This README presents the two standard methods to install the Coq Platform on Linux:
- as a binary snap package,
- from sources, using the platform scripts.
The first method is recommended for beginners and the second one is recommended for experienced users, who may want to use opam to install additional packages, beyond the standard set provided by the Coq Platform.
This method is intended for beginners.
To install the Coq Platform on a Linux machine which has snap already installed - which is default on Ubuntu since version 16 and some other but not all Linux distributions - use the following command:
sudo snap install coq-prover
In case you don't have snap installed yet, please refer to installing-snapd
The snap URL is https://snapcraft.io/coq-prover.
This install method is maintained by Enrico Tassi.
The name of the package is coq-prover
since coq
was considered
unacceptable by the Snap Store admins (too short and non informative).
The snap package can install binaries in the path, but they are all called
coq-prover.something
and something
cannot contain _
.
As per request
Coq is granted the coqide -> coq-prover.coqide
and
coq_makefile -> coq-prover.coq-makefile
aliases (shorthands generated
on the fly).
Each package is available on a channel, which is a combination of track and
risk level.
A track is something like latest
(the default one) or, major-version
(as
many packages do).
A risk level is something like stable
, beta
, edge
.
By default users install from latest/stable
.
The CI script uploads to latest/edge
, then via a web ui the package
maintainer can promote a package from one level to another.
IMPORTANT: snap packages are automatically updated. This means that when we make a new release the package installed by a user silently upgrades, no questions asked!
A user can install from latest/edge
to test the very last upload, but also,
and more interestingly, from 2021.09/stable
to never move to a later version without
consent. This last option makes snap package also usable by developers (and
indeed one finds stuff like node
or go
distributed via snap).
CAVEAT: track's creation need to be explicitly requested. The store admins are happy to grant quickly a new track if it follows the same schema of an existing one.
- linux/snap/github_actions for a script to trigger a CI build for a platform branch also uploading to the Snap Store
This method is intended for experienced users, who may want to use opam to install additional packages, beyond the standard set provided by the Coq Platform.
- Install buildtools
- Debian, Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install build-essential
- CentOS, RHEL, Fedora: sudo dnf groupinstall "Development Tools"
- OpenSuse: sudo zypper in -t pattern devel_C_C++
- For CentOS and possibly RHEL some additional steps are required, see CentOS below.
- Get the Coq Platform scripts via either of these methods
- Most users should download and extract
https://github.com/coq/platform/archive/refs/tags/2022.04.1.zip
. - Users which intend to contribute to Coq Platform should use
git clone --branch 2022.04.1 https://github.com/coq/platform.git
.
- Most users should download and extract
- Open a shell, navigate to the download folder and execute
coq_platform_make.sh
. - The system will ask for sudo permissions to install prerequisites several times so the script is not fully unattended but all installations of dependencies are done directly after the initialization of the opam switch.
- In case the script aborts e.g. cause of internet issues, just rerun the script.
- The script creates a new opam switch named e.g. __coq-platform.2022.04.1
8.152022.04 - the exact name depends on the Coq version and package pick you selected. This means the script does not touch your existing opam setup unless you already have a switch of this name. - Use the following commands to activate this switch after opening a new shell:
opam switch __coq-platform.2022.04.1~8.15~2022.04
(note: the switch name might vary if you choose a different version of Coq - please useopam switch
to see a list of switch names)eval $(opam env)
- The second step can be automated by rerunning
opam init
- The main opam repositories for Coq and OCaml developments are already added to the created opam switch, so it should be easy to install additional Coq (or OCaml) packages.
- CoqIDE can be started from the shell prompt with
coqide
. - The full installation might require up to 5 GB of disk space.
- The setup script creates a folder
$HOME/coq-platform
where it stores a few files but this will likely be removed in future releases.
CentOS requires two additional steps. First sudo should be enabled, so that opam depext can work. opam depext automatically installs required system dependencies, which requires sudo rights. Since one cannot run the complete script as super user, there is no easy way around using sudo. The only method is to make sure that all prerequisites are installed upfront. One way to do this is to run the Coq Platform script until it asks for the sudo password and then see what it want's to do and do this as super user.
Sudo can be enabled for the current user as follows:
su
usermod -aG wheel username
exit
logout
login
CentOS by default doesn't have things like the gtk-sourceview in its repo. Additional packages can be enabled with the following command:
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled PowerTools
This might not be required if you do not install CoqIDE, but this has not been tested. Possibly other opam packages also need packages from the CentOS PowerTools repo.