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C.4 Windows installation instructions

Windows installation instructions for SINGULAR::PLURAL version 2-1-99

To install SINGULAR::PLURAL on a Windows platform, you need the following two archives:

SingularPlural-2-1-99-share.tar.gz
contains architecture independent data like documentation and libraries.
SingularPlural-2-1-99-ix86-Win.tar.gz
contains architecture dependent executables, like the PLURAL program.

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

Important: Please see COPYING for license information on SINGULAR. Please register yourself as a SINGULAR user by using the registration form on the SINGULAR homepage http://www.singular.uni-kl.de. If for some reason you cannot access the registration form, you can also register by sending an email to singular@mathematik.uni-kl.de with subject line register and body containing the following data: your name, email address, organisation, country and platform(s).

To install SINGULAR::PLURAL

Make sure that you have approximately 12MByte of free disk space and follow these steps.

  1. Simply change to the directory in which you wish to install SINGULAR::PLURAL, for example, C:\.

    SINGULAR::PLURAL specific subdirectories will be created in such a way that multiple versions and multiple architecture dependent files of SINGULAR and SINGULAR::PLURAL can peaceably coexist under the same tree.

  2. Unpack the archives either with your own program or with gzip and tar:
     
    gzip -dc <path_to>/SingularPlural-2-1-99-ix86-Win.tar.gz | tar -pxf -
    gzip -dc <path_to>/SingularPlural-2-1-99-share.tar.gz | tar -pxf -
    

    This creates the the directory Plural/2-1-99 with
    (sub)directories which contain
    ix86-Win Plural and EPlural executables
    LIB SINGULAR and SINGULAR::PLURAL libraries (*.lib files)
    emacs files for the PLURAL Emacs user interface
    info info files of PLURAL manual (Warning: plural.hlp is not a help file for Windows help but for info program!)
    html html files of PLURAL manual
    doc miscellaneous documentation files

    For the executable to work, the directory layout must look pretty much like this; the executable looks for "sibling" directories at run-time to figure out where its SINGULAR::PLURAL libraries and on-line documentation files are. These constraints on the local directory layout are necessary to avoid having to hard-code pathnames into the executables, or require that environment variables be set before running the executable. In particular, you must not move or copy the PLURAL executables to another place, but use soft-links instead.

The following steps are optional:

  • Create a shortcut for Plural.

    Start a new shortcut wizard and pick C:/Plural/2-1-99/ix86-Win/Plural.exe as the executable and type, for example, C:/Plural/2-1-99/ix86-Win/ in the field "Execute in".

  • Arrange that typing Plural at the command prompt starts up the installed PLURAL executable.

    Just append the directory Plural/2-1-99/ix86-Win to your PATH environment variable.

    IMPORTANT: Do never move or copy the file Plural/2-1-99/ix86-Win/Plural to another place, but use shortcuts or soft-links instead.

  • If you wish to use any of following features of PLURAL, make sure that the respective programs are installed on your system:

    Feature Requires
    running EPlural, or Plural within Emacs Emacs version 20 or higher, or, XEmacs version 20.3 or higher
    on-line html help netscape browser
    on-line info help info, or tkinfo texinfo browser programs

  • Customize the on-line help system:

    By default, on-line help is displayed in the html format using the default Web browser on your system.

    However, this behavior can be customized in several ways using the PLURAL commands system("--browser",<browser>) and system("--allow-net", 1) (or, by starting up PLURAL with the respective command line options).

See also the sections The online help system, Command line options, and Startup sequence in the SINGULAR manual for more details on customizing the on-line help system.

Troubleshooting

  • General: PLURAL can not find its libraries or on-line help
    1. Make sure that you have read and/or execute permission on the files and directories of the Plural distribution.
    2. Start up PLURAL, and issue the command system("Singular");. If this does not return the correct and expanded location of the PLURAL executable, then you found a bug in PLURAL, which we ask you to report (see below).
    3. Check whether the directories containing the libraries and on-line help files can be found by PLURAL: If $bindir denotes the directory where the PLURAL executable resides, then PLURAL looks for library files as follows:
      (0) the current directory
      (1) all dirs of the environment variable SINGULARPATH
      (2) $bindir/LIB
      (3) $bindir/../LIB
      (4) /usr/local/Plural/2-1-99/LIB
      (4) /usr/local/Plural/LIB
      The on-line info files need to be at $bindir/../info and the html pages at $bindir/../html.

    You can inspect the found library and info/html directories by starting up PLURAL with the --version option, or by issuing the PLURAL command system("--version");.

  • For any other troubles:
    Please send an email to singular@mathematik.uni-kl.de and include the header which is displayed by starting up PLURAL with the -v option, and a description of your machine (issue the command uname -a on your shell) in your report.

More information about SINGULAR: Comments, Questions, Bug Reports

More and up-to-date information about SINGULAR is always available from
 
http://www.singular.uni-kl.de.
We very much welcome any comments, questions, and bug reports. Please contact us at
 
singular@mathematik.uni-kl.de.

GOOD LUCK and ENJOY! Your SINGULAR::PLURAL team.


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            User manual for Singular version 2-1-99, August 2004, generated by texi2html.