Operating System GNU/Linux Windows Mac/OSX GCC-4 builds are compatible with any Intel platform GNU/Linux releases since circa 2009 (glibc ≥ 2.2.5). Requires X11, JACK is highly recommended.

GCC-5 versions need a recent (2016) platform GNU/Linux with (glibc ≥ 3.4.21). Compatible with Windows XP and any later version. (JACK is optional.) Mac/OSX, Intel builds are compatible with OSX ≥ 10.6 (incl. MacOS Catalina), PowerPC version for 10.5 (JACK is optional.)

Architecture 32bit (i386) 64bit (x86_64) PPC (powerPC) ARM64 ARM32 (RaspberryPi) The 64bit Version will only load 64bit VSTs. If you have 32bit VST plugins, choose the 32bit version which will also work on 64bit Windows. 64bit Version does not support plugin-GUIs of old 32-bit Carbon Audio-units. If you have 32bit only plugins, please use the 32bit version (which also runs on 64bit OSX). Only for Power Mac G4, G5, 10.5.6 (Leopard).

Debug Version Debug Optimized The debug version allows the creation of proper bugreports (backtraces). The main downside is that it's a larger download and requires more space on disk to install. Ardour is a complex piece of software with a small development team. We strive for robustness and stability but the road is long and edge-cases are plenty. The nightly builds exist for the purpose of testing and we value bug reports. Hence using a Debug build is highly recommended.



The optimized build disables internal sanity checks (assertions) and utilizes some compiler optimizations. This results in a smaller download size requiring less disk space to install it.

Variant Free/Demo Full-Version The Free/Demo version is gratis. It is fully-featured except that after 10min it will periodically go silent.

Binary Interface gcc4 gcc5 In version 5 (since g++5.1, April 2015) the GNU C Compiler changed the C++11 interface in an incompatible way. Ardour itself is not affected, but the combination of some plugins and Ardour is. If you are using a GNU/Linux distribution that compiles plugins with the new gcc5 C++11 ABI, choose gcc5. If you do not know, use gcc4 (fall/winter 2015).

This is only relevant for a dozen 3rd party plugins which directly or indirectly use C++11 features.

Known affected plugins: abgate, ams-lv2, amsynth, beatslash, deteriorate, eq10q, guitarix, ingen, midimsg, newtonator, triceratops, vocproc.

Download

Download

Install Instructions and Notes

GNU/Linux: Download the .run installer and launch it.

One way to accomplish this is in a terminal: sh Ardour_<version>.run (substitute version).

The alternative is to use a file-browser, right-click on the downloaded file, select properties, checkbox: allow execution. Then double-click to run the installer [first time linux README].



Linux versions can be installed in parallel including alongside distribution packages. They are installed to /opt/Ardour-version/ (Note: The installer will ask to run an uninstaller, answer "no" if you wish to keep older versions alongside the new one ).

The Windows installer will replace the current version. (Note: If Ardour does not exit cleanly, uninstalling or replacing an existing installation will fail to replace font-files included with ardour. You can ignore this or fix it by rebooting the system).



