This dummy package represents the minimal requirements (system packages) for installing SageMath from source.
In addition to standard :wikipedia:`POSIX <POSIX>` utilities and the :wikipedia:`bash <Bash_(Unix_shell)>` shell, the following standard command-line development tools must be installed on your computer:
- make: GNU make, version 3.80 or later. Version 3.82 or later is recommended.
- m4: GNU m4 1.4.2 or later (non-GNU or older versions might also work).
- perl: version 5.8.0 or later.
- ar and ranlib: can be obtained as part of GNU binutils.
- tar: GNU tar version 1.17 or later, or BSD tar (as provided on macOS).
- python: Python 3.4 or later, or Python 2.7.
(This range of versions is a minimal requirement for internal purposes of the SageMath
build system, which is referred to as
sage-bootstrap-python.)
Other versions of these may work, but they are untested.
On macOS, suitable versions of all of these tools are provided
by the Xcode Command Line Tools. To install them, open a terminal
window and run xcode-select --install; then click "Install" in the
pop-up window. If the Xcode Command Line Tools are already installed,
you may want to check if they need to be updated by typing
softwareupdate -l.
On Linux, ar and ranlib are in the binutils package. The other
programs are usually located in packages with their respective names.
On Redhat-derived systems not all perl components are installed by
default and you might have to install the perl-ExtUtils-MakeMaker
package.
To check if you have the above prerequisites installed, for example perl,
type:
$ command -v perl
or:
$ which perl
on the command line. If it gives an error (or returns nothing), then
either perl is not installed, or it is installed but not in your
:wikipedia:`PATH <PATH_%28variable%29>`.