Installation

If you aren't really familiar with installing any of this stuff, following these instructions in order is highly recommended.

Lua

vMake is written entirely in vanilla Lua, and should be compatible with versions 5.1 and above.
Compatibility is guaranteed with 5.2.

Here's how you'd grab it in Ubuntu:

sudo apt install lua5.2

LuaFileSystem

To significantly speed up some operations, vMake makes use of LuaFileSystem when available.
You should find the right version (for your Lua version) in your package manager.

On Ubuntu, it's as easy as:

sudo apt install lua-filesystem

In case it's not available, keep reading...

LuaRocks

I highly recommend using LuaRocks to grab the latest vMake and keep it up to date.
Your package manager might have a good enough version.
Please make sure that it's built for the right Lua version!
Installing Lua 5.2 and LFS for it, and LuaRocks for 5.1 is just asking for trouble.
Follow the instructions on the LuaRocks website to build it, if the one in your package manager is incorrect.

Once again, on Ubuntu:

sudo apt install luarocks

From personal experience, I highly recommend building it manually.

LuaFileSystem

If your package manager cannot supply you with a correct version of LuaFileSystem, LuaRocks might:

sudo luarocks install luafilesystem

I personally haven't had any luck building it this way, but you might.

vMake

Grabbing vMake is a piece of cake:

sudo luarocks install vmake

This will get you the latest version.

GNU Parallel

vMake can optionally make use of GNU Parallel for parallelizing builds.
It is basically a giant Perl script, and you can grab it from their website, or from your favorite package manager.

Ubuntu command:

sudo apt install parallel

This makes a huge difference for large projects, so I highly recommend that you grab it.
If you choose to download manually, make sure you place it in your $PATH.

Next

If you wish to use vMake for one of your projects, check out the vMakefiles page.
If you wish to build somebody else's project, check out the Command-line page.

Problems?

If any problems occur during installation, look them up online. It's extremely likely that someone already provides solutions to your problem(s).