Linux mint - Can't install SDL3

SDL Development
1

I cant install SDL3 on my system(Linux mint). i tried this commands from SDL3 wiki but did’t work:
sudo apt-get install libsdl3-3.0-0
sudo apt-get install libsdl3-dev

Errors:
~ took 2m11s
❯ sudo apt-get install libsdl3-dev
[sudo] password for ozu:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
E: Unable to locate package libsdl3-dev

❯ sudo apt-get install libsdl3-3.0-0
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
E: Unable to locate package libsdl3-3.0-0
E: Couldn’t find any package by glob ‘libsdl3-3.0-0’
E: Couldn’t find any package by regex ‘libsdl3-3.0-0’

How can i install SDL3 properly in linux mint?

2

SDL3 isn’t officially released yet. You’ll need to download the code from github, install all dependencies and run the command mention in the INSTALL file.

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3

I cant install SDL3 on my system(Linux mint). i tried this commands from SDL3 wiki but did’t work:

If you press [Tab] after sudo apt-get install libsdl, you will notice that this does not exist (yet).

4

How comfortable are you with linux? Stick to sdl2 for now if you’re not comfortable

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5

How comfortable are you with linux? Stick to sdl2 for now if you’re not comfortable

I have to say, SDL3 is one of the few packages that can be built almost without any problems right away.
It has almost no dependencies. With GLIB, GTK, etc., things are a lot worse, and I sometimes fail there too.

6

I was thinking not knowing how environments work and forgetting what LD_LIBRARY_PATH is called, may cause issues.

7

I think SDL3 is now officially released but is still not in the Linux Mint package repositories. On the other hand it is part of the Ubuntu 25.04 Plucky Puffin repositories:

Can anyone help to push it into the Linux Mint repositories?

Kind regards,

Nik

8

I think you’ll have to wait until summer 2026 for version 23.0 to be released. It’s unlikely to be much better with Ubuntu LTS.

I’m currently installing this version from here, and it works for me.

1 Like
9

Thanks Mathias for the hint. I have added the plucky repository to my additional repositories in Linux Mint. I am just moving my GUI library Geeonx from SDL2 to SDL3. I myself have build and installed SDL3 from the sources. But for me it is important that Linux Mint users who want to install the Geeonx deb package will receive all necessary dependencies during the installation process with the package manager.

I am not quite sure how that can be realized, as long as the SDL3 deb package is not in the Linux Mint repositories. Any idea?

10

By the way adding the plucky repository to the sources of the Update Manager causes error messages afterwards.