Installing GMT — GMT 6.5.0 documentation

# Installing GMT

GMT is available on Windows, macOS, Linux and FreeBSD. Source and binary packages are provided for the latest release, and can be downloaded from the GitHub repository.

This section provides instructions for installing GMT binary packages on different operating systems. Please refer to the Building Instructions for compiling GMT source package (either stable release or development version).

## Windows

We provide 32 and 64 bit standalone installers (e.g., gmt-6.x.x-win64.exe) in the GitHub repository. The installers come with GDAL, FFmpeg, and Ghostscript pre-installed.

In addition to the GMT installer, you also need to download and install GraphicsMagick if you want to create animated GIFs.

NOTE: There are several options for using GMT on non-UNIX Platforms such as Windows, including Windows Subsystem for Linux, MinGW/MSYS2, Cygwin, or DOS batch scripts. The last option will not provide you with any UNIX tools so you will be limited to what you can do with DOS batch files. One simple option for accessing a UNIX style bash terminal is Git for Windows, which can be downloaded from their official website.

NOTE: At the installation step, you may get the warning message:

> Warning! Failed to add GMT to PATH. Please add the GMT bin path to > PATH manually.

Usually it means your system variable `PATH` is already too long and the GMT installer can’t add its path to the variable. As it says, you need to ignore the warning message, and then manually add the GMT bin path (e.g., `C:\programs\gmt6\bin`) to `PATH` after finishing the installation. If you don’t know how to manually modify `PATH`, just search Google for “How to change windows path variable”.

## macOS

### Application Bundles

We provide macOS application bundles for Intel and ARM architectures in the GitHub repository. The bundles come with GDAL, FFmpeg, Ghostscript and GraphicsMagick pre-installed.

Download the suitable application bundle (gmt-6.x.x-darwin-x86_64.dmg or gmt-6.x.x-darwin-arm64.dmg), double-click to mount it and drag GMT-6.x.x.app to the “Applications” folder (or any other folder).

GMT-6.x.x.app opens a terminal from which you can invoke GMT programs and scripts. If you like, you can add the GMT programs contained in the application bundle to your search path for executables. For that, just run GMT-6.x.x.app once and follow the instructions at the end of the GMT splash screen.

Note: The installers are always built for the latest macOS version only. The table below lists macOS compatibility requirements for the bundle. The arm64 version requires a computer with the M1 Apple Silicon chip.

GMT Version | Minimum MacOS
--- | ---
6.5 | macOS 12 (Monterey)
6.4 | macOS 12 (Monterey)
6.3 | macOS 10.15 (Catalina)
6.2 | macOS 10.15 (Catalina)
6.1 | macOS 10.15 (Catalina)
6.0 | macOS 10.13 (High Sierra)
5.4 | macOS 10.12 (Sierra)

### Install via Homebrew

Installation of GMT through Homebrew is extremely simple. Installing Homebrew itself is a one line command only (see the Homebrew page). You may need to update the formulas so for that you will do:

    brew update && brew upgrade

For the latest stable GMT 6 release, use:

    brew install gmt

For the latest unstable/developing version (i.e. the master branch), run:

    brew install gmt --HEAD

You also need to install other GMT run-time dependencies separately:

    brew install ghostscript graphicsmagick ffmpeg

If you want to install GMT 5 and GMT 6 alongside, do:

    brew install gmt@5

To go from GMT 6 to GMT 5 (but see also the doc about `gmtswitch`):

    brew unlink gmt && brew link --force gmt@5

And to go from GMT 5 to GMT 6:

    brew unlink gmt@5 && brew link gmt

### Install via MacPorts

Install MacPorts and then the required ports in this order:

    sudo port install gdal +hdf5 +netcdf +openjpeg
    sudo port install gmt6

Optional FFTW-3 support and experimental OpenMP parallel acceleration can be enabled with the `+fftw3` and `+openmp` flags.

GMT is installed in `/opt/local/lib/gmt6`. To use GMT in command line or scripts, you need to add `/opt/local/lib/gmt6/bin` to your `PATH`.

You also need to install other GMT run-time dependencies separately:

    sudo port install graphicsmagick ffmpeg

For the legacy GMT 4 or GMT 5 versions, use:

    sudo port install gmt4

or:

    sudo port install gmt5

## Linux

### Fedora

NOTE: The Fedora official repository may provide an old GMT version. If you need the latest GMT version, you can follow the instruction “Install latest GMT on Fedora” in the wiki.

Install GMT via:

    sudo dnf install GMT dcw-gmt gshhg-gmt-nc4 gshhg-gmt-nc4-full gshhg-gmt-nc4-high ghostscript

You may also install other optional dependencies for more capabilities within GMT:

    sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-`rpm -E %fedora`.noarch.rpm
    sudo dnf install ffmpeg GraphicsMagick

### RHEL/CentOS

GMT binary packages are available from Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL).

NOTE: The EPEL repository may provide an old GMT version. If you need the latest GMT version, you can follow the instruction “Install latest GMT on RHEL/CentOS” in the wiki.

Install GMT via:

    sudo yum install epel-release
    sudo yum install GMT dcw-gmt gshhg-gmt-nc4 gshhg-gmt-nc4-full gshhg-gmt-nc4-high ghostscript

You may also install other optional dependencies for more capabilities within GMT:

    sudo yum localinstall --nogpgcheck https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-`rpm -E %rhel`.noarch.rpm
    sudo yum install ffmpeg GraphicsMagick

### Ubuntu/Debian

NOTE: The Ubuntu/Debian official repositories may provide old GMT versions. If you want the latest GMT 6.x release, your best bet then is to build the latest release from source.

Install GMT via:

    sudo apt-get install gmt gmt-dcw gmt-gshhg

Install other GMT dependencies (some are optional) via:

    # required
    sudo apt-get install ghostscript
    # optional
    sudo apt-get install gdal-bin graphicsmagick ffmpeg

### ArchLinux

Install GMT via:

    sudo pacman -S gmt

ArchLinux official repository doesn’t provide GMT extra data yet, but AUR (ArchLinux User Repository) does. You can follow the Install latest GMT on ArchLinux in the wiki for those.

### Gentoo

NOTE: This may provide old GMT versions. Consider building from source.

Install GMT via:

    sudo emerge --verbose --ask sci-geosciences/gmt

## Cross Platform Install Instructions

### Install via conda

You can use the conda package manager that comes with the Anaconda Python Distribution or Miniconda (recommended) to install GMT.

1. Download and install the latest 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 and its dependencies (including ghostscript and gdal) by running the following in a terminal:

       conda install gmt -c conda-forge

3. If you want to install GMT 5, use:

       conda install gmt=5 -c conda-forge

4. If you want to install the weekly snapshot of the GMT master branch, use:

       conda install gmt -c conda-forge/label/dev

5. Install other optional dependencies if you want to create animated GIFs or MP4:

       conda install ffmpeg graphicsmagick -c conda-forge

## FreeBSD

GMT may be installed on FreeBSD using Ports or from source.

NOTE: The Ports Collection may provide old GMT versions. If you want the latest GMT release, consider building the latest release from source.

### Install via Ports

The FreeBSD Ports Collection is a diverse collection of utility and application software that has been ported to FreeBSD.

Precompiled

Install precompiled gmt binaries with

    pkg install gmt

Compile from Ports

If not done already, set up the Ports Collection See https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/ports/#ports-using:

    portsnap fetch
    portsnap extract

If already set up, make sure you’re up-to-date:

    portsnap fetch update

Then change into directory `/usr/ports/graphics/gmt` and build:

    make install clean