RPMs are a simple way to manage packages, and is used on many common Linux distributions such as Red Hat, Mandrake, and SuSE.
Two separate packages exist; fann, the runtime library, and fann-devel, the development library and header files.
After downloading FANN, simply run (as root) the following command: rpm -ivh $PATH_TO_RPM
DEBs are packages for the Debian Linux distribution. Two separate packages exists libfann1 and libfann1-dev, where libfann1 is the runtime library and libfann1-dev is the development library.
Fann is included in the testing distribution of Debian, so testing users can simply run (as root) the following command: apt-get install libfann1 libfann1-dev.
After downloading the FANN DEB package, simply run (as root) the following command: dpkg -i $PATH_TO_DEB
FANN >= 1.1.0 includes a Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 project file, which can be used to compile FANN for Windows. To build the library and examples with MSVC++ 6.0:
First, navigate to the MSVC++ directory in the FANN distribution and open the all.dsw workspace. In the Visual Studio menu bar, choose "Build" -> "Batch build...", select the project configurations that you would like to build (by default, all are selected), and press "rebuild all"
When the build process is complete, the library and examples can be found in the MSVC++\Debug and MSVC++\Release directories and the release versions of the examples are automatically copied into the examples where they are supposed to be run.
Compiling FANN from source code entails the standard GNU autotools technique. First, configure the package as you want it by typing (in the FANN directory), ./configure If you need help choosing the options you would like to use, try ./configure --help
Next, you have to actually compile the library. To do this, simply type make
Finally, to install the library, type make install. Odds are you will have to be root to install, so you may need to su to root before installing. Please remember to log out of the root account immediately after make install finishes.
Some people have experienced problems with compiling the library with some compilers, especially windows compilers which can not use GNU autotools. Please look through the help forum and the mailing list archives for info on how these problems was solved. If you do not find any information here, feel free to ask questions.