Note for Raspbian and Armbian users: Compiling the Bitcoin or Litecoin daemon may fail on a RPi or RPi clone due to insufficient memory. Fortunately, ARM binaries are available for Bitcoin Core, Bitcoin ABC and Litecoin. See the binary installation page for details.

Install dependencies:

Make sure the required development packages are installed:

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install build-essential libtool autotools-dev autoconf pkg-config libssl-dev libdb-dev libdb++-dev libevent-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-chrono-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-thread-dev

ArchLinux:

pacman --sync --needed autoconf automake boost gcc git libevent libtool make pkgconf python sqlite

Compile and install Bitcoin Core:

Clone the Bitcoin Core repository from Github:

$ git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git
$ cd bitcoin

Configure and build:

$ git tag # look for your desired version in the tag list
$ git checkout <version>
$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure --without-gui --with-incompatible-bdb
$ make -j4

The '-j4' option will speed the build process up by using 4 cores of a 4-core processor, if you have them. If overheating issues are a problem for your CPU or you’re short on memory, you may want to omit the option or reduce the number of cores used.

For more detailed build information, consult the file doc/build-unix.md in the bitcoin source repository.

Your freshly compiled bitcoind daemon is now in the src/ directory. Install it, along with the 'bitcoin-cli' utility, into your executable path:

$ cd src
$ sudo install -sv bitcoind bitcoin-cli /usr/local/bin

Compile and install Bitcoin Cash Node (optional):

If you want to transact BCH, also known as “Bitcoin Cash Node”, then first clone the Bitcoin Cash Node repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/bitcoin-cash-node/bitcoin-cash-node
$ cd bitcoin-cash-node

Then configure and build using the same configure and build steps as with Bitcoin Core above.

The resulting executable is also named 'bitcoind', so you must install it under a different name to avoid overwriting your Core daemon:

$ cd src
$ sudo install -sv bitcoind /usr/local/bin/bitcoind-bchn

From now on, you’ll invoke the daemon as 'bitcoind-bchn' instead of 'bitcoind'.

Compile and install Litecoin Core (optional):

Clone the Litecoin Core repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin.git
$ cd litecoin

Configure and build using the configure and build steps for Bitcoin Core, and then install as follows:

$ cd src
$ sudo install -sv litecoind litecoin-cli /usr/local/bin

Refer to Run on the binary installation page for instructions on running your coin daemon(s).

Alternatively, you may download and use the node start and stop scripts from the MMGenLive project, which simplify starting and stopping multiple daemons on the same machine:

$ curl -O 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mmgen/MMGenLive/master/home.mmgen/bin/mmlive-node-{start,stop}'
$ sudo install -v mmlive-node-{start,stop} /usr/local/bin