Overview

There are two ways to install PlatoSim. Pick one:

	With Conda	From source
Choose this if	you want to use PlatoSim.	you want to change the code, contribute, or Conda is not available for your system.
What you get	A pre-built `platosim` executable from our build server (Jenkins).	The full source code, which you build on your own machine.
Effort	A few commands, a few minutes.	More steps; compiling the bundled libraries takes a while.

If you are not sure, start with the Quickstart, which uses Conda.

Warning

PlatoSim runs on Linux and macOS. Windows is not supported. On Windows 10 or 11, install PlatoSim inside the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and follow the Linux instructions there.

Pre-built Conda packages exist for Linux (x86-64) and for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. The Intel Mac package is deprecated and will be dropped in a future release; on an Intel Mac, consider installing from source.

Requirements

Make sure the following software is installed before you start. The versions are the minimum versions; newer versions work as well.

For both installation routes

Software	Minimum version	Notes
Python	3.12	We recommend Python 3.12; Python 3.13 also works. Python 3.14 and newer are not supported yet, because some packages are not yet available for them.
uv	0.6.7	Installs PlatoSim’s Python packages. Check your version with `uv --version`.

Only for the Conda route

Software	Minimum version	Notes
Conda	any recent version	Provided by Miniforge, Miniconda, or Anaconda.

Only for the source route

Software	Minimum version	Notes
Git	any recent version	To download the source code.
C and C++ compiler	gcc 5.1 or clang 3.4	The compiler must support C++14. Check with `gcc --version` or `clang --version`.
CMake	3.26	Required by the bundled HDF5 library. Check with `cmake --version`. Older Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu 22.04 and Debian 12) ship an older CMake; install a newer one with `pip install cmake` or from cmake.org.
Make, tar	any recent version	Standard on Linux and macOS (on macOS, install the Xcode command line tools: `xcode-select --install`).
Python 3	any 3.x	The scripts that install the bundled libraries are written in Python.
Disk space	2 GB	For the source code, the compiled libraries, and the Python environment. A mapped PSF file needs another 9 GB, and the validation suite another 11 GB.
BLAS and LAPACK	optional	Make PlatoSim faster. Pre-installed on macOS; on Linux install them with your package manager (e.g. `sudo apt install libopenblas-dev liblapack-dev`).

Note

The source installation was last tested on Linux with gcc 16.2, CMake 4.4, GNU Make 4.4, Python 3.12, and uv 0.13.