McStas Installation

Before you install McStas, you may try it from our Ubuntu Live-CD. Just burn the CD and reboot your machine. The local system is not affected, all runs from the CD.

The official installation instruction are explained in the install.html file of the distribution.
We recommand, in a few words, the following procedure:

For Linux/Unix:

1. Check that a C compiler is installed (often the case, type 'gcc -v' to check). gcc is perfect.
2. Check that Perl is installed (this is usually the case, 'type 'perl -v' to check)
3. Check that Tk is installed (often the case)
4. Install perl-tk (this is a standard package given with all systems)
5. Install Scilab 4 [http://www.scilab.org or given as a package, scilab 3.1 is buggy]. This may be automated with the ./configure; make install-scilab command (as superuser).
   
6. Optionally: install Matlab
7. Optionally: install a VRML viewer (such as LookAt, FreeWRL, Octaga, ...) [search Google or http://www.rpmseek.com]
8. Optionally: install perl-pdl, perl-ExtUtil-F77, pgplot and perl-pgplot [might be part of the system distribution (Debian)]
   
9. Optionally (alternative): install (from the system distribution) perl-pdl, the X11-dev libraries and (from McStas installation, as superuser) try: ./configure; make install-pgplot
   
10. Optionally: install MPICH
11. Optionally: install Octave and GnuPlot
12. Install McStas: ./configure; make; make install
13. Start McStas with: mcgui
    

For Windows:
The prefered method is to use our automated Windows installer (see the download page), which provides Perl 5.6, Dev-Cpp, Scilab 4.0, VRML Cortona Viewer and McStas. Click 'Next' all the way through.

If you wish to install these tools manually, here is the procedure to follow:

1. Install Dev-Cpp [http://www.bloodshed.net/dev/devcpp.html] then add the C:\Dev-Cpp\bin directory to your PATH.
2. Install Scilab 4 (scilab 3.1 is buggy) [http://www.scilab.org]
3. Install Perl 5.6 from ActiveState (perl 5.8 is buggy) [http://downloads.activestate.com/ActivePerl/Windows/5.6/ActivePerl-5.6.1.638-MSWin32-x86.msi]
4. Optionally: install Matlab
5. Optionally: install a VRML viewer (such as Cortona, Octaga, ...)
6. Install McStas: install.bat
7. Start McStas with: mcgui.pl
   

You may have a look at the FAQ page in case of troubles.

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Last Modified: Tuesday, 14-Oct-2008 15:56:05 CEST