If you don't wish to use docker,you need to install several compile dependencies manually as :ref:`Compile Dependencies <_compile_deps>` shows to start compilation.
- You need to pass in the required environment variable :code:`PYTHON_ABI` to specify a `Python ABI <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0425/#id8>`__.
Currently PaddlePaddle supported Python ABIs include :code:`cp27-cp27m` and :code:`cp27-cp27mu` .
If you haven't heard of it, consider it something like Python's virtualenv.
- Docker or virtual machine?
Some people compare Docker with VMs, but Docker doesn't virtualize any hardware nor running a guest OS, which means there is no compromise on the performance.
- Why Docker?
Using a Docker image of build tools standardizes the building environment, which makes it easier for others to reproduce your problems and to help.
Also, some build tools don't run on Windows or Mac or BSD, but Docker runs almost everywhere, so developers can use whatever computer they want.
Sure, you don't have to install build tools into a Docker image; instead, you can install them on your local computer. This document exists because Docker would make the development way easier.
It takes you ten minutes to read `an introductory article <https://docs.docker.com/get-started>`_ and saves you more than one hour to install all required build tools, configure them, especially when new versions of PaddlePaddle require some new tools. Not even to mention the time saved when other people trying to reproduce the issue you have.
Our building Docker image runs a `Bash script <https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/Paddle/blob/develop/paddle/scripts/docker/build.sh>`_ , which calls `make -j$(nproc)` to starts as many processes as the number of your CPU cores.
An owner of a computer has the administrative privilege, a.k.a., sudo, and Docker requires this privilege to work properly. If you use a shared computer for development, please ask the administrator to install and configure Docker. We will do our best to support rkt, another container technology that doesn't require sudo.
On Windows and MacOS, Docker containers run in a Linux VM. You might want to give this VM some more memory and CPUs so to make the building efficient. Please refer to `this issue <https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/Paddle/issues/627>`_ for details.
Examples in this article use option `--rm` with the `docker run` command. This option ensures that stopped containers do not exist on hard disks. We can use `docker ps -a` to list all containers, including stopped. Sometimes `docker build` generates some intermediate dangling images, which also take disk space. To clean them, please refer to `this article <https://zaiste.net/posts/removing_docker_containers/>`_ .
**NOTE: These options only take effect when running cmake for the first time, you need to clean the cmake cache or clean the build directory (**:code:`rm -rf`**) if you want to change it.**