# Installation Snow Owl requires Java 11 or newer version. Specifically as of this writing, it is recommended that you use JDK (Oracle of OpenJDK is preferred) version 11.0.2. Java installation varies from platform to platform so we won’t go into those details here. Oracle’s recommended installation documentation can be found on Oracle’s website. Suffice to say, before you install Snow Owl, please check your Java version first by running (and then install/upgrade accordingly if needed): ``` java -version echo $JAVA_HOME ``` Once we have Java set up, we can then download and run Snow Owl. The binaries are available at the [Releases](https://github.com/b2ihealthcare/snow-owl/releases) pages. For each release, you have a choice among a zip or tar archive, a DEB or RPM package. ## Installation example with zip For simplicity, let's use a zip file. Let's download the most recent Snow Owl release as follows: ``` curl -L -O https://github.com/b2ihealthcare/snow-owl/releases/download//snow-owl-oss-.zip ``` Then extract it as follows: ``` unzip snow-owl-oss-.zip ``` It will then create a bunch of files and folders in your current directory. We then go into the bin directory as follows: ``` cd snow-owl-oss-/bin ``` And now we are ready to start the instance: ``` ./startup ``` ## Successfully running instance If everything goes well with the installation, you should see a bunch of log messages that look like below: ``` TODO example output ``` --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.b2ihealthcare.com/snow-owl/8.x/index/installation.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.