So you want to build git-annex from source. This is encouraged for users with experience building code from source. But the build may require some care and feeding. This page will start with the easy methods and work up to the harder ones. ## prerequisites Start by installing the [Haskell Platform](http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/). In Debian, this is as simple as: sudo apt-get install haskell-platform ## downloading the source code The easiest way is using git; see [[download]] or just: git clone git://git-annex.branchable.com/ git-annex Or, you can use cabal to get the source code: cabal update; cabal unpack git-annex ## building from source on Debian This is the method used by git-annex's author, and so it's the one most likely to work without problems. First, install everything git-annex needs to build: sudo apt-get build-dep git-annex Now you can build git-annex by running either `make` or `cabal build` inside the source tree. ## minimal build with cabal This can be done anywhere, and builds git-annex without some optional features that require harder-to-install C libraries. This is plenty to let you get started with git-annex, but it does not include the assistant or webapp. Inside the source tree, run: cabal configure -f"-assistant -webapp -webdav -pairing -xmpp -dns" cabal install -j -f"-assistant -webapp -webdav -pairing -xmpp -dns" --only-dependencies cabal build -j PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH cabal install --bindir=$HOME/bin Be warned that this involves building a lot of Haskell libraries from source, and so it has a lot of moving parts, and it's not uncommon for it to be broken from time to time. ## full build with cabal To build with all features enabled, including the assistant and webapp, you will need to install several C libraries and their headers, including libgnutls, libgsasl, libxml2, and zlib. How to do that for your OS is beyond the scope of this page. Once the C libraries are installed, run inside the source tree: cabal configure cabal install -j --only-dependencies cabal build -j PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH cabal install --bindir=$HOME/bin ## EKG When building with cabal, you can optionally enable the [[EKG monitoring interface|ekg]]. This is great for debugging resource usage problems. Just pass `-f+EKG` to `cabal configure`