Installing Qt binary packages

Note that Geopsy package (3.5.0) is developed and tested with Qt 5.15.2 and Qt 6.5. Successful builds were reported with Qt 5.11. Error were encountered with Qt 5.9. If a sufficiently recent Qt is not available on your platform you can follow this tutorial to install binaries provided directly from Qt.

2026-04-13 For branch 3.6, we recommend at least Qt-6.8.2. More recent releases have not been tested so far and you may expect difficulties during the compilation step.

Downloading online installer

qt.io is a fancy commercial website but not really handy to get access to the open-source Qt package

• Go to Qt
• Click on "Download. Try. Buy" green button in the top right corner
• Scroll down to "Download open source"
• Scroll down to bottom of the page
• Click on "Download the Qt Online Installer" green button
• Select your platform and click on "Qt Online Installer for ..."

Great you have the file. Simple no?

Change permissions and run the installer

• Change permission to be able to execute it (for Linux). Under Windows, it comes with a ".exe" extension ready to be run.

 $ chmod a+x qt-unified-linux-x64-4.11.0-online.run

• And start the installer

 $ ./qt-unified-linux-x64-4.11.0-online.run

• Under Windows, double-click on the .exe file

• You receive a great "Welcome", nothing to do
• Click on "Next"
• You have to create a Qt account (as simple as breathing, isn't it?), if you have already one enter your credentials.
• Make your choice if you want or not to send pseudonymous,... it is up to you
• Click on "Next"
• Certify that you have read and approve the obligations of using Open Source Qt
• Click on "Next"
• A very important step: select the destination path (e.g. Z:\Qt\6.8.3), choose it carefully. It is better to avoid moving or renaming it later on.
• Select "Custom installation"
• Click on "Next"
• Select at least these components:

 Qt
   Qt 6.8.3 (or higher)
     MinGW 13.1.0 64-bit (or higher, for Windows)
     Desktop (for Linux)
 Build tools
   MinGW 13.1.0 64-bit (or higher)
   CMake 3.30.5 (or higher)
   Ninja 1.12.1 (or higher)
 Qt Creator
   Qt Creator 19.0.0 (or higher)

• Click on "Next"
• Accept the license
• Click on "Next"
• Set location of Qt in Start menu
• Click on "Next"
• Click on "Install"

Now the real installation starts. It may last a little bit.

The final touch

Qt and the whole Qt Creator development environment is now installed.

 $ ls /path/you/chose/for/Qt
   6.8.3           dist  Examples             installer.dat       Licenses         MaintenanceTool.dat  network.xml  Tools
   components.xml  Docs  InstallationLog.txt  installerResources  MaintenanceTool  MaintenanceTool.ini  QtIcon.png

The interesting part of Qt is in folder 6.8.3 (or another version)

 $ ls /path/you/chose/for/Qt/6.8.3/
    bin/          include/      mkspecs/      plugins/      translations/ 
    doc/          lib/          phrasebooks/  qml/ 

'qmake' building tool is in 'bin'. Add this path to your PATH

 export PATH=/path/you/chose/for/Qt/6.8.3/gcc_64/bin:$PATH

Or for Windows

 export PATH=/path/you/chose/for/Qt/6.8.3/mingw_64/bin:$PATH

If you do not want to pollute your .bashrc or your .profile, create a file "env" where you intend to build geopsypack:

 #!/bin/bash
 export PATH=/path/you/chose/for/Qt/6.8.3/gcc_64/bin:$PATH

Whenever you want to start building geopsypack, source this file.

 source ./env