Installing Crusty Studio

Crusty Studio is distributed as a download you copy into place. There is no installer package to run.

macOS

Requirements: macOS on Apple Silicon (M1 or newer). The current builds are arm64; an Intel Mac needs a universal build, which the packaging script can produce once the x86_64-apple-darwin Rust target is installed.

File	Use it when
`CrustyStudio_<version>_arm64.dmg`	You want the usual drag-to-Applications install.
`CrustyStudio_<version>_arm64.zip`	You prefer a plain archive, or the disk image will not mount.
`SHA256SUMS.txt`	Verifying the download.

From the disk image

Open the .dmg.
Drag CrustyStudio onto the Applications shortcut in the same window.
Eject the disk image.

From the archive

Double-click the .zip to expand it.
Move CrustyStudio.app to your Applications folder.

First launch

These builds are signed ad-hoc but not notarised, so macOS cannot check them against an Apple developer identity. A downloaded copy is marked as quarantined and macOS refuses the first launch with a warning about an unidentified developer or a damaged app. That is expected, and there are two ways past it:

Right-click the app in Applications and choose Open, then Open again in the dialog. This is the quick path, and macOS remembers the choice afterwards.

Or clear the quarantine attribute in Terminal:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/CrustyStudio.app

The second command is the reliable one: on recent macOS versions the warning for a non-notarised app often reads "is damaged and can't be opened", which the right-click route does not fix.

Verify the download first

shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS.txt

Run it in the folder holding the downloaded files.

Windows and Linux

Windows and Linux builds are not produced yet. The same packaging script approach applies — Tauri bundles an .msi/NSIS installer on Windows and .deb/.rpm/AppImage on Linux — but each needs its own build environment: MSVC or a cross-compilation setup for Windows, and a Linux host or container for Linux. See the release notes for the status of each platform.

After installing

Crusty Studio is an editor and build front end. It does not bundle crustyBASIC, VASM, emulators, ROMs, or the demo projects:

Install crustyBASIC and VASM vasm6502_oldstyle 2.x separately.
Open Tools → Settings → Toolchain and point the app at the compiler, the assembler, and the folder holding your emulators.
Choose Check installation to confirm the app can see all three.

On macOS, Gatekeeper can quarantine a downloaded compiler helper as well. The tool check reports the exact file and prints the command that clears it.

The demo projects are a separate download from the same release, so you can open them in the app without installing anything else.