# Howto: compiling WLED on linux via platformio (without the need for Visual Studio)

**URL:** <https://wled.discourse.group/t/howto-compiling-wled-on-linux-via-platformio-without-the-need-for-visual-studio/7238>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [January 25, 2023, 7:23pm UTC](https://wled.discourse.group/t/howto-compiling-wled-on-linux-via-platformio-without-the-need-for-visual-studio/7238 "2023-01-25T19:23:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![victorclaessen](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/wled.discourse.group/victorclaessen/32/4344_2.png) [@victorclaessen](https://wled.discourse.group/u/victorclaessen)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2023, 7:23pm UTC](https://wled.discourse.group/t/howto-compiling-wled-on-linux-via-platformio-without-the-need-for-visual-studio/7238/1 "2023-01-25T19:23:01Z")

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Hi, I was looking for a way to compile WLED without the need for Visual Studio (which I find somewhat confusing), and I wanted to share the following recipe with the community. It may be obvious to some, but I hope that this will be of help to at least a few people:

Assuming you have a recent version of Debian (11), and python3 installed, you can use the following commands to get a working firmware file for WLED. As an example, I made one with the Analog Clock usermod for my ESP8285 so I could change the colors of the hour/minute/second hands.

```auto
mkdir ~/WLED
cd ~/WLED
sudo apt-get install python3-venv
python3 -m venv platformio
source platformio/bin/activate
pip3 install platformio
git clone https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED.git
cd WLED/
cp usermods/Analog_Clock/Analog_Clock.h wled00/
nano platformio.ini
# add "-D USERMOD_ANALOG_CLOCK=true" somewhere around line 114 where all the other build flags are listed
# optional: comment out line 13 with all the different envs (chips)
# and uncomment the one you want (for example for an ESP8285) line 21: "default_envs = esp01_1m_full"
pio run
# YOUR FIRMWARE WILL BE IN ~/WLED/build_output/firmware/

```

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**Author:** ![jebuschrast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/34f0e0/32.png) [@jebuschrast](https://wled.discourse.group/u/jebuschrast)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 8:14pm UTC](https://wled.discourse.group/t/howto-compiling-wled-on-linux-via-platformio-without-the-need-for-visual-studio/7238/2 "2023-07-09T20:14:56Z")

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> [@victorclaessen](#):
>
> but I hope that this will be of help to at least a few people:

Amazing. Thanks