PREREQUISITES ============= GiNaC requires the CLN library by Bruno Haible, available from either one of the following FTP-sites: * , * or * . You will also need a decent ANSI-compliant C++-compiler. We recommend the C++ compiler from the GNU compiler collection, GCC >= 3.0. If you have a different or older compiler you are on your own. Note that you may have to use the same compiler you compiled CLN with because of differing name-mangling schemes. 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 on x86, Alpha and Sparc using GCC 3.0.x, 3.1 and 3.2. Known not to work with: - GCC 2.96 or earlier because proper exception and standard library support is missing there. 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 an Athlon/800MHz with "enough" memory: step | GCC optimization | comment | -O1 | -O2 | --------------+---------+---------+---------------------------------------- make | ~6m | ~8m | shared and static library make check | ~8m | ~12m | largely due to compilation COMMON PROBLEMS =============== Problems with CLN ----------------- You should use at least CLN-1.1, since during the development of GiNaC various bugs have been discovered and fixed in earlier versions. Please install CLN properly on your system before continuing with GiNaC. Problems with building ginsh ---------------------------- The most common reason why this doesn't succeed is the absence of libreadline and/or the corresponding header files. Depending on what your system/distribution is, you will have to install a package called libreadline and maybe libreadline-dev. If your system's vendor doesn't supply such packages, go to and compile it yourself. Problems with missing standard header files ------------------------------------------- Building GiNaC requires many standard header files. If you get a configure error complaining about such missing files your compiler and library are probably not up to date enough and it's no worth continuing.