Toplevel README

1 Toplevel README

LilyPond is a music typesetter. It produces beautiful sheet music using a description file as input. LilyPond is part of the GNU Project.

1.1 Versioning

LilyPond uses a versioning scheme similar to the Linux kernel. In a version "x.y.z", an even second number 'y' denotes a stable version. For development versions 'y' is odd.

1.2 Downloading

The primary download site for sourcecode is http://lilypond.org/download/.

If you have a slow connection, then you are advised to use xdelta for patching source archives; Xdelta (.xd) files are supplied on the FTP site.

1.3 Compilation

For compiling and running LilyPond see the installation instructions. These instructions can be found when you unpack lilypond, as lilypond-x.y.z/INSTALL.txt. They are also available on the web at http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.1/Documentation/topdocs/out-www/INSTALL.html.

NOTE: If you downloaded a binary (.rpm) or use the Cygwin setup.exe program, then you don't have to compile LilyPond.

1.4 Documentation

The documentation is available online at http://www.lilypond.org/doc/.

You can also build it locally: follow the instructions under `Building documentation' in the installation instructions.

1.5 Comments

Send your criticism, comments, bugreports, patches, etc. to the mailing list, not to us personally.

We have the following mailing lists:

You can search the lists from the following page: searching facilities.

1.6 Caveats

If you have installed a previous version, be sure to remove old font files, e.g.,

     	rm `find /var/lib/texmf/fonts -name 'feta*'`

a script to do this is left after compiling in buildscripts/out/clean-fonts.

1.7 Bugs

Send bug reports to bug-lilypond@gnu.org. For help and questions use lilypond-user@gnu.org.

Read comments on this page, or add one.

This page is for LilyPond-2.2.6 (stable-branch).

Report errors to <bug-lilypond@gnu.org>.