README FOR SGI IRIX/IRAF VERSION 2.10 Current patch level V2.10.4-p2 Revised Tue Jul 9 15:48:47 MST 1996 Revised Thu Jul 25 12:50:01 MST 1996 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 Sep 1992 Initial V2.10.1 release 09 Jul 1996 V2.10.4-p2 upgrade (IRIX 5.3) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. PRELIMINARIES 1.1 THE SGI IRIX/IRAF NETWORK DISTRIBUTION This directory and its subdirectories contains the IRIX/IRAF distribution for SGI workstations. README This file. as.irix.gen AS.IRIX.GEN (all sources) ib.irix.mip IB.IRIX.MIP (irix binaries for core system) nb.irix.mip NB.IRIX.MIP (irix binaries for NOAO packages) irixiraf.ms.Z IRIX/IRAF installation guide source irixiraf.ps.Z IRIX/IRAF installation guide Postscript unixsmg.ms.Z UNIX/IRAF Site Manager's Guide source unixsmg.ps.Z UNIX/IRAF Site Manager's Guide Postscript cl.csh Fixed version of $iraf/unix/hlib/cl.csh Additional release related documentation of interest. iraf/v210/v210revs.ms.Z V2.10 revisions summary source iraf/v210/v210revs.ps.Z V2.10 revisions summary in postscript iraf/v210/pkgnotes.v210.Z V2.10 package revisions notes iraf/v210/sysnotes.v210.Z V2.10 system revisions notes See also iraf/docs for general documentation. To install IRIX/IRAF on a SGI workstation you need AS.IRIX.GEN and both the IB and NB binaries, plus all the release documentation. This distribution was prepared on a SGI 150 Mhz MIPS R4400 Indy 8-bit workstation running IRIX 5.3 (thanks to the WIYN project on Kitt Peak and the Washburn Observatory, University of Wisconsin for giving us access to their SGI workstation for IRAF support). As of July 96 IRIX 6 is out but we are releasing IRIX/IRAF under IRIX 5.3 to avoid further delay. Our plan (subject to change) is to install IRIX 6 later in 1996 and release an updated version of IRIX/IRAF at that time. So far as we know at this time the IRIX/IRAF release built under IRIX 5.3 should run on IRIX 6 systems. The older 1992 version of V2.10 IRIX/IRAF will *not* run under IRIX 6.X. 1.2 TRANSFERRING THE FILES Each distribution file is stored in a subdirectory containing the compressed and split distribution file, a CHECKSUMS file, and a FILES.Z file. The distribution file is a UNIX TAR file containing one or more directory trees from the IRAF system. To facilitate transfers over unreliable network connections, the distribution file is split into a number of smaller (512 Kb) files. The files can be transferred as follows. These examples are for the IRIX version of FTP. o If you did not start up FTP as "ftp -i", exit and restart it with the "-i" switch. This is necessary to be able to do bulk transfers without having to answer annoying and unnecessary yes or no queries for each individual file (alternatively you can type "prompt" after entering ftp to toggle interactive queries). o On the local system, create a subdirectory for each distribution file you want to transfer, e.g., ftp> !mkdir as.irix.gen o Set the current directory on both the local and remote systems. ftp> cd as.irix.gen ftp> lcd as.irix.gen o Transfer all the files in the distribution file directory. A binary transfer is required for the compressed tar files, and will work for the text files as well since both systems are UNIX. ftp> binary ftp> mget * If problems are encountered, use the CHECKSUMS file to verify that any subfiles already transferred are correct. Delete any partially transferred subfiles and restart the transfer (by subfile we mean the 512 Kb files with extensions .00, .01, .02 etc. files making up the distribution file). Both BSD and SYS5 checksums are given. The IRIX command "sum" will by default compute the SYSV checksum of a file. Once all the files have been transferred the subfiles can be concatenated and uncompressed to reconstruct the original distribution TAR file, e.g.: % cat as.* | uncompress | tar -tvf - would list the contents of the distribution file. Such a listing is provided in the file FILES.Z in each distribution file directory. An easy way to look at a compressed text file such as FILES.Z is with "zcat": % zcat FILES.Z | page 2. INSTALLING IRIX/IRAF Complete instructions for installing and configuring IRIX/IRAF are given in the SGI IRIX/IRAF Installation Guide and in the UNIX/IRAF Site Manager's Guide, compressed Postscript versions of which are given in the files irixiraf.ps.Z and unixsmg.ps.Z. On most local networks containing a Postscript printer, a hardcopy version of the manual can be obtained with a command such as % zcat irixiraf.ps.Z | lpr [-P] where is the name of the local printer device you want the manual to be printed on (on some systems lp replaces lpr). Troff source for the manuals is also provided for sites that do not have ready access to a Postscript printer or for those who want to read the manuals online with nroff -ms. The IRAF sources and binaries, and the IRAF layered packages are distributed as separate modules that can be installed anywhere. However, the following directory structure is recommended to help organize all IRAF related files. Adhering to this directory structure will simplify the installation as well as future upgrades. iraf/iraf core iraf system iraf/iraf/local iraf system manager login dir iraf/irafbin binaries for main iraf release iraf/irafbin/bin. core iraf bin directory iraf/irafbin/noao.bin. noao package bin directory (other binaries) iraf/extern/stsdas layered package iraf/extern/xray layered package iraf/extern/grasp layered package iraf/extern/ice layered package (other layered packages) The location of the root directory "iraf" above is arbitrary, although to avoid possible filename truncation problems it is recommended that the path be kept reasonably short. A good practice is to set up a symbolic link such as /iraf pointing to the actual root directory, and use this in all external references to the iraf files, to allow the root directory to be relocated without affecting software that knows the path to the iraf root. This is especially important when iraf is installed in a central location and NFS mounted on a number of client machines. Any of the directories above can be symbolic links pointing to the actual location of the directory, if disk space becomes tight and it is necessary to move something. Please read the installation guide for detailed instructions regarding the installation. 2.1 Patch 1 (13 September 1995) IRIX/IRAF V2.10.4-p2 as distributed includes patch 1. 2.3 REGISTERING YOUR SITE Please register with us if you use IRAF, so that we can track use of IRAF by the community. This also gets you on the IRAF mailing list so that you will receive the IRAF newsletters and other IRAF relating mailings. To register, fill out the form in the v210/REGISTER file and email it to iraf-requests@noao.edu. *** You can also now register via the online IRAF Web pages at http://iraf.noao.edu/register.html (and try out one of those neat Web forms at the same time!) *** 3. A FEW RELATED ITEMS 3.1 SHARED LIBRARIES UNDER IRIX The current release of IRIX/IRAF does not use an IRAF shared library. 3.2 GRAPHICS AND IMAGE DISPLAY IRIX/IRAF (and IRAF in general) does not include builtin host level programs for graphics and image display. These are available, but are distributed separately from the main IRAF system so that they may be revised and updated on a different schedule (also there are various alternative graphics and display programs which can be used interchangeably with IRAF). When installing IRAF you should also obtain and install the X11 client applications you wish to use for IRAF graphics and image display. We recommend the X11IRAF package available from the /pub/v2103-beta directory in the IRAF network archives. Prebuilt binaries for IRIX are included for xgterm and ximtool. An IRIX binary for SAOimage can be found in /contrib. The IRAF account login directory ($iraf/local) contains working examples of a console login for IRAF running on an SGI under SGI's 4Dwmrc. Be sure to configure the desktop so that a window automatically gets the focus when the pointer is in the window. This is recommended for the X11IRAF clients xgterm and ximtool, which will by default warp the pointer into the window when a cursor read is initiated. See the UNIX/IRAF Site Manager's Guide for a more complete overview of IRAF graphics and image display under X11. See also the notes under "things to watch out for" below. 3.3 MAGTAPE INTERFACE Magtape devices are interfaced to IRAF by editing the file dev$tapecap. The default version of this file distributed with IRIX/IRAF contains an example (see "ALMOND" at the top of the file) showing a DAT drive on SCSI unit zero. Under "Unit assignments" generic device entries will be found for DAT drives on SCSI units zero and 1, with and without compression. Entries for other devices are easily added. 4. THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR (IRAF) In general V2.10.4-p2 is very similar to earlier V2.10 releases. We do this intentionally since patch releases are mostly to fix bugs and provide system support for new operating systems or compilers. Major new applications or serious changes to existing applications do not appear in the standard distribution until a major release occurs (V2.11 in this case), but most new software is available via layered packages from the IRAF network archives. A recent change worth noting is the syntax of the "set node = hostname" syntax, used to enable remote image display under IRAF networking. The new syntax introduced in this release requires that an exclamation be appended to the node name, e.g. cl> set node = "hostname!" There have also been some changes to the calling sequences of various IRAF tasks: parameter have been added or removed, and so on. Any change like this can break a user script which calls such a task. For a summary of changes to the calling sequences of IRAF tasks see the adass.iraf.announce newsgroup or contact IRAF site support (the adass newsgroups area available directly from iraf.noao.edu via NNTP, via the IRAF Web server, or via email subscription, if your site doesn't carry them locally). 4.1 THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR (X11) A few things to watch out for if you use IRAF with the new X11IRAF utilities. The point here is to mention briefly some of the more common problems or points of confusion people can run into. o Rule number zero is: you must install these applications before you can use them. They are not automatically installed by IRAF as the x11iraf programs are not really part of IRAF per se. The x11iraf applications are conventional X programs that must be installed in your unix X environment like other X programs. Ximtool and xtapemon are standalone and will run with only the executable installed. Xgterm currently requires that the app-defaults file also be installed. An ximtool option is to install the extended colormap directory in /usr/local/lib/imtoolcmap; this will give you more colormaps to work with in ximtool, and a place to easily add your own colormaps. o When using xgterm, be sure you have done an "stty xgterm" first! You can run IRAF under xgterm with stty set to xterm or gterm, but various capabilities will be lost. If plots come up white on black instead of in color, this probably means that you have stty set to xterm. ==> When xgterm is used correctly with V2.10.4, you should get nice colored plots on a color workstation. A black and white plot probably indicates an stty problem. <== o You should have "focus follows mouse" enabled when using the x11iraf programs, because they warp the cursor in and out of windows when entering and exiting cursor mode. For example when using imexamine the cursor is warped into the graphics or image window when you request a graphics or image cursor. If you do not have focus-follows-mouse enabled this can be very confusing. o Be warned that ximtool is NOT saoimage. The SAOimage command line arguments are not recognized by ximtool. In particular, if you are running multiple ximtools on the same workstation, the procedure for doing this is different with ximtool than it is with SAOimage. For example, while ximtool still supports fifos for client-server communications, it also supports two types of sockets and it will listen on all three types of ports for client connections. To run multiple ximtools on a single host you can still set up private fifos and a private graphcap, however with ximtool it is preferable to use sockets, and the private graphcap is no longer needed. For a more complete description of the ximtool client-server i/o system refer to the ximtool.info file available with the program. Further information is available online in the adass.iraf newsgroups, in the IRAF FAQ, or by sending mail to iraf@noao.edu. o Ximtool uses a private colortable to ensure that there are enough colors to display an image. In some circumstances you may see colors change in the displayed image, or in other windows on the same screen, as the mouse is moved in and out of the ximtool image window. This is normal and happens because most workstations can only display a maximum of 256 colors simultaneously on the workstation screen (this is a hardware limitation). Ximtool goes to some trouble to avoid this color flashing and you can avoid the problem by avoiding using ximtool simultaneously with other applications that use a lot of colors, e.g. mosaic, xv, saoimage, and so on. Refer to the ximtool.info file for a more complete discussion of this problem. o Although the image device interface in V2.10.4 will work with any image display server (imtool, ximtool, saoimage, etc.) there is a limitation currently when trying to display remotely to an older version of IRAF. That is, if you run the display task in V2.10.4 and try to display to a remote host that is running an earlier version of IRAF, it won't work. You can workaround this using a private graphcap (or by adding entries to your standard graphcap), if it should be a problem. Contact the IRAF group for details if this is a problem at your site. Don't be scared off by these caveats; basic usage of the new X11 programs is for the most part straightforward and intuitive. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- POST-RELEASE NOTES Thu Jul 11 10:09:47 MST 1996 Look here in the future for notes on any problems found since the patch release. Thu Jul 25 12:50:10 MST 1996 The CL will fail to start up if IRAFARCH is not defined in the user environment. After installing IRAF you should replace the file $iraf/unix/hlib/cl.csh with the version in this directory. A workaround is to define IRAFARCH=irix in your UNIX environment. (e.g. setenv IRAFARCH irix).