2.16. Win32: GNU wget (optional)

GNU wget is used to download files from the internet using the command line.

GNU wget is available for most of the UNIX-like platforms and as the wget package from the Cygwin setup.

You will only need wget, if you want to use the Win32 automated library download, see Section 3.3, “Win32: Automated library download” for details.

If GNU wget isn't already installed and also not available as a package for your platform (well, for Win32 it is available as a Cygwin package), you can get it at: http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/wget.html.

If wget is trying to download files but fails to do so, your internet connection might use a HTTP proxy. Some Internet providers using such a proxy and it is common for company networks today. In this case, you must set the environment variable http_proxy before using wget. For example, if you are behind proxy.com which is listening on port 8080, you have to set it to something like:

set HTTP_PROXY=http://proxy.com:8080/

If you are unsure about the settings, you might ask your system administrator.