Getting Started With Gambas
Welcome to Gambas.
When new to Gambas here are a few points of attention for you to get you started.
What Gambas to use?
Many distributions have Gambas in their repositories to simply install, but you need to be aware that these are not always the most recent, nor the best packaged sources for Gambas.
Gambas offers its own means of distributing Gambas for several distributions. These packages are properly packaged according to the Gambas specification and come in two tastes: stable and master.
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Stable is the latest stable Gambas version published
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Master is a daily build of the development version, so you can test new implementations and bug fixes.
More information on installing Gambas from its own repositories:
Installation from binary packages
Another option is using GambOS, or the GambOS repository (if supported for your distribution).
GambOS is an educational distribution for beginners to Gambas and/or Linux. It has a Gambas repository that has been packaged according to the Gambas specifications. The difference is that it is NOT the latest stable Gambas version but the same one used in the learning guides provided on GambOS. This, so there is no confusion between what is shown and explained in the guides and the Gambas version you are using.
More information on GambOS or installing from GambOS repositories:
GambOS website
A last option is to compile and install Gambas on your system (in case no binaries are available for your distribution).
More information on compiling Gambas:
Compilation & Installation from source code
Where to start next?
That depends on your own background, how much experience you have developing in other programming languages and other factors.
If you are a crack at programming in many languages, you'll probably find your way in the documentation on the language provided in the Gambas wiki. If you are relatively new to programming you will may get lost and overwhelmed by the documentation on the wiki that is often very basic and to the point with few examples.
For beginners, I advise to start with either the books or with GambOS that starts with beginner guides but as time passes will go into more advanced topics. In both the books and the guides found on GambOS, things get explained with example code and screenshots to help you out and all is more topic focused. Once you are more familiar with Gambas, the Gambas wiki will become a more meaningful source for learning more.
If you happen to come from a Visual Basic background there is a page that will be useful to you:
For all above groups, either cracks or beginners, the Gambas Farm allows you to download projects that are uploaded by the community. These projects allow you to study the source code and learn some more on how to approach things in Gambas.
The Gambas Farm can be found on the landing page of the Gambas IDE.
When in trouble?
If you find yourself in trouble, there are several options for getting help like the Gambas mailing list or several forums in different languages.
In case you have encountered a serious problem and suspect it to be a bug, first ask on mailing list or forums. If it turns out to be a bug, then check out:
This information should get you started on your path.
All that is left is wish you a good journey discovering the beauty of Gambas.
Older, but largely still relevant, information from pre Gambas 3
I suggest you read the following documents:
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An OpenOffice document made by Sergio Hernandez. It will help to get started with the development environment, and will explain you how to make your first program.
Download Getting Started with GAMBAS.odt (Last updated: 06-27-2007)
Page revisions
Getting Started With Gambas by: W. Raets - Aug 23th, 2025
- Redo of the outdated version by Sergio Hernandez - Sept 27th 2007