Build prerequisites

This page is for developers. For ready-made packages, see installation.

Build and install from source

With Rust/Cargo 1.98.1 installed, clone the repository and run the source installer as your normal user:

git clone https://github.com/Among-Terminal/among.git
cd among
sh scripts/install.sh --install-deps

The installer uses sudo only for Debian/Ubuntu build dependencies; compilation and application installation run as your user. It installs a desktop entry and ~/.local/bin/among. It does not install Rust or change your toolchain. Rerun it from an updated checkout to update; ~/.local/bin/among-uninstall removes only installer-owned files and preserves preferences and sessions. See the source installer reference for conflicts, XDG paths, rollback limitations and prebuilt-binary mode.

For a binary-only Cargo installation with the native prerequisites below:

cargo install --git https://github.com/Among-Terminal/among --locked among

This compiles the moving default branch, without desktop integration or plugins. Do not run Cargo as root. Repeat to update; cargo uninstall among removes the Cargo binary but preserves settings and sessions.

Built on Debian 13 (trixie), Rust 1.98.1, against GTK 4.18.6, libadwaita 1.7.6, and VTE 0.80.1. Live acceptance runs use isolated Xephyr/native X11 with GNOME Shell. A Wayland host desktop is not evidence of native Wayland application behavior; Wayland, Snap and Flatpak runtime acceptance remains unexecuted.

System packages

sudo apt install libgtk-4-dev libvte-2.91-gtk4-dev libadwaita-1-dev

Verify:

pkg-config --exists gtk4 libadwaita-1 vte-2.91-gtk4 && echo ok

The GTK4 VTE library must be 0.76 or newer. Native context-menu dispatch requires this version; check with pkg-config --modversion vte-2.91-gtk4.

Do not install libvte-2.91-dev

That package provides the GTK 3 build of VTE, whose pkg-config file is vte-2.91.pc and whose libraries are -lgtk-3 -lgdk-3. The bindings used here are generated against the GTK 4 build, whose pkg-config file is vte-2.91-gtk4 and whose libraries are -lvte-2.91-gtk4 -lgtk-4.

Both can be installed side by side — they are different shared objects, not conflicting packages — but only the -gtk4 one satisfies the build.

Rust dependencies

From Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
gtk = { package = "gtk4", version = "0.11", features = ["v4_10", "v4_12"] }
adw = { package = "libadwaita", version = "0.9", features = ["v1_5"] }
vte = { package = "vte4", version = "0.10", features = ["v0_76"] }
glib = "0.22"
gio = "0.22"
serde = { version = "1", features = ["derive"] }
serde_json = "1"
libc = "0.2"

Several of these constraints are not optional, and none of them are explained in the vte4 README:

gtk4 needs the v4_10 feature

vte4's generated code references gtk::Accessible. In gtk4 0.11 that type is behind the v4_10 feature, so a plain gtk4 = "0.11" dependency fails:

error[E0425]: cannot find type `Accessible` in crate `gtk`

The v4_12 feature is this project's own requirement, not vte4's: it exposes CssProvider::load_from_string, which is how data/among.css is installed.

glib and gio must be listed directly

vte4 does not re-export them. Pty::new_sync takes a vte::PtyFlags, and spawn_async takes a glib::SpawnFlags and an Option<&gio::Cancellable>, so both crates have to be reachable by name.

libadwaita must track gtk4

The gtk-rs crates are versioned as a set, and the -sys crates declare a links value. Two crates cannot both claim links = "gtk-4", so cargo refuses the build outright:

package `gtk4-sys` links to the native library `gtk-4`, but it conflicts with a
previous package which links to `gtk-4` as well: package `gtk4-sys v0.9.0`

libadwaita 0.7 depends on gtk4-sys 0.9; gtk4 0.11 needs gtk4-sys 0.11. libadwaita 0.9 is the release that tracks gtk4 0.11. Whenever gtk4 is bumped, libadwaita must move with it.

Verifying a clean build

cargo build --release --locked
cargo test --locked

cargo test runs without a display. The VTE binding helpers that touch GTK — ShortcutTrigger::parse_string, CallbackAction::new, GtkSnapshot — assert that GTK is initialised, so they are kept out of the test paths and exercised through the running application instead.

Runtime notes

• VTE's search helpers need the PCRE2 multiline flag 0x400, which is defined in neither the crate nor VTE's public headers. Without it VTE emits a warning on every search call.
• vte::Regex::for_search and vte::Regex::for_match are different constructors with different purposes; using the wrong one triggers a GLib critical at runtime.
• text_range and text_selected_full are commented out in the generated bindings and are unavailable. text_selected is behind the v0_70 feature, and going through the clipboard to read text is not reliable enough to build on.