How to fix cmake < 3.5 compatibility error

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1

Trying to install obs-ghostscript from Aur I get the following error:

CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:1 (cmake_minimum_required):
  Compatibility with CMake < 3.5 has been removed from CMake.

  Update the VERSION argument <min> value.  Or, use the <min>...<max> syntax
  to tell CMake that the project requires at least <min> but has been updated
  to work with policies introduced by <max> or earlier.

  Or, add -DCMAKE_POLICY_VERSION_MINIMUM=3.5 to try configuring anyway.

What are the needed steps to ;

 Update the VERSION argument <min> value.  Or, use the <min>...<max> syntax
  to tell CMake that the project requires at least <min> but has been updated
  to work with policies introduced by <max> or earlier.

  Or, add -DCMAKE_POLICY_VERSION_MINIMUM=3.5 to try configuring anyway.

thank you for your help!

2

You didn’t mention which package you are trying to build.
You can try manually building by modifying the PKGBUILD to CMAKE instead of CMAKE >3.5.

3

Thank you for your reply!
The package is obs-ghostscript

4

Introduced to AUR - and last updated - on the same day 3.5 years ago.

AUR (en) - obs-ghostscript

Who knows whether it ever worked …
No votes, popularity zero, no comments

The source of it is even older:

GitHub - nleseul/obs-ghostscript: Video source plugin for OBS which renders PDF and other documents using Ghostscript

You’ll likely need to fix the PKGBUILD yourself.

There might be a different way today to achieve what this was doing - but I don’t know.
I have never used obs.

5

I want to try but I need some help

6

Perhaps a different way of doing it is easier than to try and compile the plugin …?

insert a PDF in OBS STUDIO | OBS Forums

As I said: I don’t have the first clue about obs and making presentations with it, but this sounds like a reasonable alternative way of achieving what this plugin does.

Can’t help with the PKGBUILD - I’d first try to compile without it, from source
and once it works, use what you learned about the options and needed steps to translate that into the PKGBUILD.

It’s likely a lot of work and a steep learning curve for you.
Perhaps the source is just too old to make it work with the modern tools Arch and Manjaro uses? :man_shrugging:

7

Even with using the -DCMAKE_POLICY_VERSION_MINIMUM='3.5' Cmake flag, it appears it will need upstream changes for GCC 14. Doesn’t seem likely since there’s been no upstream activity in about 5 years.

[ 50%] Building C object CMakeFiles/obs-ghostscript.dir/src/obs-ghostscript.c.o
/build/obs-ghostscript/src/obs-ghostscript-1.3/src/obs-ghostscript.c: In function ‘ghostscript_display_page’:
/build/obs-ghostscript/src/obs-ghostscript-1.3/src/obs-ghostscript.c:115:37: error: passing argument 5 of ‘gs_texture_create’ from incompatible pointer type [-Wincompatible-pointer-types]
  115 |                         GS_BGRX, 1, &context->cached_raster, GS_DYNAMIC);
      |                                     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      |                                     |
      |                                     unsigned char **
In file included from /usr/include/obs/obs.h:24,
                 from /usr/include/obs/obs-module.h:20,
                 from /build/obs-ghostscript/src/obs-ghostscript-1.3/src/obs-ghostscript.c:1:
/usr/include/obs/graphics/graphics.h:619:73: note: expected ‘const uint8_t **’ {aka ‘const unsigned char **’} but argument is of type ‘unsigned char **’
  619 |                                        uint32_t levels, const uint8_t **data, uint32_t flags);
      |                                                         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~
make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/obs-ghostscript.dir/build.make:79: CMakeFiles/obs-ghostscript.dir/src/obs-ghostscript.c.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:87: CMakeFiles/obs-ghostscript.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [Makefile:136: all] Error 2
1 Like
8

That can avoided using:

  export CFLAGS+=" -Wno-incompatible-pointer-types"
  export CXXFLAGS+=" -Wno-incompatible-pointer-types"
2 Likes
9

Yep, that worked. Here’s the diff:

--- PKGBUILD-old	2025-04-26 11:03:28.387316931 -0600
+++ PKGBUILD-new	2025-04-26 11:02:53.905928978 -0600
@@ -6,9 +6,9 @@
 pkgdesc="OBS Plugin to allow inclusion of PDF documents in scenes"
 arch=('x86_64' 'i686')
 url="https://github.com/nleseul/${pkgname}"
-license=('Unlincense')
+license=('Unlicense')
 depends=('obs-studio' 'ghostscript')
-makedepends=('make')
+makedepends=('cmake')
 source=("${url}/archive/v${pkgver}/${pkgname}-${pkgver}.tar.gz")
 sha256sums=('ef06d36d1ce42515f89cd56180aa38f4aaad612f28feb5d8e90cbe4d6bfba078')
 
@@ -19,19 +19,20 @@
 }
 
 build() {
-    cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
-    mkdir -p build
-    cd build
-    cmake .. \
-        -DOBSSourcePath=/usr/include/obs/ \
-        -DOBSLibraryPath=/usr/lib/obs-plugins/ \
-        -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX='/usr'
-    make
+    export CFLAGS+=" -Wno-incompatible-pointer-types"
+    export CXXFLAGS+=" -Wno-incompatible-pointer-types"
+    cmake -B build -S "$pkgname-$pkgver" \
+        -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE='None' \
+        -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX='/usr' \
+        -DOBSSourcePath='/usr/include/obs/' \
+        -DOBSLibraryPath='/usr/lib/obs-plugins/' \
+        -DCMAKE_POLICY_VERSION_MINIMUM='3.5' \
+        -Wno-dev
+    cmake --build build
 }
 
 package() {
-    cd "$pkgname-$pkgver/build"
-    make DESTDIR="$pkgdir/" install
+    DESTDIR="$pkgdir" cmake --install build
 }
 
 # vim:set ts=4 sw=4 et:
3 Likes
10

:+1: there you go, @hafid

11

Sorry but this isn’t a valid advice, the issue is that cmake minimum required version too low for cmake 4.0, it want at least 3.5, it can be avoided passing a cmake flag or by updating CMakeLists.txt in the source

12

Sorry for my ignorance! but how to use this?

13

Mark made a diff for the pkgbuild a couple of posts above How to fix cmake < 3.5 compatibility error - #9 by Yochanan