Installing the Pebble SDK on Linux

Important: The Pebble SDK is officially supported on Ubuntu GNU/Linux 12.04 LTS, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 13.10 and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

The SDK should also work on other distributions with minor adjustments.

Python version: the Pebble SDK requires Python 2.7. At this time, the Pebble SDK is not compatible with Python 3. However, some newer distributions come with both Python 2.7 and Python 3 installed, which can cause problems. You can use
python --version to determine which is being used. This means you may need to run pip2 instead of pip when prompted to do so below.

Download and install the Pebble SDK

1. If you have not already, download the latest version of the SDK - Linux 32-bit | Linux 64-bit.

2. Open a terminal window and create a directory to host all Pebble tools:

   mkdir ~/pebble-dev/
   

3. Change into that directory and extract the Pebble SDK that you just downloaded, for example:

   cd ~/pebble-dev/
   tar -jxf ~/Downloads/pebble-sdk-4.5-linux64.tar.bz2
   

   Note: If you are using 32-bit Linux, the path shown above will be different as appropriate.

   You should now have the directory ~/pebble-dev/pebble-sdk-4.5-linux64 with the SDK files and directories inside it.

4. Add the pebble tool to your path and reload your shell configuration:

   echo 'export PATH=~/pebble-dev/pebble-sdk-4.5-linux64/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile
   . ~/.bash_profile
   

You can now continue on and install the rest of the dependencies.

Download and install Python libraries

The Pebble SDK depends on Python libraries to convert fonts and images from your computer into Pebble resources.

1. Install pip and virtualenv:

   sudo apt-get install python-pip python2.7-dev
   sudo pip install virtualenv
   

2. Install the Python library dependencies locally:

   cd ~/pebble-dev/pebble-sdk-4.5-linux64
   virtualenv --no-site-packages .env
   source .env/bin/activate
   pip install -r requirements.txt
   deactivate
   

Note: virtualenv is not optional.

Install Pebble emulator dependencies

The Pebble emulator requires some libraries that you may not have installed on your system.

sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian libfdt1 libpixman-1-0

Next Steps

Now that you have the Pebble SDK downloaded and installed on your computer, it is time to learn how to write your first app!

You should checkout the Tutorials for a step-by-step look at how to write a simple C Pebble application.

Installation Problems?

If you have any issues with downloading or installing the Pebble SDK, you should take a look at the SDK Help category on our forums.

Alternatively, you can send us a message letting us know what issues you're having and we will try and help you out.