Part of the Greenstone Beginner's Guide

The main Greenstone downloads (Greenstone 2 and 3) are available on the Greenstone download page, under Latest Greenstone3 Distribution or Latest Greenstone2 Distribution. Click the link for your operating system, and, when prompted, save the file.

Upon downloading the installer, run the executable: On Windows and Mac you need to double-click it to launch the installation dialog, on Linux you first need to set the downloaded executable's permissions to executable before you can run it from the terminal.

It may take some time for the Greenstone installation dialog to appear. Once the installation dialog displays, you generally need to keep pressing the Next button until it is finished.

Note: When the installer asks for the location to install Greenstone in, make sure to choose a location on your file system for which you have access privileges. If you are using Windows Vista/7, we recommend you do not install Greenstone in Program Files, as the default file permissions for this folder can cause issues when you attempt to run Greenstone. We recommend your 'User' directory or your Documents folder as the installation destination, instead. This way Greenstone will be able to run without any extra steps.

If you do want to install Greenstone into Program Files on Windows Vista or 7 (and you have administrator permissions on your computer), you can run the installer with administrator permissions by right clicking on the installer and choosing "Run as administrator".

For more information on installation options, including downloading and compiling source code from source distributions or Subversion (SVN), see the Advanced Installation page.

The basic Greenstone installation includes a suite of software. In Windows, you will find the following in Start → All Programs → Greenstone.

The Greenstone Librarian Interface, or GLI, is a graphical tool for building new collections, altering or deleting existing collections, and, in Greenstone2, exporting existing collections to stand-alone CD-ROMs. For the average user, the GLI is where you will create and modify all of your Greenstone collections, and is the focus of the Beginner's Guide.

The Greenstone Server is how you "start up" your library for viewing in the browser. The server begins automatically when you enter the GLI. Because the server should work sufficiently 'out-of-the-box', it is not covered in-depth in the Beginner's Guide.

As its name suggests, the Remote Librarian Interface is a tool for editing collections on a remote server.

GEMS (Greenstone Editor for Metadata Sets) can be used to modify existing metadata sets or create new ones. GEMS can either be launched from the Enrich panel in the Librarian Interface or from outside the Librarian Interface (in Windows by going to Start → Programs → Greenstone → GEMS).

The Uninstall program included with your installation provides an easy way to remove the Greenstone software from your computer, while giving you the option to keep or remove any collections you have created, as well.

The Documentation folder includes links to the Greenstone page and Greenstone wiki, as well as a short README file.

Once you have successfully installed the Greenstone software, you are ready to start building collections.