This intro provides a ``getting started'' guide for the Synthesis Tool Kit (STK) [1,2] under Linux [3] and Mac OS X. This guide is aimed at developers of STK software, as opposed to mere users. As a result, a couple of modifications will be introduced to facilitate software development (i.e., debugging C++ code). It is assumed that the reader already has some familiarity with programming in C and ideally also C++.