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Solution for: "graal/truffle/mx.truffle/suite.py: Could not find a GNU make executable on the current path." error

Figure 1: Scenery from Bhutan

Problem: While trying to setup GraalVM on a Ubuntu 22.04 DigitalOcean droplet, running the command mx build in the graal/compiler folder throws the following error:

File "/home/javaApplications/graal/truffle/mx.truffle/suite.py", line 796 in definition of libffi:
Could not find a GNU make executable on the current path.

Note that the aforementioned error was received after setting up the JAVA_HOME environment variable to a labs-openjdk-11 JDK and adding mx to the PATH variable.

Solution:

The primary cause for this error is that make isn't installed or it is excluded from the PATH variable.

In order to install make and add it to PATH, run the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install make
which make
export PATH=<copy output from which make>:$PATH

// Then run the initial command:
mx build

Afterwards, if you get an error about a C compiler not being found, you'll have to install one and add it to PATH. Use the following commands to do so:

sudo apt install build-essential
which gcc
export PATH=<copy output from which gcc>:$PATH

// Then run the initial command:
mx build

This should resolve the error. If not, keep looking for an answer that works!

Conclusion

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