Linux/IRAF Installation Guide

3. System Checkout

The basic IRAF system should be usable once the files have been restored to disk, the binaries have been configured or generated, and the install script has been run. To verify that the basic system comes up and runs successfully, login as iraf and startup the CL (IRAF command language) from the iraf account. You should be able to login as IRAF and type ``cl'' to start IRAF, using the login files which come with the distributed system.

The IRAF system account for Linux/IRAF has been customized for Linux, and when you log in on the console it should fire up the window system after a few seconds, with the IRAF CL running in an xgterm window and other items such as ximtool and an ADASS news reader available under ``Local Goodie''s in the root menu. This account is intended for IRAF system management and as a working example showing how to use the various system components (and also to provide some immediate graphical gratification as a reward for having installed Linux/IRAF). Normal IRAF use should be done from a user account configured using the examples given with the IRAF system account.

% login iraf
% cl

To more thoroughly test the installation it is a good idea to set up a user account to run IRAF and test IRAF from this user account. To do this you login to a user account and run the mkiraf task to set up the IRAF login files. This will create or initialize the user's uparm (user parameter) directory, and create a new login.cl file. It may also be desirable to edit the user's .login file to modify the way the environment variable IRAFARCH is defined. This variable, required for software development but optional for merely using IRAF, must be set to the name of the desired machine architecture, e.g., linux for the normal Linux/IRAF architecture (see also the discussion of the linuz architecture in the Linux/IRAF README).

% mkiraf
Initialize uparm? (y|n): y
Terminal types: xgterm,xterm,gterm,vt640,vt100,etc."
Enter terminal type: xgterm
A new LOGIN.CL file has been created in the current directory.
You may wish to review and edit this file to change the defaults.

The cl command should now start up the CL, which will clear the screen and print out a startup message. The standard test procedure included in Volume 1A of the IRAF User Handbook should be run to verify the installation.