Unable to build mlx on M1 Ultra w/ XCode installed

[chimezie]

When I try to build the latest mlx main branch via:

env CMAKE_BUILD_PARALLEL_LEVEL="" pip install -U .

I get:

Processing /Users/oori/medical_llm/mlx
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... done
  Installing backend dependencies ... done
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... done
Building wheels for collected packages: mlx
  Building wheel for mlx (pyproject.toml) ... error
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error
  
  × Building wheel for mlx (pyproject.toml) did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [146 lines of output]
      running bdist_wheel
      running build
      running build_py
      copying python/mlx/optimizers.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx
      copying python/mlx/utils.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx
      copying python/mlx/extension.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx
      copying python/mlx/_reprlib_fix.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx
      copying python/mlx/nn/__init__.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn
      copying python/mlx/nn/utils.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn
      copying python/mlx/nn/losses.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/convolution.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/embedding.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/activations.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/containers.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/linear.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/__init__.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/transformer.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/dropout.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/positional_encoding.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/normalization.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      copying python/mlx/nn/layers/base.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx/nn/layers
      running egg_info
      writing python/mlx.egg-info/PKG-INFO
      writing dependency_links to python/mlx.egg-info/dependency_links.txt
      writing requirements to python/mlx.egg-info/requires.txt
      writing top-level names to python/mlx.egg-info/top_level.txt
      reading manifest file 'python/mlx.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
      reading manifest template 'MANIFEST.in'
      adding license file 'LICENSE'
      writing manifest file 'python/mlx.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
      running build_ext
      -- Building MLX for arm64 processor on Darwin
      -- Building METAL sources
      -- Building with SDK for macOS version 14.0
      
      -- Accelerate found /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.0.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework
      -- Building Python bindings.
      -- Found pybind11: /Users/oori/.local/venv/medical-finetune/include (found version "2.11.1")
      -- Configuring done (1.0s)
      -- Generating done (0.0s)
      -- Build files have been written to: /Users/oori/medical_llm/mlx/build/temp.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx.core
      [  1%] Building arange.air
      [  2%] Building unary.air
      [  5%] Building indexing.air
      [  5%] Building softmax.air
      [  6%] Building sort.air
      [  8%] Building scan.air
      [  9%] Building random.air
      [ 10%] Building gemv.air
      [ 15%] Building reduce.air
      [ 16%] Building conv.air
      [ 15%] Building copy.air
      [ 17%] Building gemm.air
      [ 17%] Building arg_reduce.air
      [ 19%] Building binary.air
      xcrun: error: unable to find utility "metal", not a developer tool or in PATH

According to the Install instructions, this is because Xcode is not installed. However, when I check if XCode commandline tools are installed, I get this:

% xcode-select --version
xcode-select version 2403.

[awni]

See the second section in #200 If that does not fix your issue, comment here and I will reopen.

[chimezie]

XCode command line tools are already installed:
% xcode-select --install

I get

xcode-select: note: Command line tools are already installed. Use "Software Update" in System Settings or the softwareupdate command line interface to install updates

When I try this (from that section):
% xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

I get

xcode-select: error: invalid developer directory '/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer'

[awni]

Hmm maybe try something like this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/17980786

[chimezie]

After installing XCode per reference, I got further, but getting a different build error (using latest on main):

Processing /Users/oori/medical_llm/mlx
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... done
  Installing backend dependencies ... done
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... done
Building wheels for collected packages: mlx
  Building wheel for mlx (pyproject.toml) ... error
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error

  × Building wheel for mlx (pyproject.toml) did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [121 lines of output]
      running bdist_wheel
      running build
      running build_py
      copying python/mlx/optimizers.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx
[..snip..]
      writing manifest file 'python/mlx.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
      running build_ext
      CMake Warning at /private/var/folders/4b/bht1mbdj6xd_1jmhss9cmpbw0000gn/T/pip-build-env-rin2oxfy/overlay/lib/python3.11/site-packages/cmake/data/share/cmake-3.28/Modules/Platform/Darwin-Initialize.cmake:308 (message):
        Ignoring CMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT value:
     
         /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.0.sdk
     
        because the directory does not exist.
      Call Stack (most recent call first):
        /private/var/folders/4b/bht1mbdj6xd_1jmhss9cmpbw0000gn/T/pip-build-env-rin2oxfy/overlay/lib/python3.11/site-packages/cmake/data/share/cmake-3.28/Modules/CMakeSystemSpecificInitialize.cmake:34 (include)
        CMakeLists.txt:3 (project)
     
     
      -- Building MLX for arm64 processor on Darwin
      -- Building METAL sources
      -- Building with SDK for macOS version 14.2
     
      -- Accelerate found /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.0.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework
      -- Building Python bindings.
      -- Found pybind11: /Users/oori/.local/venv/medical-finetune/include (found version "2.11.1")
      -- Configuring done (0.6s)
      -- Generating done (0.0s)
      -- Build files have been written to: /Users/oori/medical_llm/mlx/build/temp.macosx-10.9-universal2-cpython-311/mlx.core
      [ 20%] Built target mlx-metallib
      [ 22%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/mlx.dir/mlx/allocator.cpp.o
      /Users/oori/medical_llm/mlx/mlx/allocator.cpp:3:10: fatal error: 'cstdlib' file not found
      #include <cstdlib>
[ 20%] Built target mlx-metallib
      [ 22%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/mlx.dir/mlx/allocator.cpp.o
      /Users/oori/medical_llm/mlx/mlx/allocator.cpp:3:10: fatal error: 'cstdlib' file not found
      #include <cstdlib>
               ^~~~~~~~~
      1 error generated.
      make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/mlx.dir/mlx/allocator.cpp.o] Error 1
      make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/mlx.dir/all] Error 2
      make: *** [all] Error 2```

[chimezie]

BTW, I was able to resolve and successfully build after (see solution here):

% export CC=`which gcc`  
% export CXX=`which g++` 

There might be some changes made to setup.py (as described in that solution) that would address this

[awni]

Thanks for the tip, will look into it!