LibreMines

Introduction

LibreMines is a Free/Libre and Open Source software Qt based Minesweeper clone available for GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and Windows systems.

The game has dark and light themes, is widely customizable, has options to create customizable fields, allows the user to play with the keyboard, among other things.

The source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License at version 3 (or any later version), this includes all files inside the src directory. The artworks are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, this includes all files on the share directory.

Installing from Package Manager

Arch User Repository

LibreMines is available on the Arch User Repository. With yay it can be installed with:

yay -S libremines

FreeBSD

LibreMines is available in FreeBSD ports tree. With pkg it can be installed with:

pkg install libremines

Flatpak

There is a package for LibreMines available on FlatHub. The package can be installed, via command line, with:

flatpak install flathub io.github.Bollos00.LibreMines

Binary installation for Windows

For windows systems, you can just get one of the releases here. And follow those steps:

Make sure you have Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable installed.
Download the file libremines_vX.X.X_windows_release.zip of the last version available;
Extract it on your preferred location;

The executable libremines.exe will be inside the folder extracted. You can also add a Desktop shortcut or put it on the taskbar.

Installing from the source code

Installation Dependencies

The following dependencies are required for building and running LibreMines:

Qt Core >= 5.12
Qt Gui >= 5.12
Qt Widgets >= 5.12
Qt SVG >= 5.12
Qt Multimedia >= 5.12
CMake >= 3.1

On Arch Linux and derivatives systems, the dependencies can be installed with pacman:

sudo pacman -S base-devel qt6-base qt6-svg qt6-multimedia cmake

For Ubuntu, you can install the dependencies with the following command:

sudo apt-get install build-essential qt6-base-dev cmake libqt6svg6-dev qt6-multimedia-dev libgl1-mesa-dev

On Fedora, install the dependencies with:

sudo dnf install qt6-qtbase-devel qt6-qtsvg-devel cmake qt6-qtmultimedia-devel git

On FreeBSD systems, install the packages qt6-base, qt6-svg, qt6-multimedia git and cmake.

su -
pkg install qt6-base qt6-svg qt6-multimedia git cmake

For others systems, check the qt online installers or your preferred package manager.

Building

In order to build LibreMines from the source code, follow those steps:

git clone https://github.com/Bollos00/LibreMines.git
cd LibreMines
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local ..
make

You can also get a stable release from here.

Note that the option CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX determines the target directory of the installation. If you want to install LibreMines using Qt5 libraries, additionally pass the argument -DUSE_QT6="NO" on the fourth step (the cmake part).

The executable libremines will be generated in the build directory, now it is possible to run it with:

./libremines

Installing on the system (Unix only)

At least, if you want install LibreMines on your system, use the following command:

sudo make install

For uninstall LibreMines, on the build directory, run:

sudo xargs rm < install_manifest.txt

Or manually remove the files listed on install_manifest.txt.

How to play

First Steps

When you initialize the application, you will face this screen:

Here you can start to play one of the predefined game modes – easy, medium and hard –, or you can customize the field the way that you want to play. Select one of those options and you will be ready to start. (Note the options on the upper left of the screen).

You will start the timer of the new game when you release the first cell, you can play with your mouse or with your keyboard.

Playing with the mouse

Left Click: release the cell which the mouse is pointing on;
Right Click: flag/unflag the cell which the mouse is pointing on.

Playing with the keyboard

For activate the keyboard controller mode, press one of the following keys: **A

W**

Escape: Exit keyboard controller mode;
A: Move Current Cell Left;
S: Move Current Cell Downwards;
D: Move Current Cell Right;
W: Move Current Cell Upwards;
O: Release Current Cell;
P: Flag/Unflag Current Cell;
Space: Locate current cell on middle of the scroll bar;
CTRL + R: Restart the game;
CTRL + SHIFT + P: Save minefield as image;

If you do not feel comfortable with those keys, you can edit them going to the main menu, then Options > Preferences.

Tip: hold the CTRL modifier while moving in order to move faster.

Contributing

All kinds of contributions are welcome on this project. You can help:

Making artworks (SVG) for minefield themes and new faces reaction;
Documenting the source code and making tutorials of the game;
Sharing the game in order to attract more users;
Adapting the software for other Operational Systems;
Packaging the software for other distributions;
Increasing the playability and adding new features by making changes on the source code;
Reporting new issues or solving existing ones;
Adding or improve the translations.

Third party Repositories used in this software