Prerequisites
=============

GiNaC requires the CLN library by Bruno Haible, available at
<ftp://ftp.santafe.eu/pub/gnu/> or <ftp://ftp.ilog.fr/pub/Users/haible/gnu/>.
You will also need a good C++ compiler adhering to the ANSI standard (we 
used gcc for development so if you have a different compiler you are on 
your own).


Installation
============

As with any autoconfiguring GNU software, installation is as easy as this:

 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ make check
[become root if necessary]
 $ make install

Known to work with:
  - Linux/x86, EGCS-1.1.2 or GCC 2-95.1/2-95.2

The "configure" script can be given a number of options to enable and
disable various features. For a complete list, type:

 $ ./configure --help

A few of the more important ones:

 --prefix=PREFIX        install architecture-independent files in PREFIX
                        [defaults to /usr/local]
 --exec-prefix=EPREFIX  install architecture-dependent files in EPREFIX
                        [defaults to the value given to --prefix]
 --disable-shared       suppress the creation of a shared version of libginac

More detailed installation instructions can be found in the documentation,
in the doc/ directory.

The time the "make" step takes depends heavily on optimization levels.
Large amounts of memory (>128MB) will be required by the compiler,
also depending on optimization.  To give you a rough idea of what you
have to expect the following table may be helpful.  It was measured on
a P-III/500MHz with "enough" memory:

step:         | value of $CXXFLAGS:   | comment:
              | -O0   | -O1   | -O2   |
--------------+-------+-------+-------+-------------------------------
make          | ~4m   | ~6m   | ~10m  | building shared and static lib
make check    | ~2m   | ~2m   | ~7m   | mostly due to compilation


Problems with CLN
=================

You should use at least CLN V1.0.2, since all earlier ones are
somewhat buggy.  Even V1.0.1 has a few problems and GiNaC will not
support older versions.  Please install it properly on your system
before continuing with GiNaC.
