Quick Build in seven-1 easy steps

1. Make sure you have got a system with a running compiler as well as functional GNU enhanced tools. While T2 can be compiled on other Linux distributions -if you have installed the correct packages and bug fixes- best start buidling T2 on T2 for the best, reproducable, and just working out of the box experience. You can also download and install a precompiled T2 iso image to bootstrap your build.

2. Get the latest tarball of the T2 sources and extract it, or do an checkout from the T2 subversion repository to get the latest T2 develpoment snapshot:

T2 has quite minimal build requirements, along the usual Unix tools such as a shell, sed and awk only a working (ANSI) C compiler and the ncurses library and it's development headers (ncurses-devel) are required.

3. Become root, change into the T2 directory and type

to get into a text based configuration menu.
(Currently building as root is a script requirement for the permissions (yes, we know about fakeroot) but more due to the chroot sandbox build. We have plans to get rid of this limitation.)

(4. The sources for your the selected target will be downloaded on-the-fly. Although you could download them manually using

if you prefer to do so. Remember that it consumes space. For example, the complete sources for a non-GUI minimal system weights over a GB, while a minimal desktop system with a web brower easily would easily lean towards 10 GB.)

5. Start the build.

A full build of the desktop target takes two hours on the highest-end, epyc and thread-ripping AMD desktop, or a day on mid-range last geneneration system.

6. Create the iso images with

and look for files named my-own-t2.iso. Directly test boot it in a VM, or write it to USB drive, or optical disc for distribution and installation.