This page provides information on how to download and execute SAGA on Windows and Linux.
Windows
Download the ZIP of the latest SAGA MS Windows binary release (saga_version_bin_mswvc.zip). Extract all files to a directory of your choice. You can immediately start working with SAGA. Simply find the file saga_gui.exe and execute it.
The first thing you should do now is to load some or all of the module libraries that come with SAGA. This is done by choosing Load Module Library from the Modules main menu. You find the libraries in the subfolder modules of your SAGA installation path.
If you have raster data in different formats than SAGA's own grid format, use one of the Import modules to import the data. Shapefiles and tab-delimited tables can be loaded directly. An easy way to play with SAGA is to download one of the demo datasets. Load the data and double-click on the datasets in the Workspace window to display them in a map view. Use the navigation tools to zoom and pan (zooming out is achieved by right-clicking). The section First Steps provides examples based on demo datasets. To get a clue on how to use the modules you may like to take a look at the page Using SAGA Modules.
Linux
Download the GZ of the latest SAGA Linux binary release (saga_version_bin_linux.tar.gz). Extract all files to a directory of your choice. To run SAGA you first have to copy SAGA's API library libsaga_api.so to a location that is listed in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. Copy the library into one of the standard directories (e.g. /usr/lib) and run ldconfig (or /sbin/ldconfig depending on your linux distribution). If you can't or don't want to install the library in a standard place (e.g. you don't have the rights to modify /usr/lib), then you might want to add the library's location to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, e.g.:
$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/saga_2.0:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
Now find the file saga_gui and execute it (make sure the executable flag is set, otherwise chmod +x will do so). The first thing you should do now is to load some or all of the module libraries that come with SAGA. This is done by choosing Load Module Library from the Modules main menu. You find the libraries in the subfolder modules of your SAGA installation path.
In case you encounter problems, assure that you have the following libraries installed (you may use your package manager to do so):
You can search for unresolved dependencies by running ldd on libsaga_api.so.
If you have raster data in different formats than SAGA's own grid format, use one of the Import modules to import the data. Shapefiles and tab-delimited tables can be loaded directly. An easy way to play with SAGA is to download one of the demo datasets. Load the data and double-click on the datasets in the Workspace window to display them in a map view. Use the navigation tools to zoom and pan (zooming out is achieved by right-clicking). The section First Steps provides examples based on demo datasets. To get a clue on how to use the modules you may like to take a look at the section Using SAGA Modules.
