Hi folks, The other day a user of ifeffit on linux asked a question that I have seen several times now and so thought it would be prudent to explain the situation on the mailing list. It is fairly easy to get confused about the sequence of how things must be installed when installing ifeffit on a unix machine for the first time. The explanation below only applies to unix users (including, but not limited to, linux users) and does not apply to MS Windows users. (The situation is different for OSX users, as well, as indicated by last week's flurry of email.) When installing this stuff for the first time on a unix machine, the correct sequence is: 1. install pgplot 2. install ifeffit 3. install Atoms, Athena, Artemis, GIfeffit, and/or SixPack The easiest way to install pgplot is to use the PGPLOT_install script that Matt supplies with the ifeffit source code tarball. Just unpack the ifeffit tarball, cd into the build directory, and do ~> sh PGPLOT_install before doing the "./configure; make; make install" incantation. This script will try very hard to fetch the pgplot tarball from the web. Once downloaded, it will unpack it, compile it, and install it automagically. Once this is done, go ahead and install ifeffit. In the future, when you upgrade ifeffit, it should not be necessary to reinstall pgplot (unless, of course, you have done something to change things on your computer in the interim). When pgplot is installed correctly, the "./configure" step on the installation will end with a message that says something like this: === === ifeffit 1.2.1 Configuration Results: === linking to PGPLOT with: -L/usr/local/pgplot -lpgplot -lpng -lz -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lX11 === === ready for next step: type 'make' then 'make install' Note that in the second line it has correctly identified the location of the pgplot installation and its library. It has also identified several other libraries necessary for drawing stuff to the screen under X. If pgplot is not found on your computer, "./configure" will end with a message like this: === === ifeffit 1.2.1 Configuration Results: === linking to PGPLOT with: /home/bruce/codes/ifeffit-1.2.1/src/pgstub/libnopgplot.a === === ready for next step: type 'make' then 'make install' Note that, in this case, the ifeffit library will be linked to something called `libnopgplot.a'. This is a stub that allows ifeffit to continue working as a data analysis tool even in the absence of pgplot. That is, you will still be able to import and export data, do background removals, and so, but you will not be able to plot stuff. This seems like a good decision that Matt made -- that is, it seems appropriate that ifeffit should still be functional even in the absence of pgplot. Athena and Artemis, however, will not function in the absence of pgplot. If pgplot was not found and you did not notice that ifeffit was linking to libnopgplot.a, then you will not realize that there is a problem until *after* you have installed one of the GUIs and tried to run them. At that point, the program will fail with a variety of cryptic error messages like so: Can't load '/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i386-linux-thread-multi/auto/Ifeffit/Ifeffit.so' for module Ifeffit: /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i386-linux-thread-multi/auto/Ifeffit/Ifeffit.so: undefined symbol: pgqndt_ at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.0/i386-linux-thread-multi/DynaLoader.pm line 229. at /usr/bin/athena line 55 Compilation failed in require at /usr/bin/athena line 55. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/bin/athena line 59. The common feature of these error messages is the failure to find symbols that begin with the letters "pg", as in the 5th line of the error message I replicated above. If you run into this situation, the thing to do is to go back to the beginning. Install pgplot and make sure that it got installed correctly. Then build ifeffit *from scratch*. It is not enough just to install pgplot. You MUST rebuild ifeffit after installing pgplot. Once ifeffit it rebuilt, go ahead and install one or more of the GUIs. Again, it is insufficient just to rebuild ifeffit and not to rebuild the GUIs. If you are careful to follow the procedure of installing pgplot, then ifeffit, then GUIs, you should find that everything will work as advertised. And finally, if you have any questions or suggestions regarding installation, don't hesitate to ask them here on the mailing list. If you ask questions on the mailing list, then everyone can benefit by the answer. HTH, Bruce P.S. Carlo Segre is kindly packaging ifeffit into Debian package files. This is a *great* way for people to help out with the ifeffit project without needing to write code. If any of you are users of Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Connectiva, or any other linux distribution (such as the über-cool Gentoo) and wanted to contribute packages guaranteed to work on those systems, that would be great! Just let me or Matt know and we will help you get started. The same would be true for anyone using any of the commercials unixes (Solaris, SGI, etc.) which have their own packaging systems. -- Bruce Ravel ----------------------------------- ravel@phys.washington.edu Code 6134, Building 3, Room 222 Naval Research Laboratory phone: (1) 202 767 5947 Washington DC 20375, USA fax: (1) 202 767 1697 NRL Synchrotron Radiation Consortium (NRL-SRC) Beamlines X11a, X11b, X23b, X24c, U4b National Synchrotron Light Source Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973 My homepage: http://feff.phys.washington.edu/~ravel EXAFS software: http://feff.phys.washington.edu/~ravel/software/exafs/