[ < ] [ > ]   [ << ] [ Up ] [ >> ]         [Top] [Contents] [Index] [ ? ]

10.1 Installing the Unix Binary Distribution

If you have just obtained a copy of the binary distribution for a Unix system (Linux, SGI, Solaris, HP, etc), you should be able to run Geomview and make use of most of its features immediately after unpacking it by cd'ing to the directory that it is in and typing geomview.

In order to fully install Geomview so that you can run it from any directory and use all of its features, follow the steps in this section. In particular, you must go through this installation procedure in order to use Geomview to display Mathematica graphics.

Geomview is distributed in a directory that contains various files and subdirectories that Geomview needs at run-time, such as data files and external modules. It also contains other things distributed with Geomview, such as documentation and (in the soure-code distribution) source-code. We refer to the root directory of this tree as the `$GEOMROOT' directory. This is the directory called `Geomview' that is created when you unpack the distribution file.

To install Geomview on your system, arrange for the `$GEOMROOT' directory to be in a permanent place. Then, in a shell window, cd to that directory and type install. This runs a shell script which does the installation after asking you several questions about where you want to install the various components of Geomview.

After running the install script you should now be able to run Geomview from any directory on your system. (You may need to give the rehash command in any shells on your computer that were started up before you did the installation.)

The `install' script puts copies of the files in `$GEOMROOT/bin/<CPU>' and `$GEOMROOT/man' into the directories you specified for executables and man pages, respectively. Once you have done the installation you can cut down one the disk space required by Geomview by removing some files from these directories, since copies have been installed elsewhere. You should first test that your installed Geomview works properly because once you remove these files from their distribution directories you will not be able to do the installation again.

In particular, the files you can remove are

`$GEOMROOT/bin/<MACHTYPE>':

(where `<MACHTYPE>' is the type of system you are on, e.g. `linux', `sgi', `hpux', etc). Remove all files from here except `gvx', which is the geomview executable file. DO NOT REMOVE `gvx'. It is not installed elsewhere.

`$GEOMROOT/man':

You can remove all the files in this directory.


[ < ] [ > ]   [ << ] [ Up ] [ >> ]         [Top] [Contents] [Index] [ ? ]

10.1.1 Details of the Unix Binary Installation

The install script should be self-explanatory; just run it and answer the questions. This section gives some details for system administrators and other users who may want to know more about the installation.

The installation is actually done by make; the install script queries the user for the settings of the following make variables and then invokes make install.

GEOMROOT:

the absolute pathname of the Geomview root directory. The geomview shell script, which is what users invoke to run Geomview, uses this to set various environment variables that Geomview needs. It is very important that this be an absolute pathname -- i.e. it should start with a '/'.

BINDIR:

a directory where executable files are installed. The geomview shell script goes here, as well as various other auxiliary programs that can be used in conjunction with geomview. This should be a directory that is on users' `$path'. These auxiliary programs are distributed in the `$GEOMROOT/bin/<MACHTYPE>' directory; if you specify this directory for BINDIR, they are left in that directory.

MANDIR:

a directory where Unix manual pages are installed. These are distributed in the `$GEOMROOT/man' subdirectory; if you specify this directory for MANDIR, they are left in that directory.

MMAPACKAGEDIR:

a directory where Mathematica packages are installed. This should be a directory that Mathematica searches for packages that it loads; you can see what directories your Mathematica searches by looking at the value of the $Path variable in a Mathematica session. The installation process will install some packages there which allow you to use Geomview to display Mathematica graphics. These packages are distributed in the `$GEOMROOT/mathematica' subdirectory; if you specify this directory for MMAPACKAGEDIR, or if you specify the empty string for MMAPACKAGEDIR, the packages are left in that directory. For more details about the way these Mathematica packages connect to Geomview, see section Installing the Mathematica Packages.


[ < ] [ > ]   [ << ] [ Up ] [ >> ]

This document was generated by Build Daemon user on December, 15 2005 using texi2html 1.76.