JuliaLang/juliaup

Juliaup - Julia version manager

This repository contains a cross-platform installer for the Julia programming language.

The installer also bundles a full Julia version manager called juliaup. One can use juliaup to install specific Julia versions, it alerts users when new Julia versions are released and provides a convenient Julia release channel abstraction.

Status

This installer is considered production ready.

Installation

On all platforms it is recommended that you first uninstall any previous Julia versions and undo any modifications you might have made to put julia on the PATH before you install Julia with the installer in this repository.

Windows

On Windows Julia and Juliaup can be installed directly from the Windows store here. One can also install exactly the same version by executing

winget install --name Julia --id 9NJNWW8PVKMN -e -s msstore

on a command line.

If the Windows Store is blocked on a system, we have an alternative MSIX App Installer based setup. Note that this is currently experimental, please report back successes and failures here. To use the App Installer version, download this file and open it by double clicking on it.

If neither the Windows Store nor the App Installer version work on your Windows system, you can also use a MSI based installer. Note that this installation methods comes with serious limitations and is generally not recommended unless no other method works. For example, there is no automatic update mechanism for Juliaup with this installation method. The 64 bit version of the MSI installer can be downloaded from here and the 32 bit version from here. By default the install will be a per-user install that does not require elevation. You can also do a system install by running the following command from a shell:

msiexec /i <PATH_TO_JULIA_MSI> ALLUSERS=1

Note that juliaup requires the Windows.Web.Http API to be present, which is true for Windows, and Windows Server, but not for Windows Server Core, and Windows Nano Server.

Mac, Linux, and FreeBSD

Juliaup can be installed on Unix-like platforms (currently Linux, Mac, or FreeBSD) by executing

curl -fsSL https://install.julialang.org | sh

in a shell.

Command line arguments

One can pass various command line arguments to the Julia installer. The syntax for installer arguments is

curl -fsSL https://install.julialang.org | sh -s -- <ARGS>

Here <ARGS> should be replaced with one or more of the following arguments:

• --yes (or -y): Run the installer in a non-interactive mode. All configuration values use their default.
• --default-channel <NAME>: Configure the default channel. For example --default-channel lts would install the lts channel and configure it as the default.
• --path (or -p): Install juliaup in a custom location.
  • For example, if you want to install juliaup into ~/my/desired/juliaup/path, you would run the following command: curl -fsSL https://install.julialang.org | sh -s -- --path ~/my/desired/juliaup/path
• --add-to-path <yes|no|0|1>: Control whether the installer modifies shell startup files to add the Juliaup bin directory to PATH. Defaults to yes.
• --background-selfupdate <MINUTES>: Configure how often a background task checks for Juliaup self-updates. Use 0 to disable background self-updates. Defaults to 0.
• --startup-selfupdate <MINUTES>: Configure how often Julia startup checks for Juliaup self-updates. Use 0 to disable startup self-updates. Defaults to 1440.

For example, a non-interactive install into a custom location that does not modify PATH and disables both self-update checks can be run as:

curl -fsSL https://install.julialang.org | sh -s -- \
    --path "$JULIAUP_DEPOT_PATH" \
    --yes \
    --add-to-path=no \
    --background-selfupdate=0 \
    --startup-selfupdate=0

Software Repositories

Important note: As of now, we strongly recommend to install Juliaup via the Windows Store or curl command above rather than through OS-specific software repositories (see below) as the Juliaup variants provided by the latter currently have some drawbacks (that we hope to lift in the future).

Homebrew

brew install juliaup

Arch Linux - AUR

On Arch Linux, Juliaup is available in the Arch User Repository (AUR) in two packages.

1. juliaup (locally built)
2. juliaup-bin (binary from github releases)

openSUSE Tumbleweed

On openSUSE Tumbleweed, Juliaup is available. To install, run with root privileges:

zypper install juliaup

Solus

On Solus, Juliaup is available. To install, run with root privileges:

eopkg install juliaup

cargo

To install via Rust's cargo, run:

cargo install juliaup

Continuous Integration (CI)

If you use GitHub Actions as your CI provider, you can use the julia-actions/install-juliaup action to install Juliaup in CI.

Using Juliaup

Once you have installed Juliaup, julia is on the PATH, and on Windows there is a start menu shortcut and it will show up as a profile in Windows Terminal. Any of those will start Julia. The VS Code extension will also automatically find this Julia installation.

Here are some of the things you can do with juliaup:

• juliaup list lists all the available channels.
• juliaup update installs the latest available Julia version for all your channels.
• juliaup update release updates the release channel to the latest version.
• juliaup status shows you which Julia versions you have installed and which one is configured as the default.
• juliaup add 1.5.1 adds Julia 1.5.1 to your system (it can then be launched via the command julia +1.5.1).
• juliaup default 1.5.3 configures the julia command to start Julia 1.5.3.
• juliaup default 1.6 configures the julia command to start the latest 1.6.x version of Julia you have installed on your system (and inform you if there is a newer version in 1.6.x available).
• juliaup default release configures the julia command to start the latest stable version of Julia (this is also the default value).
• juliaup remove 1.5.3 deletes Julia 1.5.3 from your system.
• juliaup add 1.6.1~x86 installs the 32 bit version of Julia 1.6.1 on your system.
• juliaup default 1.6~x86 configures the julia command to start the latest 1.6.x 32 bit version of Julia you have installed on your system.
• juliaup link dev ~/juliasrc/julia configures the dev channel to use a binary that you provide that is located at ~/juliasrc/julia. You can then use dev as if it was a system provided channel, i.e. make it the default or use it with the + version selector. You can use other names than dev and link as many versions into juliaup as you want.
• juliaup link r +release creates a channel alias r that points to the release channel. This allows you to use julia +r as a shortcut for julia +release. Channel aliases can point to any installed channel or system-provided channel.
• juliaup self update installs the latest version, which is necessary if new releases reach the beta channel, etc.
• juliaup self uninstall uninstalls Juliaup. Note that on some platforms this command is not available, in those situations one should use platform specific methods to uninstall Juliaup.
• juliaup override status shows all configured directory overrides.
• juliaup override set lts sets a directory override for the current working directory to the lts channel.
• juliaup override unset removes a directory override for the current working directory.
• juliaup override set --path foo/bar lts sets a directory override for the path foo/bar to the lts channel.
• juliaup override unset --path foo/bar removes a directory override for the path foo/bar.
• juliaup override unset --nonexistent removes all directory overrides for paths that no longer exist.
• Tab completions for juliaup commands and julia +channel selection are automatically installed for Bash and Zsh (sourced from ~/.juliaup/completions/). For other shells you can generate them manually, e.g. juliaup completions fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/juliaup.fish. Supported shells: bash, zsh, fish, elvish, powershell, and nushell.
• juliaup config --help lists all available configuration keys; juliaup config <key> --help shows accepted values for a specific key.
• juliaup shows you what other commands are available.

The available system provided channels are:

• release: always points to the latest stable version.
• lts: always points to the latest long term supported version.
• alpha: always points to the latest alpha version if one exists. If a newer beta or release candidate exists, it will point to that, and if there is no alpha, beta, or rc candidate available it will point to the same version as the release channel.
• beta: always points to the latest beta version if one exists. If a newer release candidate exists, it will point to that, and if there is neither a beta or rc candidate available it will point to the same version as the release channel.
• rc: same as beta, but only starts with release candidate versions.
• nightly: always points to the latest build from the master branch in the Julia repository.
• x.y-nightly: always points to the latest build from the release-x.y branch in the Julia repository, e.g. 1.11-nightly gives the latest build on the release-1.11 branch`.
• pr{number} (e.g. pr123): points to the latest successful build of a PR branch (https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/pull/{number}). Only available if CI has successfully built Julia on that branch within roughly the last 90 days: PR builds expire, but re-running CI on the pull request uploads fresh ones.
• specific versions, e.g. 1.5.4.
• minor version channels, e.g. 1.5.
• major version channels, e.g. 1.

All of these channels can be combined with the ~x86, ~x64 or ~aarch64 suffix to download a specific platform version.

Using installed Julia versions

To launch the default Julia version simply run julia in your terminal.

To launch a specific Julia version, say in channel release, run julia +release.

Overrides

The Julia launcher julia automatically determines which specific version of Julia to launch. There are several ways to control and override which Juliaup channel should be used:

1. A command line Julia version specifier, such as julia +release.
2. The JULIAUP_CHANNEL environment variable.
3. A directory override, set with the juliaup override set command.
4. Automatic version selection based on the active project.
5. The default Juliaup channel.

The channel is used in the order listed above, using the first available option.

Project-based Version Selection

When no explicit channel is specified via command line, environment variable, or directory override, Juliaup can automatically attempt to select an appropriate Julia version based on the active project's requirements. This feature is currently disabled by default, but will likely be enabled by default in the future. Options are true, false, default. Set it with:

juliaup config manifestversiondetect true

If a project is specified (via --project, JULIA_PROJECT, or JULIA_LOAD_PATH), Juliaup reads the project's Manifest.toml and uses the julia_version field to determine which Julia version to use:

1. Exact match: If the exact version exists as a channel (e.g., 1.10.5, 1.12.0-rc1), it uses that version.
2. Prerelease versions: If the version has a prerelease suffix (e.g., 1.12.1-DEV, 1.13.0-rc1) and no exact channel exists, it uses the corresponding nightly channel:
   • Uses X.Y-nightly if available (e.g., 1.12-nightly for 1.12.1-DEV)
   • Falls back to nightly otherwise
3. Future patch versions: If the patch version is higher than any known release in that minor series (e.g., 1.10.99 when only 1.10.5 exists), it uses X.Y-nightly.
4. Future minor/major versions: If the version is higher than any known release (e.g., 1.13.0 when only 1.12.x exists), it uses X.Y-nightly if available, or nightly otherwise.
5. Default fallback: If no project or manifest is found, it falls back to the default channel.

Path used by Juliaup

Juliaup will by default use the Julia depot at ~/.julia to store Julia versions and configuration files. This can be changed by setting the JULIAUP_DEPOT_PATH environment variable. Caution: Previous versions of Juliaup used the content of the environment variable JULIA_DEPOT_PATH to locate Juliaup files, the current version changed this behavior and no longer depends on JULIA_DEPOT_PATH.

Juliaup server

Juliaup by default downloads julia binary tarballs from the official server "https://julialang-s3.julialang.org". If requested, the environment variable JULIAUP_SERVER can be used to tell Juliaup to use a third-party mirror server.

Note: Nightly and PR channels (e.g., nightly, pr123) require the server to provide etag headers in HTTP responses for version tracking. If your custom mirror server does not support etag headers, these channels will not be available. Regular versioned Julia releases will still work normally.

Development guides

For juliaup developers, information on how to build juliaup locally, update julia versions, and release updates can be found in the wiki https://github.com/JuliaLang/juliaup/wiki

To use unstable preview versions of juliaup (e.g. to get a patch before it makes it into the latest release), use

curl -fsSL https://install.julialang.org/releasepreview | sh

More information

This JuliaCon 2021 talk is a short introduction to Juliaup. Note that the video was recorded before the Linux and Mac versions were finished, but all the information about juliaup itself applies equally on Linux and Mac.

This JuliaCon 2022 talk provides some background on the design of Juliaup.