Installation

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Unix users (GNU/Linux, Mac, BSD) who wish to hack on Apertium should follow these three stages to installing the core packages and language data:

1. Install prerequisites specific to your operating system:
   • Ubuntu / Debian / other Debian-based
   • openSUSE
   • Mac OS X
   • Arch Linux
   • Fedora
   • (Mandriva seems to have some trouble)
2. Install apertium and related packages from SVN.
   • Follow Minimal installation from SVN, this should be general enough to cover all the above operating systems.
3. Fix any problems :)
   • Search the page Installation Troubleshooting for your error message.

For Windows users, the best method is to run the Apertium VirtualBox, which lets you run a Unix in your Windows (and comes with Apertium from SVN pre-installed). Alternatively, you can compile it for Windows using Cygwin; documentation for how to compile on Windows manually is at Apertium on Windows (there is a simple script at Apertium guide for Windows users, but it is currently out-of-date and in need of updating).

Some language pairs require extra packages like Constraint Grammar (vislcg3) or HFST in addition to apertium/lttoolbox/apertium-lex-tools. See the section on installing vislcg3 and HFST, respectively. You can tell if a package requires CG if it has an .rlx file, and HFST if it has a .lexc file.

There are released tarball packages on the official download page. These are meant for packagers, and users who are not planning to develop on apertium. These are installed like the SVN packages, except you use ./configure instead of ./autogen.sh. Some Unix systems also have pre-packaged apertium language pairs – there are AUR packages for Arch Linux, and many language pairs are installable with apt-get or Software Center in Debian/Ubuntu – but these can often be quite outdated compared to the SVN versions.

Android users can download the Apertium offline translator app, more info at Apertium Android.