Downloading less

Home FAQ Download Bugs and Enhancement Requests Mailing List

You can download a copy of less here. First you must choose whether you want source or binaries. It is simpler to get binaries, but binaries are available for only a few systems (see below). If you download source, you must then build the binaries. To do this, you must have a C compiler.

You must also choose which version of less you want. Generally, you should choose the version marked as RECOMMENDED.


Source

If you have a Unix, Linux or another Unix-like system, you should download the source and build it on your system. Less uses autoconf to make the build process relatively painless. Building less will work on most Unix-like systems, including
AIX, FreeBSD, HP/UX, Irix, Linux, OSF-1, Solaris, SunOS, and Xenix.

Less will also build from source on some non-Unix systems, including

Each source release is packaged in in a gzip'd tar archive and in a zip archive. You may download whichever is more convenient for you.

Binaries

If you have one of the systems listed below, you can just download a binary copy of less, so you don't have to build it yourself from source.

1. Windows XP / Windows 2000 / Windows NT / Windows 98 / Windows 95 Binaries

Windows binaries are packaged in a zip archive.

2. Solaris Binaries

Solaris binaries for both Sparc and x86 versions of Solaris are available at http://sunfreeware.com and at http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/packages/solaris/sparc.

3. MS-DOS Binaries

NOTE: Pre-compiled MS-DOS binaries are no longer supplied for new versions of less. On Windows systems, you can use the Windows binaries above, or compile a binary from the source release.

MS-DOS binaries for OLD versions of less are packaged in a zip archive.