There are four ways to get the current version, or at least a new-enough version, of CMake installed on your system. Which of these can be used depends on your target system.

  1. Install CMake from your system's distribution repositories
  2. If your distro came with a pre-3.4 CMake, see if a newer version has been backported.
  3. Install binaries from https://cmake.org/download
  4. Build from source, also at https://cmake.org/download

Note: use https://cmake.org/files for direct links to older versions of CMake.

Here are quick links to information for each target system. There are some considerations for building CMake from source, whether using the CMake bootstrap process or building using a previously-installed version of CMake to configure the build.


There are four ways to get CMake installed on your system.

  1. Install CMake from your system's distribution repositories
  2. If your distro came with a pre-3.4 CMake, see if a newer version has been backported.
  3. Install binaries from https://cmake.org/download
  4. Build from source, also at https://cmake.org/download

Procedures for using options one or two are dependent on your target system's distribution and release.

Installing Pre-Built Binaries

Pre-built binaries can be downloaded for 64-bit systems, and for 32-bit systems up to CMake 3.6.3. The tarball for binaries includes bin, doc, man, and share directories and may be installed under any parent directory. All four directories must be installed under the same parent directory. For example, if one installs the Linux binaries in $HOME/cmake, one can invoke CMake for the configure step using:

$HOME/cmake/bin/cmake

and that binary will be used for the build and install steps. (ctest and cpack will need to be run using $HOME/cmake/bin/ctest and $HOME/cmake/bin/cpackinstall, respectively).

This author has tested the pre-built 64-bit Linux binaries for CMake 3.10 on:

This author has tested the pre-built 32-bit Linux binaries for CMake 3.6.3, the last CMake release with 32-bit Linux binaries, on:

Build From Source on Linux

See Build From Source. There are no special considerations for building from source on Linux.


Here are your choices:

  1. Install CMake from your system's distribution repositories
  2. If your distro came with a pre-3.4 CMake, see if a newer version has been backported
  3. Install binaries from https://cmake.org/download
  4. Build from source, also at https://cmake.org/download.

That is it. Hobson's choice: binaries or nothing (more about Hobson's choice). But the binaries are a good choice, and much better than giving up. Pick the most recent version.

If your Windows system has a pre-3.5 version of CMake already installed, you must uninstall it before installing version 3.5 or newer due to a change in the installer technology. Uninstalling an older version is not a problem; CMake does not have settings that would be removed by an uninstall.

If you find that the most recent version does not work, uninstall that one and install an older version. You can find older versions at: https://cmake.org/files/. Just do not install one older than 3.4.0.

One can build CMake from source on Windows, one just has to install CMake using binaries to do this. There is no equivalent to the bootstrap process available on other target systems. Because Windows binaries are available for all CMake releases, there does not seem to be a need to build from source. Unless, of course, you wish to become a CMake developer.


See if CMake is included in the macOS app store, and if so, how. But it is not likely to be there; web search results showed lots of examples of using homebrew to build from source or using the binaries for macOS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or better.

Here are your choices:

  1. Install CMake from your system's distribution repositories
  2. If your distro came with a pre-3.4 CMake, see if a newer version has been backported
  3. Install binaries from https://cmake.org/download. This option is available for macOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or newer only.
  4. Build from source, also at https://cmake.org/download.
Build From Source on macOS

See Build From Source. In addition, you will need the macOS application Homebrew and/or the Xcode command line utilities. This author does not have access to a Mac, so this procedure has not been validated. Any feedback about building from source under macOS would be welcomed.


There are three ways to get CMake installed on your system.

  1. Install CMake from your system's distribution repositories
  2. If your distro came with a pre-3.4 CMake, see if a newer version has been backported.
  3. Install binaries from https://cmake.org/download
  4. Build from source, also at https://cmake.org/download

Procedures for using options one or two are dependent on your target system's distribution and release.

Build From Source on FreeBSD

See Build From Source.

CMake versions 3.6.0 and newer can be built from source on FreeBSD 11 without needing --system-curl when using bootstrap or -DCMAKE-USE-SYSTEM-CURL when building using an older version of CMake. This is likely to be true on newer versions of FreeBSD, and it may be true for older versions as well.

If you try building from source on a newer or older FreeBSD version, please provide feedback about your experiences.

Note that Ninja is not supported as a Hercules build tool on FreeBSD. This restriction will be removed if and when SoftFloat-3a For Hercules is built as a shared library. This restriction applies whether CMake is built from source or installed from a FreeBSD package or ports repository.


Complete "build from source" instructions may be found on the CMake web site at https://cmake.org/install/. Review those instructions and come back here for additional important information.

CMake uses CMake to configure CMake and create build scripts used when building CMake from source. If the target system does not already have an older CMake installed, CMake sources include a bootstrap shell script that first builds a fixed configuration "bootstrap" CMake from source and then uses that bootstrap CMake to build the "real" CMake. The bootstrap process is not available on Windows systems, nor is it needed because CMake provides installable binaries for all versions of CMake.

The published CMake build from source process builds in the source directory and uses no options. If you are building a version older than 3.7.1, or on a system with OpenSSL older that 1.1, take note of the following:

CMake Version OpenSSL 1.1 OpenSSL 1.0
3.7.1 or newer No issues

Use -DCMAKE_USE_SYSTEM_CURL if you are building from source using an older version of CMake, or use --system-curl on the bootstrap command.

Have the curl (OpenSSL flavor) and zlib development headers and libraries available on the target system. Avoid the GnuTLS curl development headers and library.

Note: Above options not required if building on FreeBSD 11 or newer, and may not be required on older versions of FreeBSD.

3.5.0 to 3.7.0

Use -DCMAKE_USE_SYSTEM_LIBARCHIVE if you are building CMake from source using an older version of CMake, or use --system-libarchive on the bootstrap command.

Have the libarchive and liblzma development headers and libraries installed on your system.

For the technical details, please see CMake issue 16459 and CMake merge request 289.

3.4.0 to 3.5.3

Use -DCMAKE_USE_SYSTEM_CURL if you are building from source using an older version of CMake, or use --system-curl on the bootstrap command.

Have the curl (OpenSSL flavor) and Zlib development headers and libraries available on the target system. Avoid the GnuTLS curl development headers and library.

Older than 3.4.0 Not supported to build Hercules
The above options are required to enable HTTPS protocol support in the CMake file( DOWNLOAD url ) command. The CMake build for Hercules uses https transfers to compare the versions of BZip2 and Zlib on the target system with those available in the Hercules-390 repository.

You may find some of the available options for the bootstrap procedure helpful; find them using ./bootstrap --help. CMake is not bootstrapped when using --help. If you are using a prior version of CMake to build from source, you can use cmake-gui to review available options.

Here are some suggestions:



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