System Requirements Building Helium requires substantial system resources due to the size of the Chromium codebase.
Minimum Hardware
CPU 8+ cores recommended More cores significantly reduce build time. Chromium builds are highly parallel.
RAM 16GB minimum, 32GB+ recommended The linker phase requires substantial memory. 32GB or more is strongly recommended.
Disk Space 100GB+ free space
Chromium source: ~30GB
Build output: 40-60GB
Additional overhead: 20GB+
Build Time 2-8 hours Varies based on CPU, RAM, and disk speed. First build is always longest.
Insufficient RAM can cause the build to fail during the linking phase. If you have less than 32GB RAM, consider:
Using use_lld=false to use the system linker
Limiting parallel jobs with ninja -j4 instead of using all cores
Enabling swap space (will significantly slow the build)
Operating System Support Helium can be built on the following platforms:
Linux (Recommended for Development) Supported Distributions:
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS or newer
Debian 11 or newer
Fedora 36 or newer
Arch Linux (rolling)
Kernel Requirements:
Linux kernel 5.4 or newer
Linux provides the best build experience with excellent tooling support and faster builds. macOS Supported Versions:
macOS 12.0 (Monterey) or newer
macOS 13.0 (Ventura) recommended
macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) supported
Architecture:
Intel (x86_64)
Apple Silicon (arm64)
Universal builds require building on both architectures
Xcode Command Line Tools are required (see Software Requirements below).
Windows Supported Versions:
Windows 10 version 1809 or newer
Windows 11 (all versions)
Requirements:
Windows 10 SDK (version 10.0.20348 or newer)
Visual Studio 2022 (Community Edition or higher)
Windows builds require additional setup and are more complex than Linux builds. Consider using WSL2 with Linux for development.
Software Requirements The following tools are required for all platforms:
Python 3 # Check Python version (3.8 or newer required) python3 --version
Helium’s build scripts require Python 3.8 or newer.
Git # Check Git version (2.30 or newer recommended) git --version
Required for cloning Chromium source and managing patches.
GNU Patch # Check patch utility patch --version
Required for applying patches. Set PATCH_BIN environment variable if using a custom location.
Linux Build Dependencies Debian/Ubuntu # Install build dependencies sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y \ build-essential \ git \ python3 \ python3-pip \ ninja-build \ pkg-config \ libglib2.0-dev \ libgtk-3-dev \ libpango1.0-dev \ libdbus-1-dev \ libatk1.0-dev \ libatk-bridge2.0-dev \ libcups2-dev \ libdrm-dev \ libxkbcommon-dev \ libgbm-dev \ libasound2-dev \ libpulse-dev \ libnss3-dev \ libxss-dev \ libxtst-dev \ libpci-dev \ curl
Fedora/RHEL # Install build dependencies sudo dnf install -y \ @development-tools \ git \ python3 \ python3-pip \ ninja-build \ pkg-config \ glib2-devel \ gtk3-devel \ pango-devel \ dbus-devel \ atk-devel \ at-spi2-atk-devel \ cups-devel \ libdrm-devel \ libxkbcommon-devel \ mesa-libgbm-devel \ alsa-lib-devel \ pulseaudio-libs-devel \ nss-devel \ libXScrnSaver-devel \ libXtst-devel \ pciutils-devel \ curl
Arch Linux # Install build dependencies sudo pacman -S --needed \ base-devel \ git \ python \ python-pip \ ninja \ pkg-config \ glib2 \ gtk3 \ pango \ dbus \ atk \ at-spi2-core \ cups \ libdrm \ libxkbcommon \ mesa \ alsa-lib \ pulseaudio \ nss \ libxss \ libxtst \ pciutils \ curl
macOS Build Dependencies # Install Xcode Command Line Tools xcode-select --install
Homebrew Packages # Install Homebrew if not already installed /bin/bash -c "$( curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" # Install build dependencies brew install \ git \ [email protected] \ ninja \ pkg-config
macOS includes most required libraries. Additional dependencies are managed by the build system.
Windows Build Dependencies Visual Studio 2022 Download and install Visual Studio 2022 with the following workloads:
Desktop development with C++
Windows 10 SDK (10.0.20348.0 or newer)
# Install Chocolatey (if not installed) Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass - Scope Process - Force [ System.Net.ServicePointManager ]::SecurityProtocol = [ System.Net.ServicePointManager ]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072 iex (( New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString( 'https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1' )) # Install build tools choco install - y git python3 ninja
Windows builds also require setting up the Visual Studio environment variables. Use the “Developer Command Prompt for VS 2022” or “Developer PowerShell for VS 2022”.
These tools can improve the build experience:
ccache Compiler cache Speeds up rebuilds by caching compilation results. # Linux sudo apt-get install ccache # macOS brew install ccache
curl Download tool Preferred over Python’s urllib for downloads (supports resume). Usually pre-installed on Linux and macOS.
Python Dependencies Helium’s build scripts use the following Python packages:
# Install from requirements file pip3 install -r utils/requirements.txt # Or install manually pip3 install schema
The schema package is used for validating downloads.ini and deps.ini configuration files.
Required for unpacking downloaded components:
Linux/macOS
tar - GNU or BSD tar (usually pre-installed)7z - Optional, for 7-Zip archives
# Linux sudo apt-get install p7zip-full # Debian/Ubuntu sudo dnf install p7zip # Fedora # macOS brew install p7zip
Windows Disk Space Breakdown Typical disk usage during build:
Chromium source tree: ~30 GB Build artifacts (out/): 40-60 GB Download cache: ~2 GB depot_tools and utilities: ~1 GB Patch working space: ~5 GB ──────────────────────────────────────── Total: 80-100 GB
Use an SSD for the build directory. Build times on SSD are significantly faster than on HDD.
Verification Verify your system meets the requirements:
# Check Python version python3 --version # Should be 3.8 or newer # Check Git version git --version # Should be 2.30 or newer # Check available disk space df -h # Linux/macOS # Check available memory free -h # Linux vm_stat # macOS # Check CPU cores nproc # Linux sysctl -n hw.ncpu # macOS
Next Steps Once your system meets all requirements, proceed to:
Building Helium Learn how to clone the source and build Helium from scratch