# Setup and Installation of GitBook Getting GitBook installed and ready-to-go should only take a few minutes. ### legacy.gitbook.com [legacy.gitbook.com](https://legacy.gitbook.com) is an easy to use solution to write, publish and host books. It is the easiest solution for publishing your content and collaborating on it. It integrates well with the [GitBook Editor](https://legacy.gitbook.com/editor). ### Local Installation ##### Requirements Installing GitBook is easy and straightforward. Your system just needs to meet these two requirements: * NodeJS (v4.0.0 and above is recommended) * Windows, Linux, Unix, or Mac OS X ##### Install with NPM The best way to install GitBook is via **NPM**. At the terminal prompt, simply run the following command to install GitBook: ``` $ npm install gitbook-cli -g ``` `gitbook-cli` is an utility to install and use multiple versions of GitBook on the same system. It will automatically install the required version of GitBook to build a book. ##### Create a book GitBook can setup a boilerplate book: ``` $ gitbook init ``` If you wish to create the book into a new directory, you can do so by running `gitbook init ./directory` Preview and serve your book using: ``` $ gitbook serve ``` Or build the static website using: ``` $ gitbook build ``` ##### Install pre-releases `gitbook-cli` makes it easy to download and install other versions of GitBook to test with your book: ``` $ gitbook fetch beta ``` Use `gitbook ls-remote` to list remote versions available for install. ##### Debugging You can use the options `--log=debug` and `--debug` to get better error messages (with stack trace). For example: ``` $ gitbook build ./ --log=debug --debug ```