Installing Rust

Goal of This Episode

Get Rust installed on your computer and make sure it works.

Main Text

Hello! Welcome to this Rust tutorial series!

This is episode one, and we won’t write any code yet — we’ll just get the tools set up. If you want to cook, you need a pot first, right?

Installing rustup

Rust has an official installation tool called rustup, which installs everything you need in one go.

Open your browser and head to this URL:

https://rustup.rs

• Windows users: Download rustup-init.exe, double-click to run it, and just keep pressing enter to accept the defaults.
• Mac / Linux users: Open a terminal and paste in this command:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

It will ask whether you want to use the default settings — just press enter.

Confirming the Installation Succeeded

Once it’s done, open a new terminal (this matters — the old one may not pick up the changes yet), and type:

rustc --version

If you see something like this:

rustc 1.XX.X (xxxxxxx 20XX-XX-XX)

Congratulations! Rust is installed!

rustc is the Rust compiler. Its job is to turn the code you write into something the computer can run. As for what a compiler is, we’ll get to that little by little later — for now, all you need to know is “it’s installed, and it works.”

Recap

• Install Rust with rustup, which sets up all the tools you need in one go.
• After installing, open a new terminal and confirm the installation with rustc --version.
• rustc is the Rust compiler, which turns your code into something the computer can run.