System requirements

Linux on x86 compatible cpu : all components available
Windows XP or higher : run-time engine and most standalone programs, though with some limitations

A C99 compliant compiler

None of the current compilers (gcc, visual-C, ...) are 100% C99 compliant. However, since SPRAAK avoids the more 'difficult' C99 constructs, this is not a problem.
SPRAAK works optimally in combination with gcc (even on Windows, see Python on Windows below on how to install gcc on a Windows system).

Python (version 2.5 or higher)

For Windows, we advise the Cygwin environment. This environment contains Python, gcc and a fair amount of other libraries and utilities that are useful to SPRAAK (see the optional list below). The easiest way to install Cygwin is by following the 'Install Cygwin now' quick link located at the top right of the http://www.cygwin.com/ page.
If you only want Python and none of the additional functionality provided by Cywin, the 'Windows installer' quick link on the http://www.python.org/ page can be used.
For a Linux system, we advised to use the Python package that comes with the distribution (given this is at least Python2.5).
Alternatively, one can download download the Python binaries and/or source files from http://www.python.org/

Scons (version 0.98 or higher)

Scons can be downloaded from http://www.scons.org. Choose the appropriate download type in the right column. If you choose the tarball, you can proceed as follows:

tar zxvf scons-0.98.5.tar.gz
cd scons-0.98.5

Read the README file. It explains the installation procedure and prerequisites.
As a quickstart, you can type

python setup.py install --prefix=$SPRAAK_BASE_DIR/scons_base

to install scons in the directory referred to above as $SPRAAK_BASE_DIR/scons_base

The functionality of SPRAAK can be further extended when the link libraries and header files for the following components are available:

python: When not only the Python executable but also the Python header files and library are installed, Python functionality can be made available from with the SPRAAK system (e.g. a Python signal pre-processing block, a Python lattice post-processing block, ...).
zlib: This library allows reading and writing gzip-compressed files.
libbz2: This library allows reading and writing bzip2-compressed files.
gcrypt: This library allows reading and writing encrypted files.

These additional libraries are available in most Linux distributions and in the Cygwin environment for Windows.