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Next: Getting Started Up: Introduction Previous: Typographical Conventions

Installing ePiX

ePiX is distributed as source code. The latest version of ePiX can be downloaded from


http://mathcs.holycross.edu/~ahwang/current/ePiX.html
Unpack the gzip-ed tar file

tar -zxvf epix_src.tar.gz
or, if your tar doesn't know about decompression,

gunzip epix_src.tar.gz
tar -xvf epix_src.tar
cd to the source directory, which is named epix-0.8.x for some small integer x. The README file contains detailed installation instructions. If you're impatient, the short of it is

make test
[make contrib]
make install
make clean
Respectively, these steps build the epix library and run a test compile on the included sample files; optionally build extra packages (see below); install the library, header file, and two shell scripts; and revert the source directory to its original state. The only optional package at present was kindly contributed by Svend Daugaard Pedersen, and supplies extensions for enhanced Cartesian coordinate systems, and for hatching planar regions. His package is documented separately, in the contrib/ subdirectory of the source package.

By default, ePiX installs in subdirectories of /usr/local; if you do not have root access, see the README for information on personal installation and POST-INSTALL for instructions on setting your PATH variable so your shell can find ePiX.

ePiX is not a stand-alone program, but consists of a C/C++ library and a shell script, and therefore requires a compiler for normal use. The GNU compilers (gcc/g++) and C library are strongly preferred, both because they are used to develop ePiX, and because they implement many mathematical features not specified by ANSI C.

Your life with ePiX will be difficult (in the Japanese sense) unless the GNU shell bash is available on your system or you hack the scripts. If you have no idea what this means, don't worry; most Unices have bash installed. If you port ePiX to another operating environment, please send the author copies of your scripts for future inclusion.  $ \ddot\smile$


next up previous
Next: Getting Started Up: Introduction Previous: Typographical Conventions
hwang
2002-06-06