If you are reading this file then you must have downloaded dlib via the mercurial repository. If you are new to dlib then go read the introduction and how to compile pages at http://dlib.net/intro.html and http://dlib.net/compile.html. If you are planning on contributing code then also read the contribution instructions at http://dlib.net/howto_contribute.html. COMPILING DLIB EXAMPLE PROGRAMS Go into the examples folder and type: mkdir build; cd build; cmake .. ; cmake --build . That will build all the examples. Note that there is nothing to install when using dlib. It's just a folder of source files. Sometimes people tell me dlib should be compiled and installed as some kind of shared library, however, they are wrong. Please read this http://dlib.net/howto_contribute.html#9 before starting this argument again. RUNNING THE UNIT TEST SUITE Type the following to compile and run the dlib unit test suite (it takes a while): cd dlib/test; mkdir build; cd build; cmake ..; cmake --build . --config Release; ./test --runall Note that on windows your compiler might put the test executable in a subfolder called Release. If that's the case then you have to go to that folder before running the test. DOCUMENTATION The mercurial repository doesn't contain finished documentation. The stuff in the docs folder is just a bunch of scripts and xml files used to generate the documentation. There is a readme in docs/README.txt which discusses how to do this. However, unless you are trying to modify the documentation, you should just download a copy from http://dlib.net. That would probably be easier than setting up your environment to generate the documentation yourself.