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E.4 Windows installation instructions

For the impatient:

  • If you run Windows NT/2K, make sure you are logged in with the Administrator rights.
  • If you have Cygwin already installed on your system, uninstall it.
  • Execute the self-extracting installation archive and accept all default answers.
  • In case of troubles, see the installed file C:\etc\INSTALL.

Installation preliminaries

To run SINGULAR on MS Windows requires that the Cygwin DLL (dynamically linked library) version 1.1 or higher is installed on your system (see http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin for details about Cygwin). You can find it in Your_Singular_Directory\bin\, it's called cygwin1.dll.

To run ESINGULAR (i.e. SINGULAR within its Emacs interface) on MS Windows requires furthermore that the (X)Emacs editor is installed on your system.

Therefore, the SINGULAR installation is divided into the following components:

Singular-2-0-0
Contains the SINGULAR program and all documentation and example files.
All files of this component are installed under the directory /usr/local/Singular/2-0-0/
BasicCygwin
Contains the Cygwin DLL and basic tools/programs (like bash or info) of the Cygwin environment.
The Cygwin DLL and programs are installed in the directory /bin. Miscellaneous documentation and configuration files are installed into the directory /etc.
Xemacs
Contains the Cygwin port of the Xemacs editor (see http://www.xemacs.org for more about XEmacs) version 21.1.12.
All files of this component are installed under the directory /usr/local.
AdditionalCygwin
Contains additional Cygwin development tools (like gcc, gdb, make, perl, etc). Roughly speaking, together with the BasicCygwin component, this component contains the development environment we use to build/compile/develop SINGULAR under MS Windows.
Most of the programs of this component are installed into the directories /bin or /usr/local/bin.

Downloading preliminaries

To install SINGULAR on a PC running Windows 95/98/NT/2K, you need to download one of the following three archive files:

Singular-2-0-0-Compact.exe
Minimal archive to download. Contains the BasicCygwin and Singular-2-0-0 components.
Singular-2-0-0-Typical.exe
Typical archive to download. Contains the BasicCygwin, Singular-2-0-0 and XEmacs components.
Singular-2-0-0-Custom.exe
Maximal archive to download. Contains the BasicCygwin, Singular-2-0-0, XEmacs and AdditionalCygwin components.

You can obtain these (and other) archives from
 
ftp://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/pub/Math/Singular/.

To install SINGULAR

  1. If you have Cygwin B19 or B20 installed on your system, then uninstall it. Especially make sure that you delete the / and /bin mount points (i.e., execute the commands umount / and umount /bin before deleting the installed Cygwin programs).
  2. If you are running Windows NT/2000, make sure that you are logged in with the Administrator rights.
  3. Execute the self-extracting archive (e.g., double-click on it) and carefully follow the instructions given there.
  4. When asked for the installation folder, you should simply choose a drive (you may choose a sub-folder, but this is not as convenient as a drive). Important: If you have Cygwin already installed on your system, make sure that the folder you choose is mounted to the root of your (Cygwin) file system.
  5. When asked for the Setup Type, choose Typical, unless you know what you are doing.
    If you choose Compact, the XEmacs editor is excluded from the installation.
    If you choose Custom observe the following:
    • Make sure that you do not de-select the BasicCygwin component, unless you already have Cygwin version 1.1 (or higher) installed on your system.
    • Even if you have the Cygwin port of XEmacs version 21.1.12 (or higher) already installed on your system, you should nevertheless install XEmacs component. All other versions of Emacs (resp. XEmacs) have some quirks and do not work right together with SINGULAR (i.e., running ESingular results in problems).
    • You only need to install the AdditionalCygwin component, if you plan on doing software-development with Cygwin.
  6. At the end, you should reboot your computer. Otherwise, the installed programs will not work.

The following step(s) are optional:

  • To conveniently access all files on your computer, mount the drives of your disk(s):
    1. Open a bash shell.
    2. For each drive (letter) issue the following command (the drive C: is used in the example):
       
      mount -f -s -t C: /C
      
    After mounting the drive(s) this way, you can conveniently access the files on a drive from the bash and from Xemacs using the /C/ prefix.

  • Create your personal HOME directory.
    Various applications (e.g., bash or XEmacs) store user-specific configuration/customization files in the HOME directory of the current user. During the installation, the HOME directory is globally set for all users to /home/Singular. To create your individual HOME directory follow these steps:
    1. Create a directory (folder), say, C:\home\MyHome.
    2. Copy all files from /home/Singular to C:\home\MyHome.
    3. Set the environment variable HOME to C:\home\MyHome:
      On Windows 95/98, edit the respective line the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
      On Windows NT/2K add an entry in your Environment control panel.
    4. Restart your computer.
    You may furthermore examine the files copied into your HOME directory and adjust (i.e. edit) them to your personal preferences/needs.

Uninstalling Singular

You can uninstall individual or all installed components by opening the Software panel of the System configuration control panel. Simply double-click the Singular-2-0-0 item and follow the instructions given there.

Troubleshooting

On startup, the DLL cygwin1.dll can not be found.
  • Make sure that (1) the BasicCygwin component was not de-selected during a custom installation; (2) the destination folder chosen during the installation does not contain folder names which are longer than 8 characters, or contain spaces or periods; (3) the installation did not generate any error messages; and (4) you have rebooted your machine after a successful installation.
  • Make sure the DLL cygwin1.dll is installed on your system: Say, C:\ is the folder which you have chosen as the destination folder during the installation, then the cygwin1.dll should be located at C:\bin\cygwin1.dll.
  • If the problem pertains, please try to localize the source of the problem as explained below, and, in any event, please send an email to singular@mathematik.uni-kl-de with a description of your problem.
  • Make sure the directories C:\bin and C:\usr\local\bin(if you have chosen another destination folder, substitute C: by this folder) are contained in your PATH environment variable. To check this, open an MS-DOS shell and type in PATH. If these directories are not contained in the listings of directories of the PATH variable, set them as follows and then restart your computer:
    On Windows 95/98, add the following line to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
     
    SET PATH=C:\BIN;%PATH%;C:\USR\LOCAL\BIN
    
    On Windows NT/2000 add a similar statements in your Environment control panel.
  • Make sure your chosen destination folder is correctly mounted to the root of your (Cygwin) file system: Open an MS-DOS shell, cd (change directory) to your chosen destination folder, and type in
     
    mount
    
    This should produce an output which looks like:
     
    Device              Directory           Type         Flags
    C:                  /                   system       textmode
    
    If not, make sure that the mount.exe command is contained in this directory, and then type at the MS-DOS prompt:
     
    mount -s -f -t C:\ /
    

During the installation, an error is displayed complaining that an environment variable can not be set.
Repeat the installation, and make sure that:
On Windows 95/98, the file C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT is not hidden and not write-protected.
On Windows NT/2K, you are logged on either as user Administrator or as a user with the Administrator rights during the installation.

On start-up of ESingular, the xemacs editor can not be found.

Make sure that (1) the folder C:\usr\local\bin is contained in your PATH (see above for details) and (2) that the file C:\usr\local\bin\xemacs exists (as above, substitute C:\ by the destination folder chosen during the installation).
Open a Bash shell and type in /usr/local/bin/xemacs. If this fails, make sure your root is correctly mounted (see above).

On a Laptop which is not connected to the network, Xemacs hangs.
Remove your network card and restart Xemacs.

What help systems are available for SINGULAR?
There are following help files in Your_Singular_Directory\usr\local\Singular\2-0-0:
\info\singular.hlp - Singular Manual in texinfo format,
\html\Manual.hlp - Singular Manual in Windows Help format,
\html\*.htm (in the Typical and Custom setup components) - Singular Manual in HTML format.
You can tell Singular which help to use either from command-line (e.g. {code system("--browser","winhlp")) or add this command to the file \LIB\.singularrc.

There are Singular.exe, TSingular.exe and ESingular.exe files. What is the difference between them?
The most important executables in ..\usr\local\Singular\2-0-0\ix86-Win are :
runESingular.exe - Singular inside the Xemacs editor (appears only if XEmacs is installed),
runTSingular.exe - Singular inside the Cygwin xterm application,
Singular.exe - could be run from the command line either in a Bash shell, or in a DOS window. For the reason of convenience a file Singular.exe is just a link to Singular-2-0-0.exe.

How do I cut and paste with the mouse?
First of all, we remind what we call Unix-like cut and paste with the mouse : marking a region while pressing a left button copies it to a buffer, click on a middle-button pastes current buffer to the current cursor position.
TSingular and ESingular - under xterm and Xemacs, cut and paste works like under Unix
Singular.exe from a Bash shell - you can copy and paste a region selected with the mouse using the CTRL-Insert (for copying) and CTRL-Shift (for paste) keys.
Singular.exe from a DOS window - under Windows NT/2K, you can configure the shortcut calling the Singular to work in the following manner: marking the region with a left-button, pressing Enter, and then right mouse button to paste. To enable this non-default feature, right-click on the Singular shortcut on your desktop, check Properties, click on tab Options, where check the "Quick-Edit Mode" and "Insert (Exclusive) Mode" boxes and apply changes. On Windows 95/98, this unfortunately doesn't work properly.

For any other troubles, please send an email to singular@mathematik.uni-kl.de and include the header which is displayed by starting up SINGULAR with the -v option, and a description of your machine and operating system.


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            User manual for Singular version 2-0-0, February 2001, generated by texi2html.