Compile Blender 2.8 on Linux

Blender 2.8 is currently in beta stage shipping with many new features like Eevee real-time render engine, refreshed interface and here is how to source compile it on any Linux based operating system.

First, create a directory, where we will store the cloned source code and compile it.

Get Git and Development Tools

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install git build-essential

Fedora

sudo dnf install git

sudo dnf -y groupinstall "Development Tools"

CentOS

sudo yum install git

sudo yum -y groupinstall "Development Tools"

mkdir ~/blender-git

Set blender-git as the current directory

cd ~/blender-git

Cloning blender2.8 branch to the set directory from git.blender.org

Update: This article was written when Blender 2.8 was under development and the repository structure has changed below is the updated information.

git clone https://git.blender.org/blender.git # current repo

git clone https://git.blender.org/blender.git -b blender2.8 # repo when 2.8 was beta

cd blender

git submodule update --init --recursive

git submodule foreach git checkout master

git submodule foreach git pull --rebase origin master

Install all the required dependencies to compile Blender.

./build_files/build_environment/install_deps.sh

Dependencies are installed you can compile it

make

This should take some time; the processing speed depends on your hardware specification.

Exiting blender and going to the parent directory

cd ..

Launching Blender executable

./build_linux/bin/blender

Re-compiling new version

cd ~/blender-git/blender

make update && make

Please feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions.