In order to use aRts you obviously need to have it installed and running on your system. There are two approaches for doing this, which are described in the next sections.
The quickest and easiest way to get aRts up and running is to install precompiled binary packages for your system. Most recent Linux® distributions include KDE, and if it is KDE 2.0 or later it will include aRts. If KDE is not included on your installation media it may be available as a download from your operating system vendor. Alternatively it may be available from third parties. Make sure that you use packages that are compatible with your operating system version.
A basic install of KDE will include the sound server, allowing most applications to play sound. If you want the full set of multimedia tools and applications you will likely need to install additional optional packages.
The disadvantage of using precompiled binaries is that they may not be the most recent version of aRts. This is particularly likely if they are provided on CD-ROM, as the pace of development of aRts and KDE is such that CD-ROM media cannot usually keep pace. You may also find that, if you have one of the less common architectures or operating system distributions, precompiled binary packages may not be available and you will need to use the second method.