Get source and compile
Even if you don't plan to develop, just the act of downloading and compiling can uncover problems. If the version you download doesn't build on your platform, file a bug.
Getting the source
Linden Labs distributes the viewer source code on the source downloads page. Linden Labs currently does not yet provide public access to a version control repository. However, there are other websites that do host repositories.
Official Downloads
Linden Labs does provide current and past downloads in an archived format, see the source downloads page.
OSLCC
The OSLCC project has a public Subversion repository hosted on SourceForge with the complete source tree as provided. If you are already familiar with Subversion, here is a list of repositories to the latest versions: (or click to browse)
OpenMetaverse
OpenMetaverse hosts an OpenSL project with a public subversion repository.
Compiling
Per platform instructions are available for the following platforms:
- Microsoft Windows - Visual Studio 2005 & Visual C++ 2005 Express
- Microsoft Windows - Visual Studio .NET 2003
- Microsoft Windows - Cross compiling on Linux
- Mac OS X
- Linux
- FreeBSD
See Common compilation problems if you run into errors while building.
See Improving compilation time for information on how to compile faster