Compiling on Linux

Debian-based distros (like Ubuntu and Raspberry Pi OS)

1. Install the dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential git
sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev libportmidi-dev python3-setuptools python3-dev python3-numpy
sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev 

2. Clone the repository in a directory you are happy to work in:

git clone https://github.com/pygame-community/pygame-ce.git

3. Change into the pygame subdirectory you just created, and build pygame Community Edition:

cd pygame-ce
python3 -m pip install . --user

4. That's it!

Arch-based distros (like Manjaro)

1. Install the dependencies:

sudo pacman -Syyu
sudo pacman -S pkg-config base-devel git
sudo pacman -S sdl2 sdl2_ttf sdl2_image sdl2_mixer portmidi
python3 -m pip install numpy setuptools

2. Clone the repository in a directory you are happy to work in:

git clone https://github.com/pygame-community/pygame-ce.git

3. Change into the pygame subdirectory you just created, and build pygame Community Edition:

cd pygame-ce
python3 -m pip install . --user

4. That's it!

Common reasons for builds failing

mesonpy is missing an attribute or pip fails to find meson

Some versions of pip have this issue. The solution here is to upgrade pip by running python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip.