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Installing IDL or ENVI for UNIX

This section describes how to install IDL or ENVI on UNIX platforms.

Mounting the CD-ROM on Your System

IDL and ENVI for UNIX installation programs are distributed on two CD-ROMs:

Make sure you have the correct CD-ROM for the platform you are installing.

Some platforms automatically mount the CD-ROM when you insert it into your CD-ROM drive. In some cases, you might need to create a /cdrom directory. In most cases, the CD-ROM is mounted as described above.

The following instructions work in most cases for the platform listed. Consult your operating system documentation for instructions on mounting a CD-ROM on your system. Replace CDROM-Dev with the actual name of the CD-ROM drive on your system. Type mounting commands as a single line. On most systems, you must have root permissions to mount the CD-ROM.

Table 3-1: CD-ROM Mounting Commands 

Table 3-1: CD-ROM Mounting Commands 
Platform
CD Mounting Command
Typical CDROM-Device Name
IBM AIX 
mount -r -v cdrfs CDROM-Dev /cdrom  

/dev/cd0
Linux 
mount -o ro -t iso9660 CDROM-Dev /mnt/cdrom  

/dev/cdrom
SGI IRIX 
(automatically mounted as /CDROM/)
SUN Solaris 
(automatically mounted by volume manager as /cdrom)

Remember how your CD-ROM has been mounted, and use this path in place of CDROM-PATH in the installation instructions.

Running the Installer

Follow the steps below to install IDL or ENVI. If you are installing in a public directory, make sure you have root or similar permissions before running the installation script.

  1. Enter the following command at your UNIX prompt:
    2. /bin/sh /CDROM-PATH/xinstall.sh

     

    where CDROM-PATH is the path to your CD-ROM drive.

     

    The License Agreement dialog appears.

     

  2. To continue the installation, you must accept the terms of the license agreement by clicking Yes. The Installation dialog appears.

    3.  

  3. The directory listed next to the Set Directory button is the directory under which the idlxx or envixx directory will be created (where xx is the software version). The default installation directory is /usr/local/itt. The installation directory will be referred to as ITT_DIR for the remainder of the installation and licensing instructions.

    4.  

  4. To change the default directory, click Set Directory. The Select Installation Directory dialog appears. If you do not have write permissions for the selected directory, it appears as gray text. The selected directory will be created for you if it does not already exist.

    5.  

    If you are installing ENVI, and IDL is already installed on your system, you can install ENVI below the IDL distribution. If you want to install ENVI in this location, click Set Directory and choose the directory that contains the idlxx directory (the default location for IDL is /usr/local/itt). If you do not select the same path, another IDL distribution is installed with ENVI.

     

    When you have selected the installation directory and have made sure you have enough disk space, click OK in the Select Installation Directory dialog.

     

  5. In the Installation dialog, the typical installation features are pre-selected. To add a feature to your installation, click the check box to install the feature on your hard drive. To remove a feature from your installation, click to clear the check box.

    6.  

  6. The installer defaults to the platform on which you are running the installation script. Select or deselect platforms by clicking on the check box next to the option in the Installation dialog. Select the appropriate platforms for any machines that will run IDL or ENVI on your network. When installing on a 64-bit machine, both the 32- and 64-bit check boxes will be checked by default.

    7.  

  7. If the options shown in the dialog are correct, click OK. The Installation Summary dialog appears.

    8.  

  8. The Installation Summary dialog displays the options and platforms you have chosen to install. If these selections are correct and you have the required disk space available, click Install to copy the IDL or ENVI files from the CD-ROM to the chosen directory. If these options are not correct, click Cancel to return to the Installation dialog.

    9.  

    If you choose to install the DICOM Network Services module, you will be asked if you want to configure the network services to start automatically at boot time.

     

  9. Set up symbolic links. Once the installation script has finished copying files to the installation directory, the Product Environment dialog appears, prompting you whether or not to create symbolic links.

    10.  

    Symbolic links are shortcuts to the IDL or ENVI executables that you can create in your home directory or in any directory you specify that users can execute to start IDL or ENVI. If you want to create symbolic links, click Create Links. The Product Links dialog appears.

     

    If you choose not to create symbolic links at this time, you can create them after installing IDL or ENVI by doing one of the following:

    • Use the ITT_DIR/idlxx/bin/install (or ITT_DIR/idlxx/products/envixx/bin/install) executable to create the symbolic links for you. ITT_DIR denotes the installation directory. You must execute this script from ITT_DIR. Enter the following command to create the symbolic links:
      • ITT_DIR/idlxx/bin/install

       

      Or,

       

      ITT_DIR/idlxx/products/envixx/bin/install

       

    • Note the commands you will need to execute to manually create symbolic links. These commands are displayed at the end of the installation process.

      •  

      If you choose not to create symbolic links, skip the next step.

     

  10. Choose the directory in which to create the symbolic links. This can be your home directory or any other directory from which you want to start IDL or ENVI. The default directory is /usr/local/bin, which is commonly already in your PATH system environment variable. To change from the default, click the Set Directory button. If you do not have write permissions for the selected directory, it will appear as gray text. The selected directory will be created for you if it does not already exist.

    11.  

  11. If you choose to install ION Script, a Script Web Server Configuration dialog prompts you for the location of your Web server's CGI executables directory. Enter these locations and click OK. Click Cancel if you want to skip this step. You can complete the ION Script configuration at a later time. See Manually Configuring Your UNIX Web Server for more information.

    12.  

  12. If you choose to install ION Java, a Java Web Server Configuration dialog prompts you for the location of the Web server's HTML files and the hostname. Enter this information and click OK. Click Cancel if you want to skip this step. You can complete the ION Java configuration at a later time. See Manually Configuring Your Web Server for more information.

    13.  

  13. To license IDL or ENVI now, click Yes in the Licensing/Registration Program dialog. See Using the License Wizard. You can license IDL or ENVI later by typing ittlicense at the UNIX prompt after running the source commands described in Defining Environment Variables and Aliases.) To license IDL or ENVI later, or to run IDL in seven-minute demonstration mode, click No.

    14.  

  14. The Installation Complete dialog appears. Click Exit.

Unmounting the CD-ROM from Your System

You can now unmount the CD-ROM using one of the following commands, where CDROM-Device is the name of your CD-ROM drive: 

umount /CDROM-Device

Or, 

eject /CDROM-Device

Permissions Error Message

Following is a common error message that may appear while installing IDL or ENVI from a CD-ROM on a Linux system: 

sh /mnt/cdrom/xinstall.sh
/mnt/cdrom/xinstall.sh: 
/mnt/cdrom/install/xinstall/xinstall.linux: Permission denied
/mnt/cdrom/xinstall.sh: 
/mnt/cdrom/install/xinstall/xinstall.linux: Permission denied

This error message usually occurs when the user option (which allows normal users to mount CD-ROMs) is set on the CD-ROM device in /etc/fstab. By default, the user option prevents all users (including root) from executing programs on the CD-ROM, even if the file's execute permission is set. The xinstall program tries to execute programs directly from the CD-ROM, which causes the installation to fail. Perform the following steps to prevent this error:

  1. Unmount your CD-ROM:
    2. unmount /mnt/cdrom

     

  2. Change your /etc/fstab entry to include the exec option, which allows you to execute programs directly from the CD-ROM. For example, the /etc/fstab entry for your CD-ROM drive may resemble the following:
    3. /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 user,ro,exec 0 0

     

    (Root privileges are normally required to alter the /etc/fstab file.)

     

  3. Remount the CD-ROM and proceed with the installation.
    4. mount /mnt/cdrom
sh /mnt/cdrom/xinstall.sh

The name of the CD-ROM device (in this case, /dev/cdrom) and its mount point (/mnt/cdrom) may be different on your system. Consult the manpage for the mount command for a more detailed description of the /etc/fstab file and the options used in this procedure.

  IDL Online Help (March 06, 2007)