Installation

TruckPaint runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. It is in early development: there are no ready-made downloads or installers yet. They are planned for a coming release. Until then, you build the app yourself from its source code. It takes a few commands, and you only do it once per update.

Install the prerequisites

You need Git to get the source code and mise, which installs the right version of Rust and runs the build for you. Then add what your system needs to build a desktop app:

• Windows: the MSVC toolchain, from Visual Studio Build Tools with the C++ workload.

• macOS: the Xcode Command Line Tools. Run xcode-select --install in a terminal.

• Linux: the windowing and graphics libraries. On Debian or Ubuntu:

  sudo apt-get install libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev libx11-dev libxcursor-dev \
    libxrandr-dev libxi-dev libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev \
    libgl1-mesa-dev

  Both X11 and Wayland sessions are supported.

Build TruckPaint

1. Get the source code:

   git clone https://github.com/acesyde/truckpaint.git
   cd truckpaint

2. Install the toolchain the project pins (Rust and its tools):

   mise install

3. Build the app in release mode:

   mise run build

   The first build downloads and compiles every dependency, so it takes a while. Later builds are much faster.

4. Start it. The executable is truckpaint (truckpaint.exe on Windows), in the target/release/ folder:

   ./target/release/truckpaint

You can copy the executable anywhere you like, or make a shortcut to it.

Update to a newer version

Run git pull in the project folder, then mise install and mise run build again. Your preferences, your installed vehicles and your projects are kept: they don’t live in the build folder.

If the app doesn’t start

TruckPaint draws its window with Vulkan, DirectX 12 or Metal. With old graphics drivers or in a virtual machine, it can stop at launch with a graphics adapter error. Force another graphics backend with the WGPU_BACKEND variable:

WGPU_BACKEND=gl ./target/release/truckpaint      # OpenGL (Linux, Windows)
WGPU_BACKEND=vulkan ./target/release/truckpaint  # Vulkan

On Windows, in PowerShell, set the variable first: $env:WGPU_BACKEND="gl", then run .\target\release\truckpaint.exe.

On Windows and Linux, if the window can’t be moved or resized properly, open Preferences and check Use the system title bar: the window then uses your system’s frame, with the menus in a row below it.

TruckPaint writes a log of what it does, to the terminal and to a daily file in its data folder (logs/). Attach it when you report a problem.

Next step

TruckPaint is running: take a tour of the home screen.