Get an alpha installer or development code

Alpha version installers

We occasionally construct alpha version installers, so that users can easily explore the newest features. With an alpha installer, you can set up a complete working installation of NEURON on your computer, without having to download or compile source code. If you want to try this, get the most recent alpha version installer for your particular OS, and use it to install NEURON (follow the same instructions as for your OS's standard distribution installer).

The alpha version directory also contains source code for the alpha versions, which you can download and compile on your own machine. After downloading the nrn-nn.alpha.tar.gz and iv-mm.tar.gz from the alpha version directory, follow the same instructions as for compiling the standard distribution for your operating system
macOS
UNIX/Linux/Windows 10 via Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
MSWin (95 and up, outdated instructions but still possibly useful)

The very latest development code

Users who absolutely must have the very latest features will need to download and compile source code from NEURON's development code repository. You can browse the repository's change log and sources online. The following instructions are for UNIX, Linux, OS X, and MSWin users.

 

0. Install git, if you don't already have it

Git is a flexible tool for distributed software development. Documentation, source code, and installers for all common operating systems are available from https://git-scm.com/

 

1. Get a copy of the development code

The following instructions describe how to install NEURON with or without its GUI. The full installation, which includes the GUI, is appropriate for most users because it allows NEURON to be run with or without its graphical interface. A very few users may have a hardware/OS environment that will not compile InterViews, e.g. workstation clusters or supercomputers. In such cases, NEURON can be compiled without its GUI.

To get a local copy of NEURON's development code, open a terminal window and execute the following commands. On Mac and Linux, any terminal window will do. On Windows 10 with the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) enabled, the following works verbatim inside a bash terminal (e.g. launch it directly or by typing bash in a cmd terminal); for other versions of windows or to use the cmd terminal directly, this must be modified slightly for DOS syntax.

cd $HOME
mkdir neuron
cd neuron
git clone https://github.com/neuronsimulator/iv # skip this if you don't want the GUI
git clone https://github.com/neuronsimulator/nrn

This will create subdirectories called iv and nrn that contain the source code for InterViews and NEURON.

 

2. Create the "configure" files

 

The next step is to create the "configure" files that are necessary to compile these sources. cd into iv (if it exists) and type the command
./build.sh
Do the same in nrn.

Comments about build.sh
build.sh merely creates a "configure" file by running aclocal, libtoolize, autoheader, automake, and autoconf, so a more descriptive name for it would have been "buildconf.sh"

 

I am using

automake --version
automake (GNU automake) 1.9.6

autoconf --version
autoconf (GNU Autoconf) 2.59

libtool --version
ltmain.sh (GNU libtool) 1.5.22

but you might be able to get by with older versions. If not, then install the newest versions, e.g. see autoconf, automake, and libtool.
Note: aclocal is part of automake, and autoheader is part of autoconf.

3. Compile the code

 

 

Your next action depends on the operating system you're using :
macOS
UNIX/Linux (and Windows 10 via WSL)
MSWin (95 and up, outdated instructions but still possibly useful)