Before You Install

Overview

The Advanced Khoros Installation Guide is intended for use by UNIX system administrators, software developers, and advanced application users. Readers should be well versed in UNIX concepts and be comfortable using standard UNIX commands for manipulating files and directories.

To avoid wasting your time and energy, please take the time to review this chapter carefully to make sure you have all of the necessary system hardware and software requirements needed to install, run, and display the Advanced Khoros software package. If you need assistance in verifying or obtaining system requirements, please see Appendix Axs.

Note: This release of Advanced Khoros is version 2.2.0.0. If you have a previous version of Khoros installed on your system, please be sure to read "If You Already Have a Version of Khoros Installed..." below as well as Appendix D.

The requirements are organized into the following sections:

What You Need to Know

The Advanced Khoros installation scripts were designed so as not to require knowing the root (system) password. However, you may need to know the root password for your computer if you are installing in a directory where you don't have write permission. For example, the recommended installation directory for the shared use of Advanced Khoros by multiple users is /usr/local, which is commonly only writeable when you log in as root.

If You Already Have a Previous Version of Advanced Khoros Installed...

The first release of Advanced Khoros is version 2.1.0. If you have previously installed a version of Advanced Khoros that has a version number lower than 2.1.0, then read the following subsections carefully!

We’ve provided Facilities to Ease the Transition.

Older image and geometry data file formats are fully upward compatible. Also Cantata 2.0.x and 2.1 workspace files can be read in by Cantata 2.2.0.0.x. Program code files created with the Advanced Khoros software development environment are not upward compatible. Don’t worry though: a mostly automated program, kdarwin, will convert Khoros 1.x.x code files, and an automated program, kmigrate, will update Khoros 2.0.x code files to Advanced Khoros 2.2.0.0. These are provided in the Migration toolbox. Printed documentation is available in the Advanced Khoros Toolbox Programming manual. Also see Appendix E for a good introduction to the Migration toolbox.

Warning: A small number of features in Khoros 1 were not carried forward into Advanced Khoros 2.1 and 2.2.0.0. These dropped features are listed in the Release Notes, which are available from our ftp site (ftp.khoral.com). If your application depends on one of these features, you will either have to re-implement the feature using the Advanced Khoros development environment, or acquire a 3rd-party toolbox providing that feature in order to upgrade completely.


Leave the Older Installation on the Disk, If Possible.

We strongly recommend that you leave the older version installed if at all possible, especially if you have been using Khoros for software development. This will allow your current Khoros users and developers to continue production work with the older system during the time of transition to the Advanced Khoros 2.2.0.0 version. You may find it quite helpful to set up special user login accounts to continue use of the older version. These accounts should be set up to preserve the older environment setup.

Remove Environment Variable References to Previous Versions.

This is a very important step to remember, in order to ensure a smooth installation. If you have a .Khoros_env file in your home directory you should rename it to .Khoros_env_old. Also rename your .Toolboxes file to .Toolboxes_old. Finally, make sure you remove any references to older versions of Khoros from your PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables. You may have to edit your .cshrc file (for C shell users) or .profile file (for Bourne and Korn shell users), and then log out and log in again.

Remember to Install Advanced Khoros 2.2.0.0 in a Different Directory!

You must install Advanced Khoros 2.2.0.0 in a different directory from your earlier version of Khoros. For instance, if you have previously installed Khoros 2.0.2 in the directory, /usr/local/Khoros202, we would advise you to install the new Advanced Khoros 2.2.0.0 in a new directory with a name like /usr/local/Advanced Khoros220. This is the default directory for the installation scripts, so using this directory name will make the installation as simple as possible. Keeping old and new versions completely separate is essential to maintaining order and harmony for all Advanced Khoros users on your system. This separation should also be maintained between old and new versions of any Khoros software you have developed yourself.

Don't Remove the Older Version Until You're Certain Advanced Khoros Is Meeting Your Needs!

This is sensible advise for installing any kind of software upgrade, but it is especially important for a large and complex system like Advanced Khoros. And even though we’ve made a special effort to provide migration tools, it can still take a significant amount of time and resources to complete the conversion. If you remove the previous version too soon, you could leave some of your Khoros users and developers without a working environment during the transition.

If You Must Remove the Older Version for the Disk Space, Make a Backup First !

Again, this is a good practice for any type of software upgrade. Don’t get in too much of a hurry and skip taking this very necessary precaution.

General System Requirements for Advanced Khoros

Advanced Khoros can be installed and compiled on most UNIX systems that meet the general system hardware and software requirements listed in these sections. Additionally, platform-specific system requirements are listed in the following sections for those platforms that KRI officially supports and for some others that KRI supports to a lesser extent.

Please make sure you meet all system requirements for your platform(s) before continuing with the installation. If you need assistance in checking these requirements, or want to know where to retrieve a needed bit of system software, please refer to Appendix A.

General System Hardware Requirements

Computer System Hardware

The requirements below refer to the disk(s) on which you install and the computer(s) on which you run Advanced Khoros software. The minimum size does not include the space needed to compile the Advanced Khoros system, but does include enough space to install all the toolboxes and the dynamically-linked binaries.

The recommended and minimum sizes in the table below are the values for the largest of all the supported platforms (DEC Alpha AXP running OSF/1 3.2). If you install all the third-party software, you should add another 25MB.


          Computer System Hardware Requirements for Advanced Khoros            

Hardware Resource             Recommended            Minimum               

CPU                           with built-in FPU      add-on coprocessor

RAM                           32+ MB                 16 MB                 

Swap Space                    64+ MB                 32 MB                 

Temp. Space (e.g. /usr/tmp)   256+ MB                32 MB                 

Disk Space to Install         320+ MB                200+ MB               
Application Env.                                                           

Disk Space to Install         400+ MB                220+ MB               
Development Env.                                                           

Disk Space per Application    20+ MB                 10+ MB                
User                                                                       

Disk Space per Developer      100+ MB                50+ MB                



Display System Hardware

The requirements below refer to the computer running your X Window System Server (or to your X Terminal) on which you display Advanced Khoros software. In the case of workstations, this may often be the same computer that you use to run Advanced Khoros


          Display System Hardware Requirements for Advanced Khoros             

Hardware Resource             Recommended            Minimum               

Color Graphics                24 bits (16.7 million  8 bits (256 colors)   
                              colors)                                      

Display Size                  20"                    9" (e.g. laptop)      

Display Resolution            1280x1024 pixels       640x480 pixels        

Mouse                         3 buttons              3 buttons             

Keyboard                      ANSI-style             alphanumeric          
                              recommended                                  



General System Software Requirements

Computer Runtime System Software

The requirements below refer to the computer(s) on which you run Advanced Khoros software. These requirements refer to both Advanced Khoros application and development environments.


      Computer Runtime System Software Requirements for Advanced Khoros        

Software Resource             Required Software and Level                 

Operating System              Modern UNIX variant (POSIX.1-compliant      
                              preferred)                                  

GUI System (Widget Set)       Advanced Khoros  widget set is included   


Window System                 X11R5+ (OpenWindows 3+) Client runtime      
                              environment                                 

Graphics System               X11R5+ (OpenWindows 3+) Client runtime      
                              environment                                 
                              (optionally OpenGL 5.3+ for Geometry        
                              toolbox on SGI)                             

FORTRAN System                FORTRAN 77 runtime environment              
(Not needed if using f2c.)    (Native or unneeded for KRI's supported     
                              platforms.)                                 



Display Runtime System Software

The requirements below refer to the computer running your X Window System Server (or to your X Terminal) on which you display Advanced Khoros software. In the case of workstations, this may often be the same computer that you use to run Advanced Khoros.


      Display System Runtime Software Requirements for Advanced Khoros         

Software Resource             Required Software and Level                 

X Window Server (X            X11R5+ (OpenWindows 3) Display server       
Terminal)*                                                                

Graphics Server*              X11R5+ (OpenWindows 3) Display server       
                              (optionally OpenGL's GLX server extension   
                              for Geometry toolbox on SGI)                

Window Manager                mwm, dtwm, 4Dwm, twm, ctwm, vuewm, or olwm  
(ICCCM-compliant for cut and  (X11R5+ [OpenWindows 3+] versions           
paste)                        recommended)                                



Computer System Software for Advanced Khoros Development Environment

The requirements below refer to the computer(s) on which you run Advanced Khoros software. These requirements apply only to the Advanced Khoros development environment.


               Computer System Software Requirements for                 
                   Advanced Khoros  Development Environment                    

Software Resource              Required Software and Level                

ANSI C Compiler                ANSI C development environment             

FORTRAN Compiler               FORTRAN 77 development environment or f2c  
                               translator                                 

Traditional UNIX Software      make, lex (flex), yacc (bison), sed, awk,  
Utilities                      ar, ld, etc.                               

GUI System (Widget Set)        Advanced Khoros  widget set is included

Window System                  X11R5+ (OpenWindows 3+) Client             
                               development environment                    

Graphics System                X11R5+ (OpenWindows 3+) Client             
                               development environment                    
                               (optionally OpenGL 5.2+ for Geometry on    
                               SGI)                                       

Perl Interpreter               Perl 4.036 (preferred and tested) or Perl  
                               5.02+                                      



Platform-Specific System Requirements and KRI’s Two Support Levels

Advanced Khoros can be installed and compiled on most UNIX systems that meet the general system hardware and software requirements listed in the previous sections. Some platforms, though, have been much more thoroughly tested than others. KRI divides these platforms into two different support levels by use of the following terms: supported and non-supported; non-supported is further broken down into development and ported platforms. These terms are explained in Appendix A if you are interested in the differences. Not suprisingly, you may expect to encounter more run-time errors with non-supported platforms than with supported platforms. For purposes of installing Advanced Khoros, however, this difference is largely unimportant.

However, configuration files exist in various stages of robustness for certain platforms. The list below shows the platform and the status of the corresponding configuration file.

	AIX        - tested for 2.2.0.0
	APOLLO     - untested on a current release
	BSD        - untested on a current release
	BSDI       - untested on a current release
	CONVEX     - untested on a current release
	DGUX       - tested for 2.2.0.0
	DYNIX      - untested on a current release
	EXEMPLAR   - untested on a current release
	FREEBSD    - tested for 2.2.0.0
	HPUX       - tested under Khoros 2.1
	i386	   - untested on a current release
	IRIX       - tested for 2.2.0.0
	LINUX      - tested for 2.2.0.0
	LUNA	   - untested on a current release
	NETBSD     - untested on a current release
	NEWSOS     - untested on a current release
	NEXT       - untested on a current release
	OSF        - tested for 2.2.0.0
	OSF1       - untested on a current release
	SOLARIS    - tested for 2.2.0.0
	SUNOS      - tested for 2.2.0.0
	ULTRIX	   - untested on a current release
	UNICOS     - tested for 2.2.0.0
	UNICOSMK   - tested for 2.2.0.0

You can expect installation and performance to proceed more smoothly for those platforms with well-tested configuration files.

Additional 3rd-Party System Software Requirements

If you are installing on a supported platform and are missing any of these required 3rd-party system software packages, the kinstall script will offer to install them automatically for you, so you don’t really need to worry about these requirements. They are listed here for completeness.

If you are installing on a non-supported platform, you can, and must, install the source code for these tools from the Advanced Khoros ftp site. However you will need compilers and development tools to build executable versions, before you can install Advanced Khoros. See Appendix B for additional details.

All of this software is bundled with the Linux OS for PCs. Perl is bundled with IRIX 5.2+ OS for SGIs.

The requirements below refer to the computer(s) on which you install and run Advanced Khoros software.


               3rd-Party System Software Requirements                

Software Resource              Command Name       Comments                 

GNU file                       gzip/gunzip        Must have these just to  
compression/decompression      1.2.4+             get started              

GNU file                       tar 1.11.8+        Not strictly required,   
archiving/dearchiving                             but highly recommended   

GNU runoff tools for           groff *, gtbl, &   Used for                 
formatting/printing            geqn               generating/viewing       
                               1.10+              online help and man      
                                                  pages                    

Perl Interpreter               perl 4.036+        Needed for Advanced Khoros        
                               (patch 36)         development environment  
                                       or 5.02+   and support toolbox      



*Warning: If you're installing on a non-supported platform, and don't already have groff installed on your system, you will need a C++ compiler to build it from the source code provided. The GNU C++ compiler, g++, and the library, libg++.a, are included at the Advanced Khoros ftp site.


Copyright Khoral Research, Inc. 1997; All Rights Reserved