To ensure you are always up to date, you can just run `sudo util/qmk_install.sh`. That should always install all the dependencies needed. **This will run `apt-get upgrade`.**
You can also install things manually, but this documentation might not be always up to date with all requirements.
The current requirements are the following, but not all might be needed depending on what you do. Also note that some systems might not have all the dependencies available as packages, or they might be named differently.
```
build-essential
gcc
unzip
wget
zip
gcc-avr
binutils-avr
avr-libc
dfu-programmer
dfu-util
gcc-arm-none-eabi
binutils-arm-none-eabi
libnewlib-arm-none-eabi
git
```
Install the dependencies with your favorite package manager.
If you're on [NixOS](https://nixos.org/), or have Nix installed on Linux or macOS, run `nix-shell` from the repository root to get a build environment.
By default, this will download compilers for both AVR and ARM. If you don't need both, disable the `avr` or `arm` arguments, e.g.:
This is the recommended method. If you don't have homebrew, [install it!](http://brew.sh/) It's very much worth it for anyone who works in the command line. Note that the `make` and `make install` portion during the homebrew installation of `avr-gcc@8` can take over 20 minutes and exhibit high CPU usage.
If you have Windows 10 with Creators Update or later, you can build and flash the firmware directly. Before the Creators Update, only building was possible. If you don't have it yet or if are unsure, follow [these instructions](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/instantanswers/d4efb316-79f0-1aa1-9ef3-dcada78f3fa0/get-the-windows-10-creators-update).
In addition to the Creators Update, you need Windows 10 Subystem for Linux, so install it following [these instructions](http://www.howtogeek.com/249966/how-to-install-and-use-the-linux-bash-shell-on-windows-10/). If you already have the Windows 10 Subsystem for Linux from the Anniversary update it's recommended that you [upgrade](https://betanews.com/2017/04/14/upgrade-windows-subsystem-for-linux/) it to 16.04LTS, because some keyboards don't compile with the toolchains included in 14.04LTS. Note that you need to know what your are doing if you chose the `sudo do-release-upgrade` method.
You will need to clone the repository to your Windows file system using the normal Git for Windows and **not** the WSL Git. So if you haven't installed Git before, [download](https://git-scm.com/download/win) and install it. Then [set it up](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-First-Time-Git-Setup), it's important that you setup the e-mail and user name, especially if you are planning to contribute.
Once Git is installed, open the Git Bash command and change the directory to where you want to clone QMK; note that you have to use forward slashes, and that your c drive is accessed like this `/c/path/to/where/you/want/to/go`. Then run `git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware`, this will create a new folder `qmk_firmware` as a subfolder of the current one.
The Toolchain setup is done through the Windows Subsystem for Linux, and the process is fully automated. If you want to do everything manually, there are no other instructions than the scripts themselves, but you can always open issues and ask for more information.
1. Open "Bash On Ubuntu On Windows" from the start menu.
2. Go to the directory where you cloned `qmk_firmware`. Note that the paths start with `/mnt/` in the WSL, so you have to write for example `cd /mnt/c/path/to/qmk_firmware`.
* You can run `util/wsl_install.sh` again to get all the newest updates.
* Your QMK repository need to be on a Windows file system path, since WSL can't run executables outside it.
* The WSL Git is **not** compatible with the Windows Git, so use the Windows Git Bash or a windows Git GUI for all Git operations
* You can edit files either inside WSL or normally using Windows, but note that if you edit makefiles or shell scripts, make sure you are using an editor that saves the files with Unix line endings. Otherwise the compilation might not work.
If this is a bit complex for you, Docker might be the turnkey solution you need. After installing [Docker CE](https://docs.docker.com/install/#supported-platforms), run the following command from the `qmk_firmware` directory to build a keyboard/keymap:
This will compile the desired keyboard/keymap and leave the resulting `.hex` or `.bin` file in the QMK directory for you to flash. If `:keymap` is omitted, the `default` keymap is used. Note that the parameter format is the same as when building with `make`.
You can also start the script without any parameters, in which case it will ask you to input the build parameters one by one, which you may find easier to use:
If you're on Linux, this should work out of the box. On Windows and macOS, it requires [Docker Machine](http://gw.tnode.com/docker/docker-machine-with-usb-support-on-windows-macos/) to be running. This is tedious to set up, so it's not recommended; use [QMK Toolbox](https://github.com/qmk/qmk_toolbox) instead.
!> Docker for Windows requires [Hyper-V](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/quick-start/enable-hyper-v) to be enabled. This means that it cannot work on versions of Windows which don't have Hyper-V, such as Windows 7, Windows 8 and **Windows 10 Home**.
If you have any problems building the firmware, you can try using a tool called Vagrant. It will set up a virtual computer with a known configuration that's ready-to-go for firmware building. OLKB does NOT host the files for this virtual computer. Details on how to set up Vagrant are in the [vagrant guide](getting_started_vagrant.md).
