Text installation

This form of AIPS installation is recommended only for sites that plan to develop their own software to run within the AIPS system or for sites with architectures other than those for which binary installations are available.

1. Requirements:
   • Unix Workstation: MacIntosh OS X (Darwin) PPC or Intel cpu, Linux/Intel, Linux/Alpha, Solaris/Sparc, Solaris/Intel, OSF1/Alpha, HP9000/HP-UX, SGI/Irix; 1 Gigabytes memory, 1 Gigabytes disk space (not counting your data), Intel 486/33 or better.
   • The text installation requires full developer-level support for X Windows, C, and Fortran. Systems using the GNU compilers may also need a separate installation of a non-default version of the Fortan and C compilers. Note that "full developer support" includes RPMs for X11 (e.g. XFree86-devel), ncurses (ncurses-devel), and cvs (cvs).
   • Perl version 5 (comes with most Linux systems);
   • Internet (ftp) access;
   • The cvs utility will now be used and the Secure Shell (ssh v1 or Openssh) client is not required.
   • READING THE DOCUMENTATION!

2. Preliminaries for your installation:
   • For a text installation, make sure that your computer has a C and a Fortran compiler plus a full set of XWindows include files and libraries. MacIntosh users may consult the special Mac installation instructions for information about these issues. Be sure to check which GNU compilers are known not to work with AIPS, including GNU versions 2.96, 3.0.3, 3.0.4, 3.3.x, 4.1.x, and 4.1.x. Compiler versions 2.95.3, 3.2.2, 3.4.3+, and 4.2.1 are thought to work adequately.
   • For text installations, get the Install Wizard file.
   • For a text installation, get the 31DEC08.tar.gz file (over 91 Megabytes); this is re-generated on a nightly basis from our master code repository. Remember the date/time (US/Eastern) on which you started getting the file. Remember to use "binary" mode to copy the file.
   • For a text installation, get the Message Digest Checksum file (md5sum); compare this to the output of running "md5sum" on your copy of 31DEC08.tar.gz. Note that md5sum comes with Linux and is a standard GNU utility. If the output of "md5sum 31DEC08.tar.gz" does not match the file 31DEC08.tar.gz.md5sum or if there is no md5sum file, STOP! There's a problem; try a second copy (with binary this time) and if there is still a problem Contact us at our daip@nrao.edu address.
   • Read the On-Line Wizard Guide BEFORE PROCEEDING FURTHER! Also, use it as you proceed through the various screens presented by the wizard.
   • Place both the 31DEC08.tar.gz file and install.pl in the area that will be your $AIPS_ROOT (top-level AIPS directory).
   • If you have a previous installed version of AIPS:
   • Edit your $HOME/.AIPSRC file: change the CCOMOPT option to point at 31DEC08 and delete the DOWNLOADED and UNPACKED lines.
   • Use the same $AIPS_ROOT area for the new version
   • Just give a carriage-return (Enter) to the screens asking for information about hosts, disk areas, printers, tapes, tape hosts and TV services.
   • Make sure that the install.pl file is executable. Then, for text installations, run the script with the command
     perl install.pl
     

3. Post-Install Steps:
   • Edit $AIPS_ROOT files AIPSPATH.SH and AIPSPATH.CSH to select which version of AIPS, if you have more than one, corresponds to NEW and OLD.
   • Upgrade the $SYSLOCAL/UPDCONFIG file to match any improvements you made in any previous version of that file.
   • Make sure you Read the Midnight Job instructions before enabling the midnight job on your system. You may run the MNJ via a cron, but most users elect to run the do_daily.hostname file by hand at times of their choosing.

We plan to have a CDROM (actually DVD) with 31DEC08 on it --- but only around January 2009 --- after it is frozen. You could wait if you are silly, but a source code or binary installation and the MNJ would be preferable.

If you have problems with our ftp server, please contact us.

You WILL want a Midnight Job!

If your site has a need for the current version of AIPS with updates via the Internet and the so-called midnight job, Read this information. It has additional information and instructions. Or Eric Greisen for further information.

Since releases of AIPS are planned to be only on an annual basis, the midnight job (now with easier setup and NO ssh) will be the only way for AIPS users outside of NRAO to avail themselves in a timely fashion of whatever enhancements, changes, or new functionality we add to Classic AIPS.

The MNJ is the only way in which you can fetch changes to your version of AIPS, other than a full re-installation. It works for both binary and text installations and is sometimes useful even for the "frozen" version of AIPS, since the most recent frozen version will be patched to correct egregious errors. Even with the frozen version, the MNJ is the easiest way to fetch patches made to it, since we now actually apply those patches.

WHATSNEW in 31DEC08 AIPS

The accounting system has been upgraded to report the total disk I/O in Megabytes at the end of each task. Linux systems do not provide an I/O count in the way that fomer systems, such as VMS, did.

The final report on 31DEC08 is available as 31DEC08 AIPSLetter dated 31 December 2008 (PS, 870 Kbytes) has information on all changes in this release. It is also available gzipped, (375 Kbytes) and PDF, (190 Kbytes). The 6-month progress report on 31DEC08 AIPSLetter dated 30 June 2008 (PS, 878422 bytes) has information on changes before about that date. It is also available gzipped, (386972 bytes) and pdf format, (186916 bytes).

The final report on 31DEC07 is available as 31DEC07 AIPSLetter dated 31 December 2007 (PS, 920 Kbytes) has information on all changes in this release. It is also available gzipped, (400 Kbytes) and PDF, (200 Kbytes). The 6-month progress report on 31DEC07 AIPSLetter dated 30 June 2007 (PS, 883214 bytes) has information on changes before about that date. It is also available gzipped, (388019 bytes) and pdf format, (187787 bytes).

The final report on 31DEC06 is available as 31DEC06 AIPSLetter dated 31 December 2006 (PS, 879 Kbytes) has information on all changes in this release. It is also available gzipped, (382 Kbytes) and PDF, (185 Kbytes). The 6-month progress report on 31DEC06 AIPSLetter dated 30 June 2006 (PS, 32697 Kbytes) has information on changes before about that date. It is also available gzipped, (5096 Kbytes) and pdf format, (6543 Kbytes).

Distribution Statistics

Tools to monitor shipments of the tar balls and the binary releases as well as accesses of the cvs code maintenance system have been created and run since Spring 2003. We estimate "sites" by counting unique IP addresses. In each of the totals, an individual IP address is counted only once. In general, an IP address is used by only one user, but more than one IP address will be used by those users that use dial-up connections. Thus, these totals are a modest over-estimate. However, they are an underestimate of the number of computers used for AIPS since at many institutions a single IP address is used to provide AIPS to a number of computers. The table below shows the totals in various categories and has links to the plots of the cumulative totals. Note that the TST and NEW numbers for 2003 are for only part of the year as, of course, are all the 2007 and 2008 numbers. These are indicated by the asterisk. The totals for TST and NEW include both binary and tar-ball downloads. The binary totals include binary downloads and binary MNJ accesses.

The plot for 2008 will change every Wednesday but the numbers in the table above depend on us remembering to change them and so will change less often. The numbers were updated December 08, 2008

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The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.