On Thursday 11 December 2003 08:57 am, Gleb Pokrovski wrote:

Dear Bruce,

I'm using your nice programs Athena & Artemis (+iffefit+tkatoms) on linux Mandrake 9.1 (2.4.21-0.13mdk), and I currently have 1.2.1, 0.8.020 and 0.6.005 versions of iffefit, athena and artemis, respectively. I would like to update to more recent versions. Not being an expert in linux (but rather a very beginner!), I'm asking myself how the upgrading will happen. On the ifeffit websites I did'nt find any instructions how to upgrade on unix, but probably my questions are quite trivial and silly...

When I installed the above versions I followed the instructions provided with the package (unzip, configure, make, make install...) and these versions and corresponding executables and libraries were built in the default directories /usr/local/.../bin, lib, include etc...

If now I redo these operations with the new packages, do they automatically replace the old files and executables? Or I have to do some preparations before upgrading?

(I already have PGPLOT and perl-Tk (800.024) installed and running)

Hi Gleb, I am always happy to see another linux convert! Your questions are most certainly not silly and trivial. I would be surprised if others would not benefit by my answer. So I am taking the liberty of CCing my response to the mailing list. To answer your principle question -- doing an update is just that. The new version will be written on top of the old version. [1] No further preparation is required. If you are a user of Debian linux, the problem of keeping up-to-date is very simple because Carlo Segre makes installation packages for Debian of ifeffit, atoms, and athena&artemis. No one is currently maintaining packages for other linux distributions, however. Assuming you have PGPLOT and perl/Tk [2] already installed, the updating is explained below. If you need to update both, do ifeffit first, then A&A. If you only need to update A&A, it is not necessary to reinstall ifeffit -- just build and install the new version of A&A on top of the existing version of ifeffit. To update ifeffit: download the latest source code tarball from Matt's website. Unpack it. [3] Next, in a terminal window, go to the directory that got unpacked and type the following three commands: ./configure make make install The last command will require either having root or having sudo permission to install software. To update A&A (on a computer connected to the net): this is very simple. For almost the last year, a program called "horae_update" has been installed alongside A&A. Simply type "horae_update". It will fetch the latest version from my web site, unpack it, build it, and install it. Again, you will need root to actually install it. [4] To update A&A (on a computer not connected to the net): download the latest horae tarball from my web site. Unpack it. [2] In a terminal window, go to the directory that got unpacked and type the following three commands: perl Makefile.PL make make install The last command will require either having root or having sudo permission to install software. I strongly encourage you to learn how to use the horae_update script. It really does make updating A&A much easier. It is a pretty smart script in that it does nothing if the version on my web site is not newer than the version on your computer. This means that you can make horae_update a cron [5] process and have A&A updated automatically. Hope that helps, B Notes: [1] A long time ago (more than a year ago) I was struggling with a bug in perl's build system which resulted in the end user (you!) having to worry about deleting old versions of the ifeffit library before building the new one. This problem was avoided (not solved, just sidestepped) by forcing you to install ifeffit first, then install my programs second. [2] The easiest way to install PGPLOT is to run the "PGPLOT_install" script that comes with the ifeffit package. To install perl/Tk for the first time, grab the tarball for version 800.024 from my web page and do "perl Makefile.PL; make; make install". Some linux distributions (SUSE does, but Red Hat does not) have a package for perl/Tk that you can install from your installation media. [3] At the command line, you can unpack it via the command "tar xvfz". Under KDE, you can use the program Ark, which is what Konqueror suggests for opening the file when you click on it. Under GNOME, File Roller does the same thing. Ark and File Roller both behave somewhat like the popular Windows program "WinZip". [4] Also, the first time you run horae_update, it may need to fetch some additional perl modules from the web. This is automated, but it does require root access. [5] A cron process is one that is scheduled to run periodically. For instance, you could have cron run horae_update every morning at 3 a.m. In that way, the freshest versions of A&A will always be waiting for you along with your morning coffee. Cron may prove a bit daunting for a linux newbie, though. Here's a decent explanation of what it is and how it works: http://www.gdn.net/help/howto/crontab_howto.html There is a KDE program called "kroneko" that serves as a GUI to making cron jobs. A GNOME program of the sort is called "gcrontab". Neither is a default part of the desktop but a google search should turn them up. -- 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 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/