Binaries

The compilation of Elmer project has recently being moved to cmake. The old gbu autotools 
based version is not developed since Feb 2015. There are still old instructions 
and distributions around but you should avoid these if you require a fresh Elmer installation.

There are a number of different ways to obtain the fresh Elmer version which are reviewed here. 

Windows installer

There is a nightly build for Windows both with and without mpi updated rather frequently at. 

https://sourceforge.net/projects/elmerfem/

Currently only 64-bit version is supported. 

Launchpad

There is a Linux version at launchpad that can be used on Ubuntu and Debian based systems:

$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:elmer-csc-ubuntu/elmer-csc-ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install elmerfem-csc

Virtual machine

There is a Linux Mint based virtual machine (VM) available at  
http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/physics/elmer/bin/VirtualMachines

The VM is huge in size but provides a certified user experience. This is often used at courses to give not only a fresh Elmer version, but also a complete installation of related tools. 

Compile yourself

Compile yourself from the source files using cmake and the source codes at github:
https://github.com/elmercsc/elmerfem

This is often quite straight-forward so you should not be intimitated by compiling. Here are the compiling instructions