Install Erlang with asdf on m1 MacBook

I don’t have an m1 Mac, but ran into tons of issues and none of the posts in the 24.0.1 released topic worked. Turns out it has something to do with the version of Kerl used by ASDF installs. See this post Erlang OTP-24.0.1 released! - #17 by drl123. There is a workaround linked there that worked for me on Mojave. Maybe it will work for you too.

I’ve got an M1 MacBook running Monterey 12.3.1 and experiencing the same issue. @script I tried the same exports in my zsh file as you listed but it didn’t do the trick do for me.

Could you point to where you discovered your fix?

Here’s my console output

asdf_22.3.4.2 is not a kerl-managed Erlang/OTP installation
The asdf_22.3.4.2 build has been deleted
Extracting source code
Building Erlang/OTP 22.3.4.2 (asdf_22.3.4.2), please wait..
Build failed.
checking size of long long... 0
checking size of __int64... 0
checking size of __int128_t... 0
checking whether byte ordering is bigendian... no
checking whether double word ordering is middle-endian... yes
configure: error: cannot build emulator since no thread library was found
ERROR: /Users/neil.crawford/.asdf/plugins/erlang/kerl-home/builds/asdf_22.3.4.2/otp_src_22.3.4.2/erts/configure failed!
./configure: line 343: kill: (-41014) - No such process
make: *** No rule to make target `is_cross_configured'. Stop.
make: *** No rule to make target `all'. Stop.

Erlang/OTP 22.3.4.2 doesn’t work with M1 Macs.

If it is an option, you can use OTP >= 22.3.4.16.
The Apple Silicon build was fixed in that release.

I’ve also got an M1 MacBook running Monterey 12.3.1, and a couple days ago I successfully installed Erlang 24.3.4 with wxWidgets using asdf. I did struggle for a couple of days trying to solve some wxWidgets issues, and I posted an issue on github about my problems:

https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang/issues/251

When I first attempted the install, I was running Monterey 12.2.1, and I stupidly agreed to a system update, which bumped me up to Monterey 12.3.1, and the next day I tried some things to correct the wxWidgets problems, and suddenly the install worked.

Even though the initial output poined to some issues with wxWidgets, I think erlang 24.3.4 installed successfully on the first go:

...
...
APPLICATIONS INFORMATION (See: /Users/7stud/.asdf/plugins/erlang/kerl-home/builds/asdf_24.3.4/otp_build_24.3.4.log)
 * crypto         : Using OpenSSL 3.0 is not yet recommended for production code.
 * wx             : wxWidgets was not compiled with --enable-webview or wxWebView developer package is not installed, wxWebView will NOT be available
 *         wxWidgets must be installed on your system.
 *         Please check that wx-config is in path, the directory
 *         where wxWidgets libraries are installed (returned by
 *         'wx-config --libs' or 'wx-config --static --libs' command)
 *         is in LD_LIBRARY_PATH or equivalent variable and
 *         wxWidgets version is 3.0.2 or above.

Erlang/OTP 24.3.4 (asdf_24.3.4) has been successfully built
Cleaning up compilation products for 
Cleaned up compilation products for  under /Users/7stud/.asdf/plugins/erlang/kerl-home/builds

Thanks a million, this solved my issue, once I bumped up my version then I had no further problems

FYI, I was able to backport fixes to an older version (22.0.7) and create OTP binaries on my M1 machine with that (if anyone’s interested). I don’t think you can do it with kerl/asdf but directly from source is possible Commits · smocherla-brex/otp · GitHub

If anyone’s interested, these are the steps

export PATH=$PATH:<path/to/wx-install>/bin
cd $OTP_SOURCE_DIR`Preformatted text`
# Ensure we have autoconf version 2.69, latest Mac has 2.71 which does not work with OTP 22.0.7
./otp_build autoconf
# To deal with error described here https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang/issues/164#issuecomment-695103295
export CFLAGS="-O2 -Wno-error=implicit-function-declaration"
./configure --with-ssl=$(brew --prefix openssl@1.1) --without-javac --disable-debug --enable-m64-build --prefix=~/repos/otp-22.0.7-fork-release
make
make install
# this has the pre-built binaries we need.
cd ~/repos/otp-22.0.7-fork-release/lib/erlang/

Changing from 24.1.7 to 24.3.4 resolved my issue. Ventura + M1. Observer is working as well.

CFLAGS="-O2 -g"

fixed an issue I had installing Erlang 25.3. In looking it up, it seems it’s an optimization flag. Any idea why that would fix something on an M1?

hi all, I have a problem with my asdf on mac M1. I install asdf with brew commnad brew install asdf and its current version is 0.18.0 (revision unknown). I been able to install OTP 26 which using asdf install erlang 26.2.5.6. But my asdf does not have global option to activate the erlang version. I also have asdf with my ubuntu machine, it has the global option so I can easily switch the version.

To activate the erlang in my mac I have to put this command in my bash
#. /Users/m1/.asdf/installs/erlang/26.2.5.6/activate which is kerl command

Do you know how to activate the erlang with asdf on mac M chip?

asdf had a rewrite lately, I think you would use asdf set now.

Take another look at the instructions, particularly the All Commands page.

And (off the top of my head), I think you would set a “global” version in ~/.tool-versions. I could be way off base though, asdf is very set-it-and-forget-it for me.