Stable version installation on Unix-like systems (e.g. GNU/Linux or *BSD):
- Check your OS repository for already built packages.
- Check https://celestia.space/download.html.
Stable version installation on Windows and OSX:
Development snapshots installation on Unix-like systems:
❯ curl -fsSL -o celestia.gpg https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/munix9:/unstable/Debian_10/Release.key
❯ gpg --keyid-format long celestia.gpg
gpg: WARNING: no command supplied. Trying to guess what you mean ...
pub rsa2048/BDF3F6ACD4D81407 2014-06-09 [SC] [expires: 2023-02-14]
3FE0C0AC1FD6F1034B818A14BDF3F6ACD4D81407
uid home:munix9 OBS Project <home:[email protected]>
❯ sudo mv celestia.gpg /usr/share/keyrings/celestia.asc
❯ echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/celestia.asc] https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/munix9:/unstable/Debian_10/ ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/celestia-obs.list
❯ sudo apt update && sudo apt install celestia
curl https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/munix9:/unstable/Ubuntu_${VERSION}/Release.key | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/munix9:/unstable/Ubuntu_${VERSION}/ ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/celestia-obs.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install celestia
Where VERSION is 18.04 or 20.04.
sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:munix9:unstable/openSUSE_${VERSION}/home:munix9:unstable.repo
sudo zypper refresh
sudo zypper install celestia
Where VERSION is 'Leap_15.2', 'Leap_15.3' or 'Tumbleweed'.
See also the download package sites on OBS for celestia and celestia-data.
Try experimental portable AppImage (see CelestiaProject#333):
wget https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/munix9:/unstable/AppImage/celestia-1.7.0-git-x86_64.AppImage
chmod 755 celestia-1.7.0-git-x86_64.AppImage
Optionally create a portable, main version-independent $HOME directory in the same folder as the AppImage file:
mkdir celestia-1.7.home
To build from sources please follow instructions below.
We recommend using a copy of our git repository to build your own installation as it contains some dependencies required for building.
To create the copy install git from your OS distribution repository or from https://git-scm.com/ and then execute the following commands:
git clone https://github.com/CelestiaProject/Celestia
cd Celestia
git submodule update --init
First you need a C++ compiler able to compile C++11 code (GCC 4.8.1 or later, Clang 3.3 or later), CMake, GNU Make or Ninja.
Then you need to have the following devel components installed before Celestia will build: OpenGL, libepoxy, fmtlib, Eigen3, freetype, libjpeg, and libpng. Optional packages are gettext, Qt5, Gtk2 or Gtk3, sdl2, ffmpeg, libavif, glu and glut.
For example on modern Debian-derived system you need to install the following packages: libepoxy-dev, libjpeg-dev, libpng-dev, libgl1-mesa-dev, libeigen3-dev, libfmt-dev, libfreetype6-dev. Then you may want to install libglu1-mesa-dev, required by some tools; qtbase5-dev, qtbase5-dev-tools and libqt5opengl5-dev if you want to build with Qt5 interface; libgtk2.0-dev and libgtkglext1-dev to build with legacy Gtk2 interface; libgtk3.0-dev to build Gtk3 interface, libsdl2-dev to build SDL interface or freeglut3-dev to build with glut interface. libavcodec-dev, libavformat-dev, libavutil-dev and libswscale-dev are required to build with video capture support. libavif-dev is required to build to AVIF texture support.
OK, assuming you've collected all the necessary libraries, here's what you need to do to build and run Celestia:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DENABLE_DATA=ON -DENABLE_INTERFACE=ON [*]
make
sudo make install
[*] INTERFACE must be replaced with one of "QT", "GTK", "SDL" or
"GLUT".
Four interfaces are available for Celestia on Unix-like systems:
- GLUT: minimal interface, barebone Celestia core with no toolbar or menu... Disabled by default.
- SDL: minimal interface, barebone Celestia core with no toolbar or menu... Disabled by default.
- GTK: A full interface with minimal dependencies, adds a menu, a configuration dialog some other utilities. Legacy interface, may lack some new features. Disabled by default.
- QT: A full interface with minimal dependencies, adds a menu, a configuration dialog some other utilities, bookmarks... A preferred option. Enabled by default, No need to pass -DENABLE_QT=ON.
Starting with version 1.3.1, Lua is the new scripting engine for Celestia,
the old homegrown scripting engine is still available. By default Lua support
is enabled, it can be disabled passing -DENABLE_CELX=OFF to cmake. Supported
Lua versions are 5.1 - 5.4. On Debian-based systems install liblua5.x-dev
package (replace x with 1, 2, 3 or 4) or libluajit-5.1-dev. The latter is
preferred.
To check wether your Celestia has been compiled with Lua support, go to File -> Open. If you have '*.cel .celx' in the filter box, then Lua is available otherwise the filter will contain only '.cel'.
The GtkGLExt widget that is required in order to build Celestia with Gtk+ may be downloaded from http://gtkglext.sf.net. Note that depending in your distribution you may also need other packages containing various files needed by the build process. For instance, to build under SUSE Linux, you will also need to have the gtk-devel package installed. GtkGLExt widget support is optional and own EGL-based implementation of GL widget can be used instead. It also required only if Gtk2 used, with Gtk3 own implementation used always.
Celestia will be installed into /usr/local by default, with data files landing in /usr/local/share/celestia, but you may specify a new location with the following option to cmake: -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/another/path.
Currently to build on Windows you need Visual Studio 2015 or later, CMake and vcpkg (*).
Install required packages:
vcpkg --triplet=TRIPLET install --recurse libpng libjpeg-turbo gettext luajit fmt libepoxy eigen3 freetype
Install optional packages:
vcpkg --triplet=TRIPLET install --recurse qt5-base ffmpeg[x264] cspice libavif
Replace TRIPLET with x86-windows to build 32-bit versions or x64-windows
for 64-bit versions.
Instead of luajit lua can be used.
Use vcpkg list to ensure that all packages have actually been installed.
If not, try installing them one at a time.
Configure and build 32-bit version:
md build32
cd build32
cmake -DCMAKE_GENERATOR_PLATFORM=Win32 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=c:/tools/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake -DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=x86-windows ..
cmake --build . -- /maxcpucount:N /nologo
Configure and build 64-bit version:
md build64
cd build64
cmake -DCMAKE_GENERATOR_PLATFORM=x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=c:/tools/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake -DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=x64-windows ..
cmake --build . -- /maxcpucount:N /nologo
Instead of N in /maxcpucount pass the number of CPU cores you want to use during the build.
This example assumes that vcpkg is installed into c:/tools/vcpkg. Update
the path to vcpkg.cmake according to your installation.
If you have Qt5 installed using official Qt installer, then pass parameter CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH to cmake call used to configure Celestia, e.g.
cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=C:\Qt\5.10.1\msvc2015 ..
Not supported yet:
- automatic installation using cmake
- using Ninja instead of MSBuild
Notes:
- vcpkg installation instructions are located on https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg
NOTE: this part is not up to date!
It is recommended to build the source with MSYS2 https://www.msys2.org/ .
Do the following in the MINGW64 shell (mingw64.exe).
Install required packages:
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain
pacman -S base-devel
pacman -S git
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-freeglut mingw-w64-x86_64-libepoxy mingw-w64-x86_64-lua
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-mesa
Install optional packages:
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-fmt mingw-w64-x86_64-eigen3 mingw-w64-x86_64-luajit
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-sdl2
Clone the source and go to the source directory.
Configure and build:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G"MSYS Makefiles" -DENABLE_WIN=OFF
mingw32-make.exe -jN
Instead of N, pass a number of CPU cores you want to use during a build.
To build in debug configuration, you have to use lld linker instead of the default linker in gcc.
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-lld mingw-w64-x86_64-lldb
Follow by:
cmake .. -G "MSYS Makefiles" -DENABLE_WIN=OFF -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS='-fuse-ld=lld' -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
Then do mingw32-make.exe.
Currently Qt frontend is the only available option for macOS users building Celestia from source.
Install the latest Xcode:
You should be able to get Xcode from the Mac App Store.
Install Homebrew
Follow the instructions on https://brew.sh/
Install required packages:
brew install pkg-config cmake fmt gettext libepoxy libpng lua qt5 jpeg eigen freetype
Install optional packages:
brew install cspice ffmpeg libavif
Follow common building instructions to fetch the source.
Configure and build:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -jN
Instead of N, pass a number of CPU cores you want to use during a build.
Install:
make install
Celestia will be installed into /usr/local by default, with data files landing
in /usr/local/share/celestia, but you may want to specify a new location with
the following option to cmake: -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/another/path.
To build the application bundle, pass -DNATIVE_OSX_APP=ON to the cmake command, the application bundle will be located in the "build" folder that you previously created.
List of supported parameters (passed as -DPARAMETER=VALUE):
| Parameter | TYPE | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX | path | * | Prefix where to install Celestia |
| CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH | path | Additional path to look for libraries | |
| LEGACY_OPENGL_LIBS | bool | **OFF | Use OpenGL libraries not GLvnd |
| ENABLE_CELX | bool | ON | Enable Lua scripting support |
| ENABLE_SPICE | bool | OFF | Enable NAIF kernels support |
| ENABLE_NLS | bool | ON | Enable interface translation |
| ENABLE_GLUT | bool | OFF | Build simple Glut frontend |
| ENABLE_GTK | bool | **OFF | Build legacy GTK2 frontend |
| ENABLE_QT | bool | ON | Build Qt frontend |
| ENABLE_SDL | bool | OFF | Build SQL frontend |
| ENABLE_WIN | bool | ***ON | Build Windows native frontend |
| ENABLE_FFMPEG | bool | OFF | Support video capture using ffmpeg |
| ENABLE_LIBAVIF | bool | OFF | Support AVIF texture using libavif |
| ENABLE_MINIAUDIO | bool | OFF | Support audio playback using miniaudio |
| ENABLE_TOOLS | bool | OFF | Build tools for Celestia data files |
| ENABLE_DATA | bool | OFF | Use CelestiaContent submodule for data |
| ENABLE_GLES | bool | OFF | Use OpenGL ES 2.0 in rendering code |
| NATIVE_OSX_APP | bool | OFF | Support native OSX data paths |
| USE_GTKGLEXT | bool | ON | Use libgtkglext1 in GTK2 frontend |
| USE_GTK3 | bool | OFF | Use Gtk3 instead of Gtk2 in GTK2 frontend |
Notes:
* /usr/local on Unix-like systems, c:\Program Files or c:\Program Files (x86)
on Windows depending on OS type (32 or 64 bit) and build configuration.
This option effect is overriden by NATIVE_OSX_APP.
** Ignored on Windows systems.
*** Ignored on Unix-like systems.
USE_GTK3 requires ENABLE_GTK
Parameters of type "bool" accept ON or OFF value. Parameters of type "path" accept any directory.
On Windows systems two additonal options are supported:
CMAKE_GENERATOR_PLATFORM- can be set tox64on 64-bit Windows to build 64-bit Celestia. To build 32-bit Celestia it should beWin32.CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE- location of vcpkg.cmake if vcpkg is used.
Please note that not all options are compatible:
USE_GTKGLEXTis not compatible withENABLE_GLESandUSE_GTK3and will be disabled if any of this is set.ENABLE_GLESis not compatible withENABLE_GLUTand withENABLE_QTif yourglutor Qt5 installation don't support OpenGL ES.
As said prevously Celestia provides several user interfaces, accordingly with
interfaces it's built with it has different executable files installed to
${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/bin (e.g. with default CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX on
Unix-like systems they are installed into /usr/local/bin).
Here's the table which provides executable file names accordingly to interface:
| Interface | Executable name |
|---|---|
| Qt5 | celestia-qt |
| GTK | celestia-gtk |
| GLUT | celestia-glut |
| SDL | celestia-sdl |
| WIN | celestia-win |