My Recommendation for Installing Poplog (and GOSPL) on UNIX
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Poplog does not come with a particularly well-defined installation plan.
Although this is flexible, it can be confusing. This note explains my
own installation plan which I recommend if you don't have any strong
views of your own. (It is UNIX specific because that's the only system
I'm experienced enough to give sensible advice for.)
There are two parts to the plan: the shared installation and your
personal set up. These parts are broken down into a series of simple
steps.
If you follow this plan and things go wrong, please feel free to
contact me - details at the end of the file.
[1] Choose a Central Location
You should select a standard location for installing Poplog. I like
/usr/local/poplog
and I will assume that for the rest of this note. But this is a
relatively arbitrary decision.
[2] Chose an Administrative Account
It is a good idea to protect your installation from accidents and,
under UNIX, the best way to do this is by installing software
as a different user from the one you normally work in. I recommend
that you create a non-root user for this role.
(If you prefer to install the software using your normal account,
remember to write protect the installation afterwards.)
In these notes I will assume that you will create a suitable
administrative user called "poplog".
[3] Create the Admin Account and Central Location
Under Linux you can do both of these in one elegant step.
% useradd -c 'Poplog Admin' -d /usr/local/poplog -m poplog
[4] Login as the Admin User
% su - poplog
Until stated otherwise, I will assume you are working in
the admin account whose home directory is /usr/local/poplog
[5] Create the directory skeleton
I recommend cleanly separating the three different installation
elements: the main distribution ($usepop/pop), the local system
enhancements ($poplocal/local), and GOSPL ($usepop/gospl). To
do this, you should create the following subdirectories:
% cd
% mkdir usepop
% mkdir local
% mkdir local/auto
% mkdir local/lib
% mkdir local/help
% mkdir downloads
[6] Obtain the Poplog Distribution
At the time of writing, I recommend using Aaron Sloman's distribution
from Birmingham University because this has the most attention
lavished on it. If you go to
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/freepoplog.html
You'll see the list of distributions. For the purposes of these notes
I assume that you have selected one of the PC Linux distributions
such as
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/new/linux-pc-1553.tar.gz
% cd ~/downloads
% wget http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/new/linux-pc-1553.tar.gz
[7] Unpack the main distribution
Now unpack the main distribution tarball into the previously created
directory "~/usepop". Note that the tarball doesn't unpack into a single
directory, which is why we created "~/usepop", so as to hold the
contents.
% cd ~/usepop
% tar zxf ~/downloads/linux-pc-1553.tar.gz
[8] Obtain, Unpack and Install the GOSPL distribution
% cd ~/downloads
% wget http://www.poplog.org/download/gospl.tar.gz
% cd ~/usepop
% tar zxf ~/downloads/gospl.tar.gz
% cd ~/local/lib
% ln -s ~/gospl/install/lib/popgospl.p .
% cd ~/local/help
% ln -s ~/gospl/install/help/popgospl
[9] Logout from Admin Account
You have now finished the shared installation. You may wish to clean up
the "~/downloads" folder before logging out. If you have plenty of disk
space just leave it alone.
% rm ~/downloads/*.tar.gz
% exit
[10] Create Personal Customisation Folder
I recommend creating a "hidden" top-level directory to hold all of the
Poplog customisations.
% cd
% mkdir ~/.poplog
% mkdir ~/.poplog/auto
% mkdir ~/.poplog/lib
% mkdir ~/.poplog/help
[11] Create Personal Login Script
The most important step is to create the login script. Poplog depends
on a large number of environment variables to be set up. The easiest
way to do this is to use the provided scripts. Unfortunately the
scripts are have a "flaw" - they output a friendly message saying they
have run. This is good for debugging but triggers a horrible bug in
most X-windows start up scripts.
Obviously the details of the script depend on which login shell you
use. These days, most people are using "bash" and that's what I'll
assume here. If you are using something else, it should be easy
enough to translate.
Create a file called "setup.sh".
% cd ~/.poplog
% touch setup.sh
Add the following lines to "setup.sh"
export poplib=~/.poplog
export poplocal=/usr/local/poplog
export usepop=/usr/local/poplog/usepop
. $usepop/pop/com/poplog.sh > /dev/null
Now you must ensure this script gets used when you login. Assuming
you use "bash", add the following line at a suitable point (e.g. the
end) in your "~/.bash_profile"
. ~/.poplog/setup.sh
[12] Verify Your Setup Works
You can either logout and login again or simply include the setup
script.
% . ~/.poplog/setup.sh
Try invoking "pop11". If all goes well you should see something like
this.
% pop11
Sussex Poplog (Version 15.53 Tue Aug 6 18:10:53 BST 2002)
Copyright (c) 1982-1999 University of Sussex. All rights reserved.
Setpop
:
Exit with ^D (control-D)
[13] Add GOSPL to Your Custom Setup
Previously we configured GOSPL so that it was available to all users on
the system. However, each user has to elect to utilize the GOSPL. When
Poplog starts up it compiles a file called "$poplib/init.p", if it
exists. This is the right place for users to use the GOSPL.
Create your "init.p" file and add the line "uses popgospl". You can
do this as follows:
% echo "uses popgospl" > ~/.poplog/init.p
[14] Verify the GOSPL setup
% pop11 ":sysinitcomp(); popgospl_version=>"
** GOSPL Version 1.1.0
You should see a message that shows you have GOSPL Version 1.1 or
higher.
[15] Enjoy!
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Stephen Leach 10th Dec 2004
Email/MSN: steve@watchfield.com
AIM/iChat: sfkleach@mac.com
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