Hi Stefano, Sorry for the incomplete instructions and not emphasizing some of the important points of the Unix shell. I believe Paul answered most of this, and it seems like you've either got it working or are close, but I'll answer anyway:
2. install Perl/Tk from source: 2.1 download Tk-804.027.tar.gz from a CPAN site ~> wget http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-authors/id/NI-S/Tk-804.027.tar.gz
QUESTION: is there a directory where I should download the file and then follow up with the subsequent instructions?
No, it doesn't matter. Using a temporary directory that you later delete would be fine: ~> mkdir MyTemp ~> cd MyTemp ~> wget http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-authors/id/NI-S/Tk-804.027.tar.gz ~> tar xvzf Tk-804.027.tar.gz ~> cd Tk-804.027 ~> ### change pTk/mTk/tixGeneric/tixHList.c as earlier instructions ~> perl Makefile.PL ; make ~> sudo make install ~> cd.. ~> wget http://cars9.uchicago.edu/ifeffit/src/ifeffit-1.2.5.tar.gz ~> tar xvzf ifeffit-1.2.5.tar.gz ~> cd ifeffit-1.2.5 ~> ./configure --prefix=/Applications/Ifeffit ## NOTE leading './' !!! ~> make ~> sudo make install ~> . /Applications/Ifeffit/bin/iff_init.sh ## NOTE leading '.' for bash ~> source /Applications/Ifeffit/bin/iff_init.csh ~> horae_update --force ~> cd .. At this point, you can delete the MyTemp whole folder it. Or you could keep the *.tar.gz files in case anything goes wrong (never!) and just delete the Tk-804.027 and ifeffit-1.2.5 folders.
another QUESTION: are there any files I should delete and from which directory before doing the whole thing from scratch?
No, everything should be overwritten as needed.
Aquaterm and 1.2.5??
With ifeffit-1.2.5a for Mac OS X, the Aquaterm plotting should work 'out of the box'. The Aquaterm device is now the default device as it has several advantages over the X11 device.
Also: Is the question related to which Tk/perl version I should have installed still valid? It is not clear, from your web page, whether the comments for the Linux installation are also related to the OSX.
To be honest, I'm not sure. I think we might have to wait for Bruce on this one. As far as I understand it, some of the artemis bugs were related to the Perl/Tk versions and to the tixHList bug, but I'm not sure all of them were. Hope that helps, --Matt