# Installation instructions

## pip

**Note that using pip outside virtualenv is not recommended since it ignores
your systems package manager. If you aren't comfortable debugging package
installation issues, this is not the option for you.**

Create and activate a virtualenv:

```bash
virtualenv dfvfsenv
cd dfvfsenv
source ./bin/activate
```

Upgrade pip and install dfVFS dependencies:

```bash
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install dfvfs
```

To deactivate the virtualenv run:

```bash
deactivate
```

## Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

To install dfVFS from the [GIFT Personal Package Archive (PPA)](https://launchpad.net/~gift):

```bash
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gift/stable
```

Update and install dfVFS:

```bash
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-dfvfs
```

## Windows

The [l2tbinaries](https://github.com/log2timeline/l2tbinaries) contains the
necessary packages for running dfVFS. l2tbinaries provides the following
branches:

* main; branch intended for the "packaged release" of dfVFS and dependencies;
* staging; branch intended for testing pre-releases of dfVFS;
* dev; branch intended for the "development release" of dfVFS;
* testing; branch intended for testing newly created packages.

The l2tdevtools project provides [an update script](https://github.com/log2timeline/l2tdevtools/wiki/Update-script)
to ease the process of keeping the dependencies up to date.

The script requires [pywin32](https://github.com/mhammond/pywin32/releases).

To install the release versions of the dependencies run:

```
set PYTHONPATH=.

C:\Python3\python.exe tools\update.py --preset dfvfs
```