Swift for Arm64/AArch64 Servers and SBC's

Latest build info from our CI server

Thanks to the great support from the Works on Arm project we have received an awesome update to our CI Server!
The Cavium ThunderX from Packet Bare Metal Servers who are now Equinox Metal has been upgraded to the latest Ampere Altra server.

• 80 cpu cores @ 3.0GHz
• 256GB sdram
• 960GB NVME SSD

We are seeing a massive increase in overall performance and a huge reduction in build times.

The Swift Arm Community CI Server

Debian 11 Bullseye

main branch                 
release/5.7 branch       

Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy

main branch                 
release/5.7 branch       

Ubuntu 21.04 Hirsute

main branch                 
release/5.7 branch       

Ubuntu 20.04 Focal

main branch                 
release/5.7 branch       

Swift-Arm64

Swift for Arm64/aarch64 Servers and SBC's - Rock64, RaspberryPi3 and many more

The Swift Community Apt Repository

Install packages are now available for arm64/aarch64 compatible Servers and SBC's for Ubuntu and Debian based OS's in the new Swift Community Apt Repository

Add repo -

$ curl -s https://archive.swiftlang.xyz/install.sh | sudo bash

Install Swift

$ sudo apt-get install swiftlang

For more information about the repository please see the User Guide

Tested Servers

Ampere Altra Mt Snow - Equinox Metal
Cavium ThunderX - Packet Bare Metal Servers
Amazon EC2 Arm64 instances - AWS

Tested Boards and OS's

Rock64 / RockPro64 - Debian/Stretch Ubuntu/Xenial - http://pine64.org
RaspberryPi 3 / 4 models - Ubuntu 18.04 / 20.04 / 20.10 64bit
ODROID-C2 - Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS xenial

RaspberyPi 3 / 4 64bit OS

An official 64 bit Ubuntu install image is now available for Raspberry Pi 2/3/4.

Ubuntu Focal available for Raspberry Pi

Download images here - https://ubuntu.com/download/raspberry-pi

Building Swift With Docker

You can now build Swift for multiple OS releases all from the same build server using Docker containers. - Build with Docker

Building Swift

Swift development on AArch64 systems is currently possible on Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04.
The following build instructions are for Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04.

Setting up the Swift development environment

• If possible start with a new clean install of Ubuntu 16.04 / 18.04 and then update and upgrade your system:
  $ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
• Install development dependencies:
  $ sudo apt-get install git cmake ninja-build clang python uuid-dev libicu-dev icu-devtools libbsd-dev libedit-dev libxml2-dev libsqlite3-dev swig libpython-dev libncurses5-dev pkg-config libblocksruntime-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev systemtap-sdt-dev tzdata rsync python-six

CMake minimum version.

• Swift build now requires cmake version 3.15.1 or greater.
  The version you have installed will depend your OS version.
  To check cmake version run -
  cmake --version
  If your version is less than 3.15.2 you have 2 choices

1. Do nothing. Swift build will automatically download the cmake source code and build cmake version 3.15.1. before starting the swift build. NOTE* This will take considerable time depending on your build machine.
2. Download and install cmake 3.15.2 from swift-arm/build_tools repo
   $ curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/swift-arm/build_tools/script.deb.sh | sudo bash
$ sudo apt-get install cmake

NOTE: Minimum CMake version for Swift 5.3: is now 3.16.5

Getting Sources for Swift and Related Projects

• First create a directory for all of the Swift sources:
  mkdir swift-source
cd swift-source

• Next clone the Swift repository:
  $ git clone https://github.com/apple/swift.git

• Next use the "update-checkout" utility to clone the related repositories. When using this utility we can use either a --tag to specify a release or --scheme to specify a branch. If no tag or scheme is used then the master will be used as default.
  The following command will clone and checkout all necessary repositories to build a 4.2.1 release.
  $ ./swift/utils/update-checkout --clone --tag swift-4.2.1-RELEASE
  The following command will clone and checkout all necessary repositories to build the swift-5.0-branch.
  $ ./swift/utils/update-checkout --clone --scheme swift-5.0-branch

Applying Patches

• Some branches require additional patches for successful builds.

  • swift-4.2-branch:
    $ cd swift
$ wget https://github.com/futurejones/swift-arm64/raw/master/swift-4.2-patches/swift-4.2-aarch64-VarArgs.patch
$ git apply swift-4.2-aarch64-VarArgs.patch
$ wget https://github.com/futurejones/swift-arm64/raw/master/swift-4.2-patches/swift-4.2-pm-fix.patch
$ git apply swift-4.2-pm-fix.patch
$ cd -
    NOTE: From v4.2.3 swift-4.2-branch no longer needs patching.

  • swift-5.0-branch:
    From 2019-01-30 changes have been merged with the swift-5.0-branch so patches are no longer required.

  • swift-5.2-branch:
    Currently requires a patch for the swift package manager.
    ~~$ cd swift~~
    ~~$ wget https://github.com/futurejones/swift-arm64/raw/master/swiftpm/triple-gnu.patch~~
    ~~$ git apply triple-gnu.patch~~
    fixed

  • release/5.3:
    No patches required.

  • master:
    Currently requires a patch for the swift package manager.
    ~~$ cd swift~~
    ~~$ wget https://github.com/futurejones/swift-arm64/raw/master/swiftpm/triple-gnu.patch~~
    ~~$ git apply triple-gnu.patch~~
    fixed

Building with Ninja

• The build-script is a high-level build automation script that supports basic options such as building a Swift-compatible LLDB, building the Swift Package Manager, building for various platforms, running tests after builds, and more.
  We will be using buildbot_linux presets to specify OS, install directories and package names.
  NOTE: Replace [USER] with your user name. You should also rename "swift-4.2.1-aarch64-RELEASE-Ubuntu-16.04.tar.gz" tarball to match your build if needed
  $ ./swift/utils/build-script --preset=buildbot_linux,no_test install_destdir=/home/[USER]/swift-source/install installable_package=/home/[USER]/swift-source/install/swift-4.2.1-aarch64-RELEASE-Ubuntu-16.04.tar.gz -n
  Using the "-n" tag on the end of the command enables a "dry run" to check the commands are correct before running the actual build.
  If everything is correct then you can remove "-n" and proceed with the build.
  Depending on your build system the build can take from 1.5hrs to 15hrs or more.