As a haskell package, git-annex can be installed using cabal. This involves building a lot of haskell packages 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. If you are not comfortable tracking down and dealing with library build problems, installing git-annex with cabal is probably not the right choice for you! ## prerequisites Start by installing the [Haskell Platform][]. In Debian, this is as simple as: sudo apt-get install haskell-platform [Haskell Platform]: http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/ ## minimal build This builds git-annex without some features that require C libraries, that can be harder to get installed. This is plenty to get started using it, although it does not include the assistant or webapp. cabal update PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH cabal install git-annex --bindir=$HOME/bin -f"-assistant -webapp -webdav -pairing -xmpp -dns" ## full build To build with all features enabled, including the assistant and webapp, you will need to install several C libraries and their headers, including libgnutls, libgsasl, libxml2, and zlib. Then run: cabal update PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH cabal install c2hs --bindir=$HOME/bin cabal install git-annex --bindir=$HOME/bin ## building from git checkout But maybe you want something newer (or older). Then [[download]] the version you want, and use cabal as follows inside its source tree: cabal update PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH cabal install c2hs --bindir=$HOME/bin cabal install --only-dependencies cabal configure cabal build cabal install --bindir=$HOME/bin