# Install Rhodes

## Windows

If you're running Windows, download the latest [RhoStudio for Windows](http://rhomobile.com/rhostudio-windows). This installs the [Ruby stack](http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/), [Redis](http://redis.io/), [RhoConnect](/rhoconnect/introduction) and [Rhodes](/rhodes/introduction).

Once the installer has completed, and you have installed the Java Development Kit, you can skip to the [Setup Rhodes section](#setup-rhodes).

## Java Development Kit

You need to have the Java Development Kit (JDK) installed.

If you are planning to build for Blackberry or Android, make sure you have JDK version 1.6.0_2 or higher installed. The recommended version is 6.0 update 11.

For Macintosh, JDK version 1.6.0_24 for Mac OSX 10.6 is available [here](http://support.apple.com/downloads/DL1360/en_US/JavaForMacOSX10.6Update4.dmg). Install it and then run "Java Preferences" utility to change default version.

The Sun JDK for Windows or Linux is available [here](http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp). The 32-bit Windows version of the JDK is required for Blackberry tools. 

You will want to have your JAVA_HOME variable set; have JAVA_HOME/bin set on your path.

## Rhodes Gem
To install the Rhodes gem, you will need the following tools installed:

* [Ruby](http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/) (On Windows, [RubyInstaller](http://rubyinstaller.org) is a convenient way to install Ruby)
* [RubyGems](http://docs.rubygems.org/) (RubyGems offers a .tgz, a .zip, and a .gem download. You want the .zip.)

NOTE: Windows doesn't come with the necessary build tools to install gems ('make', for example). There are various ways to get these tools, but the GnuWin32 project at http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/ provides the tools, and can be conveniently installed via the GetGnuWin32 installer at http://sourceforge.net/projects/getgnuwin32/files/.

The first step in using Rhodes is to install the Rhodes gem (you may want to put "sudo" in the front of this command on OS X):

    :::term
    $ gem install rhodes

NOTE: If you get any `no such file to load -- something` messages while running the rake tasks or rhodes commands, this can usually be resolved by putting "sudo" in front of the command, as in `sudo gem install something`.

## Setup Rhodes

Once you have Rhodes, you will need the SDKs for the platform you want to build your app on. These instructions are found [here](build).

After you install the gem and your desired SDKs, you need to run:

	:::term
	$ rhodes-setup

This will prompt you for where you installed the SDKs for the various platforms.  The installation script will display its best guess as to where the SDK is. You can then enter a new location, or leave it blank to use the suggestion. If you are not building for a specific platform (for example, you can't build for the iPhone on Windows), you can leave that SDK location blank. You can find prerequisites for each platform [here](build#all-platforms-prerequisites).