Installation on Other Operating Systems

This web page is for installing the l2h shell on operating systems other than Microsoft Windows or 32 bit Debian/Ubuntu linux. It requires a unix-type operating system. At the very least, /usr/bin/tcsh must be available on the system that you want to install to.

Note: Leon van Dommelen is always interested in extending l2h to other operating systems for which there is currently no version. If you want to try the below, feel free to contact him for help. Then the next person after you does not have to go through all of it again. If you want to install to a nonunix operating system, contact me for advice.

1. Select the l2h version of the operating system that is closest to your own. That would be, say, 32 bit Debian for a 32 bit linux system. Install this l2h version following the installation instructions for it. At the end, try whether by any chance l2h already runs correctly out of the box.
2. Right. You should be so lucky.
3. If you get an error message

   *** The above basic utility is missing from your unix installation.
       Please install it first.
   

   install the shown utility and try again. Otherwise, what you should see if it fails is an error message

   *** Compiled binary echon.exe is not working on your system.
       So it looks like you may be using a version of l2h that is
       incompatible with your version of linux/unix.  Must abort.
   

   (If you do not get this message and l2h_install fails, contact me.) The above message means that you have to build your own binaries for this system. Binaries of a linux 686-32 bit system will not work on a 686-64 bit system, or on any nonlinux system, for example. (Actually, 32 bit binaries do work on 64 bit, with compatibility libraries installed. But anyway.)
4. If the binaries are incompatible, you will first need to make (or find) suitable "netpbm" binaries for your system. In particular you need anytopnm, bmptoppm, giftopnm, jpegtopnm, pbmmake, pnmcat, pnmcolormap, pnmcrop, pnmfile, pnmflip, pnmremap, pnmtops, ppmtobmp, ppmtogif, ppmtojpeg, and maybe pamflip. Older versions are more likely to work. To make ones that work with l2h from scratch, download jpeg-6b and netpbm-10.18.18 from the external-programs.html web page. Put them in your $HOME folder. Then compile them following the lines of either my Sun SPARC or 64 bit Debian 686 examples. (Note: in both cases, I found that the needed binaries were produced without any of the annoying problems you usually encounter in those things. However, compiling a more recent, 10.47.45, version of the jpegtopnm program for MS Windows, I did run into trouble, see mkpnmMS.txt. And I could not compile a SPARC version of it at all, but that is probably due to the fact that the College SPARC system software is far out-of-date and incomplete.) Like you see in the examples, put the binaries into the bin subfolder of l2h, replacing the ones already there. Note: pnmcat, pnmcolormap, pnmcrop, pnmfile, pnmremap, and ppmtogif are essential for making web pages. You cannot do without. To make jpg pictures, you also need ppmtojpeg. You may want to make jpegtopnm using netpbm 10.47 instead of 10.18 to allow jpeg repair during image conversions. However, this does not affect web page generation.
5. If the netpbm binaries are not compatible, then neither are the fortran binaries. Therefore you will also need to install a g77 or gfortran Fortran compiler. After that, double-click "terminal" in the l2h folder. Then in the terminal type:

      cd system-files
      cd jpegs
      touch *.f
      make -f make_...
      cd ..
      cd subbin
      touch *.f
      make -f make_...
      cd ..
      cd util
      touch *.f
      make -f make_...
      cd ..
      cd wiz
      touch *.f
      make -f make_...
      cd ..
      cd ..
   

   Here ... is g77. or gf., for g77 and gfortran, respectively. (The make_g77 files may need to be edited if your g77 libraries are not in the proper places. Compare the make_g77l files for recent versions of linux for that.)
6. Now rerun install_l2h as before. Hopefully l2h will work correctly now. If not, contact the author for advice. If it does work, send him a copy of the binaries.