build2 | Installation

The recommended way to install or upgrade build2 is using the automated install scripts. Download a version for your platform (see below), verify its checksum, run, and follow the onscreen instructions. The script will prompt for your confirmation before building or installing anything. See the Installation FAQ for common installation questions and Other Installation Methods for alternatives (binary packages, etc).

To build and install build2 all you will need is a reasonably recent C++ compiler. See Which compilers are supported? for details.

You will normally want to keep the build directory around for upgrades or to cleanly uninstall the toolchain. An automated upgrade can be performed from any previous patch release and from the most recent previous minor version.

1UNIX (Linux, Mac OS, FreeBSD)
2Windows with MSVC
3Windows with Clang
4Windows with MinGW
5Other Installation Methods

1 UNIX (Linux, Mac OS, FreeBSD)

Create the build2 build directory, for example ~/build2-build in your home directory, then run:

$ cd ~/build2-build

$ curl -sSfO https://download.build2.org/0.14.0/build2-install-0.14.0.sh

$ shasum -a 256 -b build2-install-0.14.0.sh

  f2e0795fda1bdc6b6ea4d2fc5917469725c20962bb1f6672c8d2462d76b3a7db

$ sh build2-install-0.14.0.sh

Or, to upgrade from 0.13.0:

$ sh build2-install-0.14.0.sh --upgrade

To uninstall:

$ sh build2-install-0.14.0.sh --uninstall

See the Installation FAQ for common platform-specific issues and solutions.

2 Windows with MSVC

Create the build2 build directory, for example, C:\build2-build, download build2-install-msvc-0.14.0.bat into it, start the Visual Studio x64 Command Prompt, then run:

> cd C:\build2-build

> certutil -hashfile build2-install-msvc-0.14.0.bat SHA256

  3f54d6464924eee53874cdd377c66b793a1ebd9998d1cc136d9004bfb6ad1ce4

> build2-install-msvc-0.14.0.bat

Or, to upgrade from 0.13.0:

> build2-install-msvc-0.14.0.bat --upgrade

Note that currently the automated upgrade process does not upgrade the baseutils package. Use the from-scratch installation if you would like to upgrade this package.

To uninstall:

$ build2-install-msvc-0.14.0.bat --uninstall

See the Installation FAQ for common Windows-specific issues and solutions.

3 Windows with Clang

There are two common ways to obtain Clang targeting the MSVC runtime: bundled with the MSVC installation (by selecting the Clang tools component in the Visual Studio installer) or as a separate installation (by getting the installer from the LLVM Download page).

If you are using a separate installation, then the Clang compiler is most likely already in your PATH environment variable and you don't have to use the Visual Studio command prompt below.

Create the build2 build directory, for example, C:\build2-build, download build2-install-clang-0.14.0.bat into it, start the Visual Studio x64 Command Prompt, then run:

> cd C:\build2-build

> certutil -hashfile build2-install-clang-0.14.0.bat SHA256

  3a697a30853beec9b5b81730b564391d33f088b5bbc0d8b9cfe755b586a2b622

> build2-install-clang-0.14.0.bat

Or, to upgrade from 0.13.0:

> build2-install-clang-0.14.0.bat --upgrade

Note that currently the automated upgrade process does not upgrade the baseutils package. Use the from-scratch installation if you would like to upgrade this package.

To uninstall:

$ build2-install-clang-0.14.0.bat --uninstall

See the Installation FAQ for common Windows-specific issues and solutions.

4 Windows with MinGW

Create the build2 build directory, for example, C:\build2-build, download build2-install-mingw-0.14.0.bat into it, start the Command Prompt, then run:

> cd C:\build2-build

> certutil -hashfile build2-install-mingw-0.14.0.bat SHA256

  3641b2511fc6029dd48316639c27d10c48b138b5d6524353858ff754d128a200

> build2-install-mingw-0.14.0.bat

The build2-install-mingw script downloads and installs (into the same directory as build2) a minimal MinGW GCC distribution that is then used to compile build2. If you would prefer to use your own MinGW GCC, see the alternative installation methods below.

Or, to upgrade from 0.13.0:

> build2-install-mingw-0.14.0.bat --upgrade

Note that currently the automated upgrade process does not upgrade the baseutils and mingw packages. Use the from-scratch installation if you would like to upgrade these packages.

To uninstall:

$ build2-install-mingw-0.14.0.bat --uninstall

See the Installation FAQ for common Windows-specific issues and solutions.

5 Other Installation Methods

The steps described above are the preferred way to install build2 for most developers. For alternative from-source installation methods that offer more control see the Installation and Upgrade manual. To manually obtain various components of the build2 toolchain refer to the Download page.

The build2 binary packages are also starting to appear in the official package repositories of some Linux distributions, see: Fedora, Gentoo, and Arch Linux.

There is also the setup-build2 GitHub Action.