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Installing Nu |
Table of Contents |
Introduction |
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/en/introduction.html |
The best way currently to get Nu up and running is to install from crates.io, download pre-built binaries from our release page, build from source, or pulling a pre-built container with Docker.
You can download Nu pre-built from the release page. Alternatively, if you use Homebrew for macOS, you can install the binary by running brew install nushell.
please note: Nu works on Windows 10 and does not currently have Windows 7/8.1 support.
Download the current released .zip-file from the release page and extract it for example to:
{% include installation/windows_example_extraction_location.md %}
And then add the folder of nu to your PATH. Once we have done that, we can run Nu using the nu command:
{% include installation/windows_run_nu.md %}
If you are using the new Windows Terminal you can set nu as your default shell by adding:
{% include installation/windows_terminal_default_shell.md %}
to "profiles" in your Terminal Settings (JSON-file). The last thing to do is to change the "defaultProfile" to:
{% include installation/windows_change_default_profile.md %}
Now nu should load on startup of the Windows Terminal.
If you want to pull a pre-built container, you can browse tags for the nushell organization on Quay.io. Pulling a container would come down to:
{% include installation/pull_prebuilt_container.md %}
Both "nu-base" and "nu" provide the nu binary, however nu-base also includes the source code at /code
in the container and all dependencies.
Optionally, you can also build the containers locally using the dockerfiles provided: To build the base image:
{% include installation/build_containers_locally_base_image.md %}
And then to build the smaller container (using a Multistage build):
{% include installation/build_containers_locally_multistage_build.md %}
Either way, you can run either container as follows:
{% include installation/run_containers_built_locally.md %}
The second container is a bit smaller, if size is important to you.
Before we can install Nu, we need to make sure our system has the necessary requirements. Currently, this means making sure we have both the Rust toolchain and local dependencies installed.
For Rust to work properly, you'll need to have a compatible compiler suite installed on your system. These are the recommended compiler suites:
- Linux: GCC or Clang
- macOS: Clang (install Xcode)
- Windows: Visual Studio Community Edition
For Linux and macOS, once you have installed the compiler, you are ready to install Rust via rustup (see below).
For Windows, when you install Visual Studio Community Edition, make sure to install the "C++ build tools" as what we need is link.exe which is provided as part of that optional install. With that, we're ready to move to the next step.
If we don't already have Rust on our system, the best way to install it via rustup. Rustup is a way of managing Rust installations, including managing using different Rust versions.
Nu currently requires the latest stable (1.43 or later) version of Rust. The best way to let rustup find the correct version for you. When you first open rustup it will ask what version of Rust you wish to install:
{% include installation/rustup_choose_rust_version.md %}
Once we are ready, we press 1 and then enter.
If you'd rather not install Rust via rustup, you can also install it via other methods (e.g. from a package in a Linux distro). Just be sure to install a version of Rust that is 1.39 or later.
You will need to install the "pkg-config" and "libssl-dev" package:
{% include installation/install_pkg_config_libssl_dev.md %}
Linux users who wish to use the rawkey or clipboard optional features will need to install the "libx11-dev" and "libxcb-composite0-dev" packages:
{% include installation/use_rawkey_and_clipboard.md %}
You'll need to install "libxcb", "libssl-dev", and "lib11-dev".
Using Homebrew, you will need to install the "openssl" and "cmake" using:
{% include installation/macos_deps.md %}
Installing from crates.io
Once we have the dependencies Nu needs, we can install it using the cargo command that comes with the Rust compiler.
{% include installation/cargo_install_nu.md %}
That's it! The cargo tool will do the work of downloading Nu and its source dependencies, building it, and installing it into the cargo bin path so that we can run it.
If you want to install with more features, you can use:
{% include installation/cargo_install_nu_more_features.md %}
For all the available features, the easiest way is to check out Nu and build it yourself using the same Rust tools:
{% include installation/build_nu_yourself.md %}
For this to work, make sure you have all the dependencies (shown above) on your system.
Once installed, we can run Nu using the nu command:
{% include installation/crates_run_nu.md %}
We can also build our own Nu from source directly from github. This gives us immediate access to the latest Nu features and bug fixes.
{% include installation/git_clone_nu.md %}
Git will clone the main nushell repo for us. From there, we can build and run Nu if we are using rustup with:
{% include installation/build_nu_from_source.md %}
You can also build and run Nu in release mode:
{% include installation/build_nu_from_source_release.md %}
People familiar with Rust may wonder why we do both a "build" and a "run" step if "run" does a build by default. This is to get around a shortcoming of the new default-run option in Cargo, and ensure that all plugins are built, though this may not be required in the future.
!!! Nu is still in development, and may not be stable for everyday use. !!!
To set the login shell you can use the chsh command.
Some Linux distributions have a list of valid shells located in /etc/shells and will disallow changing the shell until Nu is in the whitelist. You may see an error similar to the one below if you haven't updated the shells file:
{% include installation/chsh_invalid_shell_error.md %}
You can add Nu to the list of allowed shells by appending your Nu binary to the shells file.
The path to add can be found with the command which nu, usually it is $HOME/.cargo/bin/nu.