Installation

Prebuilt executables

Download the executable for your platform from GitHub Releases and run it — no installer required.

Build from source

Install the Rust toolchain, then build the release executable:

cargo build --release

The binary is written to target/release/ (silicolab on Linux/macOS, silicolab.exe on Windows).

Optional external tools

Some features call external programs at run time. You can install them later — SilicoLab works without them until you use the corresponding feature.

• GROMACS — required for molecular dynamics simulations.

ORCA is an optional external engine for molecular single-point energies, geometry optimizations, and vibrational frequencies. Quantum chemistry uses the built-in Hartree engine by default; ORCA is never required or selected automatically.

See External tools for setup notes, including GPU acceleration. See Remote execution to run heavy jobs on a remote Linux host over SSH.