In Chapter 1, Quick Start Using the Developer Mode, we discussed the different options available to quickly get Odoo running on our computer. We want to go a little deeper, and run Odoo directly from the source code.
Odoo is built using the Python programming language, and it uses the PostgreSQL database for data storage; these are the two main requirements of an Odoo host. To run Odoo from source, we will first need to install the Python libraries it depends on. The Odoo source code can then be downloaded from GitHub. While we can download a ZIP file or tarball, we will see that it's better if we get the sources using the Git version control application; it'll help us to have it installed on our Odoo host as well.
The exact dependency installation may vary depending on your operating system and on the Odoo version you are installing. If you have trouble with any of the previous steps, make sure you check the official documentation at https://www.odoo.com/documentation/12.0/setup/install.html. Instructions for previous editions are also available there.