Course of Raku / Essentials / Compilers

How to install Rakudo

To execute a program in Raku, you need to have a compiler installed. This course uses Rakudo; the other compiler, Raku++, is installed separately. Visit the website of Rakudo to download the version suitable for your operating system.

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.

Docker images

Rakudo is also 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™ v2026.06.
Implementing the 𝐑𝐚𝐤𝐮™ programming language v6.d.
Built on MoarVM version 2026.06.

You can see three version numbers here. The first one is the version of Rakudo itself: v2026.06. 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 2026.06.

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