Installing GMT
GMT is available on Windows, macOS, Linux and FreeBSD. Source and binary packages are provided for the latest release, and can be downloaded from the GitHub repository.
This section provides instructions for installing GMT binary packages on different operating systems. Please refer to the Building Instructions for compiling GMT source package (either stable release or development version).
Windows
We provide 32 and 64 bit standalone installers (e.g., gmt-6.x.x-win64.exe) in the GitHub repository. The installers come with GDAL, FFmpeg, and Ghostscript pre-installed.
In addition to the GMT installer, you also need to download and install GraphicsMagick if you want to create animated GIFs.
NOTE: There are several options for using GMT on non-UNIX Platforms such as Windows, including Windows Subsystem for Linux, MinGW/MSYS2, Cygwin, or DOS batch scripts. The last option will not provide you with any UNIX tools so you will be limited to what you can do with DOS batch files. One simple option for accessing a UNIX style bash terminal is Git for Windows, which can be downloaded from their official website.
NOTE: At the installation step, you may get the warning message:
> Warning! Failed to add GMT to PATH. Please add the GMT bin path to > PATH manually.
Usually it means your system variable PATH is already too long and
the GMT installer can’t add its path to the variable. As it says, you
need to ignore the warning message, and then manually add the GMT bin
path (e.g., C:\programs\gmt6\bin) to PATH after finishing the
installation. If you don’t know how to manually modify PATH, just
search Google for “How to change windows path variable”.
macOS
Application Bundles
We provide macOS application bundles for Intel and ARM architectures in the GitHub repository. The bundles come with GDAL, FFmpeg, Ghostscript and GraphicsMagick pre-installed.
Download the suitable application bundle (gmt-6.x.x-darwin-x86_64.dmg or gmt-6.x.x-darwin-arm64.dmg), double-click to mount it and drag GMT-6.x.x.app to the “Applications” folder (or any other folder).
GMT-6.x.x.app opens a terminal from which you can invoke GMT programs and scripts. If you like, you can add the GMT programs contained in the application bundle to your search path for executables. For that, just run GMT-6.x.x.app once and follow the instructions at the end of the GMT splash screen.
Note: The installers are always built for the latest macOS version only. The table below lists macOS compatibility requirements for the bundle. The arm64 version requires a computer with the M1 Apple Silicon chip.
GMT Version |
Minimum MacOS |
|---|---|
6.5 |
macOS 12 (Monterey) |
6.4 |
macOS 12 (Monterey) |
6.3 |
macOS 10.15 (Catalina) |
6.2 |
macOS 10.15 (Catalina) |
6.1 |
macOS 10.15 (Catalina) |
6.0 |
macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) |
5.4 |
macOS 10.12 (Sierra) |
Install via Homebrew
Installation of GMT through Homebrew is extremely simple. Installing Homebrew itself is a one line command only (see the Homebrew page). You may need to update the formulas so for that you will do:
brew update && brew upgrade
For the latest stable GMT 6 release, use:
brew install gmt
For the latest unstable/developing version (i.e. the master branch), run:
brew install gmt --HEAD
You also need to install other GMT run-time dependencies separately:
brew install ghostscript graphicsmagick ffmpeg
If you want to install GMT 5 and GMT 6 alongside, do:
brew install gmt@5
To go from GMT 6 to GMT 5 (but see also the doc about gmtswitch):
brew unlink gmt && brew link --force gmt@5
And to go from GMT 5 to GMT 6:
brew unlink gmt@5 && brew link gmt
Install via MacPorts
Install MacPorts and then the required ports in this order:
sudo port install gdal +hdf5 +netcdf +openjpeg
sudo port install gmt6
Optional FFTW-3 support and experimental OpenMP parallel acceleration
can be enabled with the +fftw3 and +openmp flags.
GMT is installed in /opt/local/lib/gmt6. To use GMT in command line
or scripts, you need to add /opt/local/lib/gmt6/bin to your
PATH.
You also need to install other GMT run-time dependencies separately:
sudo port install graphicsmagick ffmpeg
For the legacy GMT 4 or GMT 5 versions, use:
sudo port install gmt4
or:
sudo port install gmt5
Linux
Fedora
NOTE: The Fedora official repository may provide an old GMT version. If you need the latest GMT version, you can follow the instruction “Install latest GMT on Fedora” in the wiki.
Install GMT via:
sudo dnf install GMT dcw-gmt gshhg-gmt-nc4 gshhg-gmt-nc4-full gshhg-gmt-nc4-high ghostscript
You may also install other optional dependencies for more capabilities within GMT:
sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-`rpm -E %fedora`.noarch.rpm
sudo dnf install ffmpeg GraphicsMagick
RHEL/CentOS
GMT binary packages are available from Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL).
NOTE: The EPEL repository may provide an old GMT version. If you need the latest GMT version, you can follow the instruction “Install latest GMT on RHEL/CentOS” in the wiki.
Install GMT via:
sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum install GMT dcw-gmt gshhg-gmt-nc4 gshhg-gmt-nc4-full gshhg-gmt-nc4-high ghostscript
You may also install other optional dependencies for more capabilities within GMT:
sudo yum localinstall --nogpgcheck https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-`rpm -E %rhel`.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install ffmpeg GraphicsMagick
Ubuntu/Debian
NOTE: The Ubuntu/Debian official repositories may provide old GMT versions. If you want the latest GMT 6.x release, your best bet then is to build the latest release from source.
Install GMT via:
sudo apt-get install gmt gmt-dcw gmt-gshhg
Install other GMT dependencies (some are optional) via:
# required
sudo apt-get install ghostscript
# optional
sudo apt-get install gdal-bin graphicsmagick ffmpeg
ArchLinux
Install GMT via:
sudo pacman -S gmt
ArchLinux official repository doesn’t provide GMT extra data yet, but AUR (ArchLinux User Repository) does. You can follow the Install latest GMT on ArchLinux in the wiki for those.
Gentoo
NOTE: This may provide old GMT versions. Consider building from source.
Install GMT via:
sudo emerge --verbose --ask sci-geosciences/gmt
Cross Platform Install Instructions
Install via conda
You can use the conda package manager that comes with the Anaconda Python Distribution or Miniconda (recommended) to install GMT.
Download and install the latest Miniconda. This will give you access to the conda package manager. Make sure you select to have conda added to your ``PATH`` when asked by the installer. If you have the Anaconda Python distribution installed, you won’t need to do this step.
Install GMT and its dependencies (including ghostscript and gdal) by running the following in a terminal:
conda install gmt -c conda-forge
If you want to install GMT 5, use:
conda install gmt=5 -c conda-forge
If you want to install the weekly snapshot of the GMT master branch, use:
conda install gmt -c conda-forge/label/dev
Install other optional dependencies if you want to create animated GIFs or MP4:
conda install ffmpeg graphicsmagick -c conda-forge
FreeBSD
GMT may be installed on FreeBSD using Ports or from source.
NOTE: The Ports Collection may provide old GMT versions. If you want the latest GMT release, consider building the latest release from source.
Install via Ports
The FreeBSD Ports Collection is a diverse collection of utility and application software that has been ported to FreeBSD.
Precompiled
Install precompiled gmt binaries with
pkg install gmt
Compile from Ports
If not done already, set up the Ports Collection See https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/ports/#ports-using:
portsnap fetch
portsnap extract
If already set up, make sure you’re up-to-date:
portsnap fetch update
Then change into directory /usr/ports/graphics/gmt and build:
make install clean