# Installation help

This section provides some information useful to people who want to install gEDA onto their computers.

See the download page for more general information.

## Mac OSX distributions

For Mac OSX distributions you may wish to download the latest Fink binaries prepared by Charles Lepple. See also notes on using gEDA on Mac.

## Windows

gEDA is a set of GNU/Linux or Unix-native programs. There is no supported Windows version. However, since most programs are based on the cross-platform GTK+ libraries, it is possible to build a Windows version. Therefore, if you want a Windows version, please feel free to grab the sources and try to build one yourself.

Experimental releases of gEDA for Microsoft Windows™. Still a work in progress.

MinGW hooks are built into many of the gEDA applications. Therefore, knowledgeable individuals have been able to build, install, and run many of the tools on Windows systems. Also, the tools do run on Windows under the Cygwin environment. However, binary executables for most of the gEDA Suite are not currently distributed by the gEDA Project. If you are a developer and wish to provide ongoing support for Windows, please contact the project via the geda-user e-mailing list.

This worked to install geda on Windows XP on 3/9/2012:

1. Get the snapshot file “build-20120307.zip” from http://www.delorie.com/pcb/geda-windows/ into a new folder gEDA on the C:/ hard drive.
2. Extract the zipped files into the same folder (C:/gEDA).
3. Run the geda-runtime.exe file to install runtime.
4. Run the pcb-20110918.exe file to install pcb.
5. Set environment variables under control panel → system → Advanced tab
   1. Click on “Environment Variables” (at bottom)
   2. Create the following User Variables (click on “New” to create):
      1. Name: PATH Value: \gEDA\bin
      2. Name: GUILE_LOAD_PATH Value: \gEDA\share\guile\1.8
      3. Name: GEDADATA Value: \gEDA\share\gEDA
6. Copy the file “loaders.cache” from C:/Program Files/gEDA/bin and paste it into the existing folder C:/gEDA/lib/gdk-pixbuf-2.0/2.10.0
7. The gschem program now should work properly. To run it, go to folder C:/gEDA/bin/ and double-click on the file “gschem.exe”/
8. Create a subfolder C:/gEDA/Schematics, and save all of the files you create with gschem within this folder (or in further subfolders).