Course of Raku / Essentials

How to install Rakudo

To execute a program in Raku, you need to have a compiler installed. Visit the website of Rakudo to download the version suitable for your operating system.

There are two main options. You can install the compiler itself or install a Rakudo Star suite (also spelt as Rakudo *). Rakudo Star includes a package manager and a few useful modules.

Sources

You can download an installer for your system at rakudo.org/downloads. There exist versions for all major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. There are also source codes that you can compile yourself.

Rakudo Star

It is also possible to install the bundle, Rakudo Star, by running the installer that you get at rakudo.org/star. Check the version number before installing it. You can also check the page called ‘3rd-Party Rakudo Star Bundle Packages’ to see more options.

Docker images

Rakudo Star is available as a docker image. You can use it for both running programs and for testing small scripts in a REPL shell. Find all the instructions at github.com/Raku/docker.

Version numbers

The Rakudo version numbering system forms the version number as a two-part number: the year and the month of the release date. You can easily see how fresh your compiler is. Run the following command line to see its version number:

$ raku -v
Welcome to 𝐑𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐝𝐨™ v2020.10.
Implementing the 𝐑𝐚𝐤𝐮™ programming language v6.d.
Built on MoarVM version 2020.10.

You can see three version numbers here. The first one is the version of Rakudo itself: v2020.10. Then comes the version of the Raku language: v6.d. The updates will currently get the next letter as a minor version part, e.g., v6.e, etc. Finally, we see the name of the virtual machine used in this compiler: MoarVM version 2020.10.

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