Prerequisites

Follow this guide to:

Set up a command-line PebbleOS development environment
Get the source code

PebbleOS SDK

Install the PebbleOS SDK, which bundles the ARM GNU toolchain, Pebble QEMU, and other tools:

curl -LsSf https://github.com/coredevices/PebbleOS-SDK/releases/latest/download/pebbleos-sdk-installer.sh | sh

The build locates the SDK on its own when a build directory is configured: it honours PEBBLEOS_SDK_ROOT if set (the SDK’s env.sh exports it), and otherwise picks the newest pebbleos-sdk-<version> under your home directory or /opt that satisfies the version in SDK_VERSION. The SDK root and the paths of the tools found in it (toolchain, QEMU, sftool, gdb) are cached in the build directory, so a build keeps using the SDK it was configured with. To use a specific install, pass -DPEBBLEOS_SDK_ROOT=<dir> to pbl configure.

System-level dependencies

A series of system-level dependencies are required. Follow the next steps to install them.

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Update first:

sudo apt update

Install required dependencies

sudo apt install \
    bison \
    clang \
    flex \
    gcc \
    gcc-multilib \
    gettext \
    git \
    gperf \
    libfreetype6-dev \
    libglib2.0-dev \
    libgtk-3-dev \
    libncurses-dev \
    librsvg2-bin \
    libsdl2-dev \
    make \
    nodejs \
    openocd \
    pkg-config \
    python3-dev \
    python3-venv

Fedora 44

Upgrade first:

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

Install required dependencies

sudo dnf install \
    bison \
    clang \
    dash \
    flex \
    freetype-devel \
    gcc \
    gettext \
    git \
    glib2-devel \
    gperf \
    gtk3-devel \
    librsvg2-tools \
    make \
    ncurses-devel \
    nodejs \
    openocd \
    pkgconf-pkg-config \
    python3-devel \
    SDL2-devel

macOS

Install brew.
Install dependencies:

brew install python openocd $(cat requirements-brew.txt)

Link brew Python:

brew link python@3

Get the source code

You can clone the PebbleOS repository by running:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/coredevices/pebbleos

Once cloned, enter the pebbleos directory before continuing:

cd pebbleos

Python dependencies

A series of additional Python dependencies are also required. Follow the next steps to install them in a Python virtual environment.

Create a new virtual environment:

python3 -m venv .venv

Activate the virtual environment:

source .venv/bin/activate

Tip

Remember to activate the virtual environment before every time you start working!

Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

This also installs pbl, the developer CLI you drive the build with. With the virtual environment active it is on the PATH from anywhere inside the checkout:

pbl configure --board asterix
pbl build

See The pbl CLI for what it can do and how it is put together.