BOINC depends on various software to build, test, and run.

Operating systems

The server components run on flavors of Unix. We develop on Solaris 2.6-2.9 and Debian Linux stable and unstable, so those currently work out-of-the-box. Other Unix-like systems should work without too much configuration.

Unix software

Required for compiling:

GNU C++ 2.95 or 3.0-3.3; other C++ compilers can be ported
Other standard development tools assumed: make, gzip, etc.

Required on the database server:

MySQL server 3.23+ or 4.0+: other SQL server can be ported (package mysql-server)

Required on the master/scheduler server(s):

Apache or other webserver (package apache2 or apache)
PHP 4.0 (package php4)
MySQL client (package mysql-client)
Python 2.2+ (package python2.3 or python2.2)
- Python module MySQLdb 0.9.2 (0.9.1 currently won't work; see installation instructions) (package python-mysqldb)
- Python module xml (part of most Python distributions; package python-xml)

The test suite simulates all servers on a single machine as well as a client, so to run make check you need most of the usual server and client software:

MySQL server with permissions to create databases
MySQL client
Python with modules as above
Apache and PHP: can be used but not required

Optional, required only if you change */Makefile.am:

automake 1.7+
autoconf 2.5+

On Debian Linux you can install all of the above software using

apt-get install g++ python python-mysqldb python-xml mysql-server mysql-client apache php4 automake autoconf

Windows client software

Required for compiling:

Microsoft Visual C 6.0

Required for creating install packages:

InstallShield 5.5

Macintosh client software

Development Level PPC Macintosh running OS X 10.1 or later.
July 2002 Mac OS X Developer Tools.
Installer Vise Lite 3.6 SDK(?)