How to install the latest emscripten on Ubuntu using command line?

I want to install the latest emscripten in ubuntu for playing with WebAssembly using the following command.

sudo apt-get install emscripten 

But it gives me the version 1.22.1 which is a version in 2014 and do not support WebAssembly compiling.

$ emcc --version
emcc (Emscripten GCC-like replacement) 1.22.1 ()
Copyright (C) 2014 the Emscripten authors (see AUTHORS.txt)
This is free and open source software under the MIT license.
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Are there a simple guide for installing the latest emscripten in command line?

3 Answers

The installation instructions suggest: download emsdk-portable.tar.gz

Unzip it, then open a terminal and run:

# Fetch the latest registry of available tools.
./emsdk update
# Download and install the latest SDK tools.
./emsdk install latest
# Make the "latest" SDK "active"
./emsdk activate latest

see: for more information

It is not enough to build a newer version of emscripten. You will also have to build LLVM yourself, as emscripten will complain about

CRITICAL:root:WebAssembly set as target, but LLVM has not been built with the WebAssembly backend

I got it running by following the tutorial on building LLVM at and some hints from

git clone
git -C llvm/tools clone
git -C llvm/projects clone
git -C llvm/projects clone
git -C llvm/projects clone
git -C llvm/projects clone
mkdir llvmbuild
cd llvmbuild
cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" \ -DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS="llvm/tools/clang;llvm/projects/libcxx;llvm/projects/libcxxabi" \ -DLLVM_EXPERIMENTAL_TARGETS_TO_BUILD=WebAssembly \ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \ ../llvm
make all
cd ..

And then following the tutorial on building emscripten at

git clone
cd emsdk
./emsdk install sdk-incoming-64bit binaryen-master-64bit
./emsdk activate sdk-incoming-64bit binaryen-master-64bit
source ./emsdk_env.sh
cd ..
# configure emscripten to use self-built LLVM
cat ~/.emscripten \ | sed "s:LLVM_ROOT=[^\n]*:LLVM_ROOT='${PWD}/llvmbuild/bin':g" \ > ~/.emscripten.tmp
mv ~/.emscripten ~/.emscripten.bak
mv ~/.emscripten.tmp ~/.emscripten

From the emscripten's doc page [ from the ground zero ]

1. Get the emsdk repo

git clone 

2. Enter that directory

cd emsdk

3. Download and install the latest SDK tools

./emsdk install latest

4. Make the "latest" SDK "active"

./emsdk activate latest

5. Activate PATH and other environment variables

source ./emsdk_env.sh

these variables are set for the current terminal, if you want to make it for everybody, so you can put into any terminal profile. Here they are:

The environment variables:

EMSDK = < path to emsdk dir >

EM_CONFIG = ~/.emscripten

EMSDK_NODE = < path to emsdk dir >/node/12.9.1_64bit/bin/node

6. Now just try it!

emcc