Installation

To install Inference you need to download binary files for your operating system from the infc GitHub Releases page.

Command Line Notation

In this book, commands you should type in a terminal start with $. Do not type the $ itself; it is just the prompt. Lines without $ show the output of the previous command. PowerShell examples use > instead of $.

Installing Inference on Linux and macOS

Installation on Linux is as simple as downloading the release artifact, extracting it, and adding an executable infc to your system PATH.

Note

infcis compiled for apple silicon cpu architecture, so if you are using an Intel-based mac, you may need to run it under Rosetta 2 or build from source.

Installing Inference on Windows

For Windows, some additional libraries are required to run infc. If you already have some other LLVM-based tools installed, you may already have the required dependencies. Otherwise, there is a PowerShell script included in the infc package that can check for and install any missing dependencies using the MSYS2 package manager.

Verifying Downloaded Package

To verify the integrity of the downloaded package, you can check its SHA256 checksum. The checksum value is provided on the infc GitHub Releases page alongside the download links.

On Linux/macOS, run the following command in the terminal:

$ sha256sum infc-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

On Windows, run the following command in PowerShell:

> Get-FileHash infc-windows-x86_64.zip -Algorithm SHA256

infc is distributed with required dependencies in a compressed archive. After downloading the appropriate package for your operating system, extract its contents to a directory of your choice. And verify that you have the following files in the extracted directory:

infc-directory
├──bin
│   └── inf-llvm            (or inf-llvm.exe on Windows)
│   └── rust-lld            (or rust-lld.exe on Windows)
├──lib                      (Linux only)
│    └── libLLVM.so.*       (LLVM shared library)
├──check_deps.ps1           (Windows only)
└──infc                     (or infc.exe on Windows)

Understading the files:

infc is the Inference compiler executable;
inf-llvm is a custom LLVM toolchain used by the Inference compiler to generate binaries;
rust-lld is a Rust linker used by the Inference compiler to link compiled modules into executable binaries.
libLLVM.so.* is the LLVM shared library required by inf-llvm on Linux systems;
check_deps.ps1 is a PowerShell script to verify that all required dependencies are installed on Windows systems.

Ensure Required Dependencies are Installed on Windows

On Windows, open PowerShell, navigate to the extracted infc directory, and run the following command to check for required dependencies:

> .\check_deps.ps1

Tip

If you encounter an execution policy error, right click the check_deps.ps1 file in file explorer, select Properties, and choosing Unblock if that option appears at the bottom of the Properties tab.

This script will verify that all necessary dependencies are installed on your system. If any dependencies are missing, the script will ask your permission to install them automatically using pacman.

Note

The script assumes you have MSYS2 installed in C:\msys64

As a final result, you should see the following output:

--- INFC Dependency Check Starting ---
Directory: D:\GitHub\infc
[FOUND]    libwinpthread-1.dll (in PATH: C:\msys64\ucrt64\bin\libwinpthread-1.dll)
[FOUND]    libffi-8.dll (in PATH: C:\msys64\ucrt64\bin\libffi-8.dll)
[FOUND]    libgcc_s_seh-1.dll (in PATH: C:\msys64\ucrt64\bin\libgcc_s_seh-1.dll)
[FOUND]    libzstd.dll (in PATH: C:\msys64\ucrt64\bin\libzstd.dll)
[FOUND]    zlib1.dll (in PATH: C:\msys64\ucrt64\bin\zlib1.dll)
---------------------------------
SUCCESS: All identified dependencies are present.
Ready to run Inference

Add `infc` to your system PATH:

On Linux/macOS, add the following line to your shell configuration file (e.g., ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc):

$ export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/infc