clean build.

rm -rf ~/blender-git/build_linux
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Then re-run the make update make command.

Enjoy using Blender.