The stock build instructions make a lot of assumptions on the status (presence and configuration) of some extra dependencies. (Original instructions from: https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty/blob/master/INSTALL.md )
Here is something more coherent:
Run (Yes to install/proceed):
sudo apt install git curl cargo cmake pkg-config libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig1-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libxkbcommon-dev python3
Run (it will fail and say cargo is installed, answer Y yes to continue anyway. Select 1/Default on next prompt.):
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
Once above run, continue by running these one at a time:
. "$HOME/.cargo/env"
rustup override set stable
rustup update stable
git clone https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty.git
cd alacritty/
cargo build --release --no-default-features --features=wayland
or if you want both x11 and wayland support then instead do: cargo build --release
DONE! Congrats, you've built Alacritty from source!
The compiled binary/executable can be found at target/release/alacritty