Interfacing Linux: Compiling Ardour 6 On Debian 10

I was looking around the internet for Ardour 6.0 build instructions. Couldn’t find anything, so here is my quick-and-dirty guide for building Ardrour 6.0 on Debian 10. As is tradition.

NOTE: Check out the Ardour 8 on Debian 12 guide here.

1. First we’re going to need to install some dependencies.

Debian 10

sudo apt install build-essential git libboost-all-dev gcc g++ pkg-config libasound2-dev libgtk2.0-dev glibmm-2.4-dev libsndfile1-dev libcurl4-nss-dev libarchive-dev liblo-dev libtag1-dev vamp-plugin-sdk librubberband-dev libfftw3-dev libaubio-dev libxml2-dev libsamplerate-dev lv2-dev libserd-dev libsord-dev libsratom-dev liblilv-dev libgtkmm-2.4-dev libjack-jackd2-dev libogg-dev libcppunit-dev libudev-dev libwebsockets-dev libusb-dev libsuil-dev libdbus-1-dev xjadeo libusb-1.0-0-dev libreadline-dev  libarchive-dev liblo-dev libtag1-dev libvamp-sdk2v5 librubberband-dev libaubio-dev libpangomm-1.4-dev libserd-dev libsord-dev libsratom-dev liblilv-dev libgtkmm-2.4-dev libsuil-dev libcppunit-dev python

Debian 11

sudo apt install build-essential git libboost-all-dev gcc g++ pkg-config libasound2-dev libgtk2.0-dev libglibmm-2.4-dev libsndfile1-dev libcurl4-nss-dev libarchive-dev liblo-dev libtag1-dev vamp-plugin-sdk librubberband-dev libfftw3-dev libaubio-dev libxml2-dev libsamplerate0-dev lv2-dev libserd-dev libsord-dev libsratom-dev liblilv-dev libgtkmm-2.4-dev libjack-jackd2-dev libogg-dev libcppunit-dev libudev-dev libwebsockets-dev libusb-dev libsuil-dev libdbus-1-dev xjadeo libusb-1.0-0-dev libreadline-dev libarchive-dev liblo-dev libtag1-dev libvamp-sdk2v5 librubberband-dev libaubio-dev libpangomm-1.4-dev libserd-dev libsord-dev libsratom-dev liblilv-dev libgtkmm-2.4-dev libsuil-dev libcppunit-dev python liblrdf0-dev

2. Then we need to install additional dependencies because some dependencies are dependent on dependencies.

sudo apt install liblrdf0-dev

3. Download and extract Ardour 6.0

tar -xvf Ardour-6.0.0.tar.gz2

4. Configure the build.

./waf configure --cxx11 --optimize

5. Compile Ardour 6.0 (substitute ‘4’ for your available threads)

./waf -j4

6. Test the build before installing (optional)

cd gtk2_ardour
./ardev

7. Install Ardour 6.0

sudo ./waf install

You should now be able to launch Ardour 6.0 by running the following.

ardour6

To uninstall Ardour 6.0 return to the build directory and run the following.

sudo ./waf uninstall

If everything goes correctly you should have a copy of Ardour 6.0 up and running. If not, look on the bright side. You might have accidentally learned something.