Here are instructions for installing K from the release zip/tgz archive.
Users who checked out the sources should follow the instructions in src/README.

1. Prerequisites
Java Runtime Edition (requires JRE7 or higher)
  http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp
To make sure java is installed properly, call "java" in a terminal.

2. Install
Unzip this directory in your preferred location.  For convenient usage,
update your $PATH with <preferred-location>/k/bin.

3. Test
Go to one of the examples (say k/tutorial/2_languages/1_simple/1_untyped/).
Assuming k/bin is in your $PATH, you can compile definitions using 
the 'kompile simple-untyped.k' command.
To execute a program you can use 'krun programs/diverse/factorial.simple'.

4. (Optional) To use the pdf backend, a relatively recent installation 
of Latex is required.  Besides basic packages, the following (texlive)
packages are needed: 
  bera, bezos, bookmark, datetime, ec, etoolbox, fancybox, fancyvrb, import, 
  listings, marginnote, microtype, ms, pdfcomment, pgf (up-to-date), preview, 
  soul, stmaryrd, times, titlesec, ucs, url, xcolor, and xkeyval.

We present some instructions for installing TeX Live on Unix-like machines.

Although most linux users prefer using a package manager we strongly advise 
them to install texlive manually as our latex compilation is only known to 
work with a texlive 2010 distribution and the most recent version of the 
pgf package. 

To do that one can use the TeX Live Quick install method 
<http://www.tug.org/texlive/quickinstall.html>.

For Mac OSX users the preferred method is to install MacTex
<http://www.tug.org/mactex/>

A full TeX Live installation should provide all the latex packages mentioned
in the prerequisites. Note however that our LaTeX macros rely on a quite 
recent version of the pgf package. To make sure you have the latest version
of this package you can upgrade it using the TeX Live package manager.
   
    # tlmgr update pgf 

If using a partial TeX Live installation which does not provide all the 
TeX Live packages specified above, these can be installed with the command:
    
    # tlmgr install  bera bezos bookmark datetime ec etoolbox fancybox \
                     fancyvrb import listings marginnote microtype ms \
                     pdfcomment pgf preview soul stmaryrd times titlesec ucs \
                     url xcolor xkeyval 
