See http://dlib.net for the main project documentation. COMPILING DLIB EXAMPLE PROGRAMS Go into the examples folder and type: mkdir build; cd build; cmake .. ; cmake --build . That will build all the examples. There is nothing to install when using dlib. It's just a folder of source files. RUNNING THE UNIT TEST SUITE Type the following to compile and run the dlib unit test suite: cd dlib/test mkdir build cd build cmake .. cmake --build . --config Release ./dtest --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 source control 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.