Theos Installation: A Step-by-Step Guide

Software Engineering
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Theos Installation: A Step-by-Step Guide

In this article, we will walk you through the process of installing Theos, a popular tool for developing and installing tweaks on iOS devices. We will cover the installation of the signature tool ldid, modifying environment variables, downloading Theos, creating a new tweak project, and compiling and packaging the tweak.

Installation Signature Tool ldid

To install the signature tool ldid, you will need to use Homebrew, a popular package manager for macOS. First, ensure that the first version of brew is installed by running the following command:

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Next, use brew to install ldid:

$ brew install ldid

Modify Environment Variables

To use Theos, you will need to modify your environment variables. To do this, open your user profile using the Vim editor:

$ vim ~/.bash_profile

In the .bash_profile file, add the following two lines at the end:

export THEOS=~/theos
export PATH=$THEOS/bin:$PATH

Save and close the file. The environment variable configuration takes effect immediately, or you can reopen the terminal to apply the changes.

Download Theos

To download Theos, use the Git command to clone the repository:

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/theos/theos.git $THEOS

New Tweak Project

To create a new tweak project, use the Nic.pl tool to select the iPhone/tweak project type:

$ cd ~/Desktop
$ nic.pl select iphone/tweak

Fill in the project information, including the project name, package name, author/maintainer name, and author. You can also specify the list of applications to terminate upon installation.

Edit the Makefile

To edit the Makefile, open the file using the Vim editor:

$ vim $THEOS/makefiles/common.mk

In the Makefile, add the following lines to specify the IP and port for the Theos device:

export THEOS_DEVICE_IP=127.0.0.1
export THEOS_DEVICE_PORT=10010

Write Code

To write the code for the tweak, open the Tweak.xm file using the Vim editor:

$ vim Tweak.xm

Add the necessary code to the file, such as the Hook XMSoundPatch and ImageView methods.

Compile, Package, and Install

To compile, package, and install the tweak, use the following commands:

$ make
$ make package
$ make install

Possible Problems Encountered

When compiling and packaging the tweak, you may encounter the following errors:

  • “Can not locate IO/Compress/Lzma.pm in @INC” error: This error occurs when the IO::Compress::Lzma module is not installed. To resolve this issue, modify the dm.pl file by commenting out the lines that use the IO::Compress::Lzma and IO::Compress::Xz modules.
  • “Error: You do not have an SDK in /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs” error: This error occurs when the Xcode SDK is not installed. To resolve this issue, specify the Xcode SDK using the xcode-select command.
  • “Make: *** [internal-package] Error 2” error: This error occurs when the package compression is not set correctly. To resolve this issue, modify the deb.mk file to use gzip compression.

By following these steps and resolving any potential issues, you can successfully install Theos and develop and install tweaks on iOS devices.