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Installing the required software

🚨 IMPORTANT NOTE 🚨 Installing GMT and its dependencies, especially for Linux, can be a difficult task even for experienced users (including the developers themselves). So don't be discouraged if you have any trouble or questions. We're here to help you work through it!

Please follow these instructions to install GMT 6.4.0 and other software that will be used. Here is a summary of what you'll need:

  • GMT 6.4.0 and its dependencies
  • Ghostscript: Used by GMT to convert postscript (GMT's native graphics format) into PNG, PDF, etc. (pre-installed on Windows)
  • GDAL: Library used by GMT for reading and writing raster and vector geospatial data formats (pre-installed on Windows).
  • ffmpeg: Video creating and conversion software used to make GMT animations (pre-installed on Windows).
  • A text editor of your choice (see instructions below).

See specific instructions for your operating system below:

Need help?

If have any trouble installing, there are a few you ways to ask for help:

Key things you need to tell us so that we can help you:

  1. Your operating system
  2. The commands you ran or things you installed
  3. Which step is giving you trouble
  4. What is the exact error message (copy and paste it)

Linux

There are 2 options for installing GMT 6.4.0:

  1. Use the conda package manager to install binaries for GMT and all dependencies (recommended)
  2. Build GMT from source and install dependencies from your system package manager (see instructions below)

Unfortunately, you cannot use your system package manager to install GMT because this course requires GMT 6.4.0, which is not available on most distributions yet.

Most Linux distributions come with a text editor installed. You may also install Visual Studio Code if you want but it is not required.

Installing with conda

  1. Download and install the Python 3.9 64-bit version of Miniconda. This will give you access to the conda package manager. Make sure you select to have conda added to your PATH when asked by the installer. If you have the Anaconda Python distribution installed, you won't need to do this step.

  2. Install GMT 6.4.0 and its dependencies (including ghostscript, gdal, ffmpeg and graphicsmagick) by running the following in a terminal:

    conda install gmt=6.4.0 -c conda-forge
conda install ffmpeg graphicsmagick -c conda-forge

macOS

There are 4 options for installing GMT 6.4.0 under macOS:

  1. Use the GMT bundle installer (follow this instruction) (requires macOS >= 13 for 6.4.0; if you have an older macOS version consider upgrading first so you can use the installer)
  2. Use homebrew (follow the "Install instruction")
  3. Use the conda package manager to install binaries for GMT and all dependencies (follow the same instructions for conda on Linux)
  4. Build GMT from source and install dependencies separately (see instructions below)

Make sure you also have a text editor installed.

We will use a bash shell during the course. To set your default shell to bash, enter chsh -s /bin/bash in the Terminal.

Windows

Before installing GMT, you will need access to a UNIX style terminal with a bash shell for GMT scripting. Don't worry if you don't know what this means. We'll go through it in the first day of the workshop. Linux and macOS usually come with one installed but Windows users aren't so lucky. To install a terminal with a bash shell on Windows:

  1. Download and install Git-for-Windows Git-2.36.1-64-bit.exe from their official website. There are video instructions for installing provided by Software Carpentry
  2. In this course, when you see/hear "Terminal" you should open the "Git Bash" program.

To install GMT, we'll use the Windows installer:

  1. Download and install the GMT Windows installer gmt-6.4.0-win64.exe from this link. It comes with GDAL, ghostscript, and ffmpeg pre-installed.

Make sure you also have a text editor installed.

Install a text editor

You'll need a text editor to write GMT scripts. Any editor is fine and you may use your preferred one. However, we will strongly recommend installing the "Stable" version of Visual Studio Code on Linux, macOS, or Windows. Installers and instructions are available on their website. Some good reasons to use VSC:

  1. You can open a terminal window in VSC and run your scripts directly in it.
  2. You can install the Code Runner extension, which adds a button you click to run the active script in the terminal.
  3. You can add a keyboard shortcut to run a highlighted script line in the terminal.
  4. For Windows users using Git Bash, you install the Windows version but access it from the Git bash command line using "code file". You will need to edit the shell used by VSC to be Git bash as well.