=== Bitcoin-Qt - The Reference Implementation, aka Satoshi Client
You can download the Satoshi Client from bitcoin.org. Depending on your operating system, it will be called bitcoin-qt or bitcoind. The reference client implements all aspects of the bitcoin system, including wallets, a transaction verification engine with a full copy of the entire transaciton ledger (blockchain) and a full network node in the peer-to-peer bitcoin network.
Go to http://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet and select "Bitcoin-Qt" to download the reference client. Depending on your operating system, you will download an executable installer. For Windows, this is either a ZIP archive or an EXE executable. For Mac OS it is DMG disk image. Linux versions include a PPA package for Ubuntu or a TAR.GZ archive.
==== Bitcoin-Qt - Download Options
[[bitcoin-qt-dl-options]]
.Bitcoin-Qt - Download options for different operating systems
==== Bitcoin-Qt - Running the client for the first time
If you download an installable package, such as an EXE, DMG or PPA, you can install it the same way as any application on your operating system. For Windows, run the EXE and follow the step-by-step instructions. For Mac OS, launch the DMG and drag the Bitcoin-QT icon into your Applications folder. For Ubuntu, double-click on the PPA in your File Explorer and it will open the package manager to install the package. Once you have completed installation you should have a new application "Bitcoin-Qt" in your application list. Double-click on the icon to start the bitcoin client.
The first time you run Bitcoin-Qt it will start downloading the blockchain, a process that may take several days. Leave it running in the background, until it displays "Synchronized" and no longer shows "Out of sync" next to the balance.
[TIP]
====
Bitcoin-Qt keeps a full copy of the transaction ledger (blockchain), with every transaction that has ever occured on the bitcoin network since its inception in 2009. This data set is several gigabytes in size (approximately 16GB in late 2013) and is downloaded incrementally over several days. The client will not be able to process transactions or update account balances until the full blockchain dataset is downloaded. During that time, the client will display "Out of sync" next to the account balances and show "Synchronizing" in the footer. Make sure you have enough disk space, bandwidth and time to complete the initial synchronization.
====
[[bitcoin-qt-firstload]]
.Bitcoin-Qt - The Graphical User Interface, during the blockchain initialization
image::images/bitcoin-qt-firstload.png["bitcoin-qt first run"]
==== Bitcoin-Qt - Compiling the client from the source code
For developers, there is also the option to download the full source code, either as a ZIP archive or by cloning the authoritative source repository from Github. Go to https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin and select "Download ZIP" from the sidebar. Alternatively, use the git command line to create a local copy of the source code on your system. In the example below, we are cloning the source code from a unix-like command-line, in Linux or Mac OS:
The instructions and resulting output may vary from version to version. Follow the documentation that comes with the code even if it differs from the instructions you see here and don't be surprised if the output displayed on your screen is slightly different from the examples here.
====
When the git cloning operation has complete, you will have a complete local copy of the source code repository in the directory _bitcoin_. Change to this directory by typing +cd bitcoin+ at the prompt:
----
$ cd bitcoin
----
By default, the local copy will be synchronized with the most recent code which may be an unstable or "beta" version of bitcoin. Before compiling the code, we want to select a specific version, by checking out a release _tag_. This will synchronize the local copy with a specific snapshot of the code repository identified by a keyword tag. Tags are used by the developers to mark specific releases of the code by version number. First, to find the available tags, we use the +git tag+ command:
----
$ git tag
v0.1.5
v0.1.6test1
v0.2.0
v0.2.10
v0.2.11
v0.2.12
[... many more tags ...]
v0.8.4rc2
v0.8.5
v0.8.6
v0.8.6rc1
v0.9.0rc1
----
The list of tags shows all the released versions of bitcoin. By convention, _release candidates_, which are intended for testing, have the suffix "rc". Stable releases that can be run on production systems have no suffix. From the list above, we select the highest version release, which at this time is v0.9.0rc1. To synchronize the local code with this version, we use the +git checkout+ command:
----
$ git checkout v0.9.0rc1
Note: checking out 'v0.9.0rc1'.
HEAD is now at 15ec451... Merge pull request #3605
$
----
The source code includes documentation, which can be found in a number of files. Review the main documentation located in README.md in the bitcoin directory, by typing +more README.md+ at the prompt, using the space bar to progress to the next page. In this chapter we will build the command-line bitcoin client, also known as +bitcoind+ on Linux. Review the instructions for compiling the bitcoind command-line client on your platform by typing +more doc/build-unix.md+. Alternative instructions for Mac OSX and Windows can be found in the doc directory, as +build-os.md+ or +build-msw.md+ respectively.
Carefully review the build pre-requisited which are in the first part of the build documentation. These are libraries that must be present on your system before you can begin to compile bitcoin. If these pre-requisites are missing the build process will fail with an error. If this happens because you missed a pre-requisite, you can install it and then resume the build process from where you left off. Assuming the pre-requisites are installed, we start the build process by generating a set of build scripts using the +autogen.sh+ script.
The bitcoind build process was changed to use the autogen/configure/make system starting with version 0.9. Older versions use a simple Makefile and work slightly differently from the example below. Follow the instructions for the version you want to compile. The autogen/configure/make introduced in 0.9 is likely to be the build system used for all future versions of the code and is the system demonstrated in the examples below.
The +autogen.sh+ script creates a set of automatic configuation scripts that will interrogate your system to discover the correct settings and ensure you have all the necessary libraries to compile the code. The most important of these is the +configure+ script that offers a number of different options to customize the build process. Type +./configure --help+ to see the various options:
----
$ ./configure --help
`configure' configures Bitcoin Core 0.9.0 to adapt to many kinds of systems.
Usage: ./configure [OPTION]... [VAR=VALUE]...
To assign environment variables (e.g., CC, CFLAGS...), specify them as
VAR=VALUE. See below for descriptions of some of the useful variables.
Defaults for the options are specified in brackets.
Configuration:
-h, --help display this help and exit
--help=short display options specific to this package
--help=recursive display the short help of all the included packages
-V, --version display version information and exit
[... many more options and variables are displayed below ...]
--disable-FEATURE do not include FEATURE (same as --enable-FEATURE=no)
--enable-FEATURE[=ARG] include FEATURE [ARG=yes]
[... more options ...]
Use these variables to override the choices made by `configure' or to help
it to find libraries and programs with nonstandard names/locations.
Report bugs to <info@bitcoin.org>.
$
----
The +configure+ script allows you to enable or disable certain features of bitcoind through the use of the +--enable-FEATURE+ and +--disable-FEATURE+ flags, where +FEATURE+ is replaced byt he feature name, as listed in the help output above. In this chapter, we will build the bitcoind client with all the default features, so we won't be using these flags, but you should review them to understand what optional features are part of the client. Next, we run the +configure+ script to automatically discover all the necessary libraries and create a customized build script for our system:
----
$ ./configure
checking build system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
If all goes well, the +configure+ command will end by creating the customized build scripts that will allow us to compile bitcoind. If there are any missing libraries or errors, the +configure+ command will terminate with an error instead of creating the build scripts as shown above. If an error occurs, it is most likely a missing or incompatible library. Review the build documentation again and make sure you install the missing pre-requisites, then run +configure+ again and see if that fixes the error. Next, we will compile the source code, a process that can take up to an hour to complete. During the compilation process you should see output every few seconds or every few minutes, or an error if something goes wrong. The compilation process can be resumed at any time if interrupted. Type +make+ to start compiling:
