Installing

Neuron can be installed on Windows, Linux or macOS.

If you want to give neuron a try before installing it, checkout Cerveau.

Prerequisites

Nix

Neuron can be installed via the Nix1 package manager. Install Nix as follows:

curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh

OS-specific notes

  • If you are on Windows, you should begin by installing Ubuntu on WSL 2 (not WSL 1), before installing Nix on it.
  • If you are on macOS Catalina or later, refer to the macOS Installation section of the Nix manual on how to install Nix.

If you do not wish to install Nix, try the Docker workflowᛦ or, if you are on Linux or WSL, use the Static binaryᛦ.

Enable cache

Enable the Nix cache for neuron.

# If you do not already have cachix, install it:
nix-env -iA cachix -f https://cachix.org/api/v1/install
# Use the cache to fetch binaries instead of compiling most packages.
cachix use srid

If you skip this step, your machine may compile several software for hours.

Install neuron

To install the latest development version of neuron, run:

nix-env -if https://github.com/srid/neuron/archive/master.tar.gz

Note that this command can also upgrade your existing install of neuron.

For alternative mechanisms, see Declarative Installᛦ.

Test your install

Make sure that you can execute the neuron executable. You should expect the following:

Usage: neuron [--version] [-d PATH] COMMAND
  Neuron, future-proof Zettelkasten app <https://neuron.zettel.page/>

Available options:
  --version                Show version
  -d PATH                  Run as if neuron was started in PATH instead of the
                           current working directory
  -h,--help                Show this help text

Available commands:
  new                      Create a new zettel
  open                     Open the locally generated Zettelkasten website
  search                   Search zettels and print the matching filepath
  query                    Run a query against the zettelkasten
  rib                      Generate static site via rib

What’s next?

Proceed to the Tutorial.

  1. Nix is a general package manager that you can use to manage other software and services as well. See here.

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