Installing Arc on Unix/Linux

Version 1.06 of Arc was released on July 19, 2004. These installation notes were slightly revised on March 5, 2007, but are fundamentally unchanged from 2004.

If you have already installed Arc Version 1.04, we recommend that you install version 1.06. You may also need to get an updates file; consult http://www.stat.umn.edu/arc/update.html for more information.

  1. Arc REQUIRES Xlisp-Stat 3.52.2 or more recent (the current version as of July 19, 2004 is 3.52.18). If you do not have version 3.52.2 or more recent installed on your Unix/Linux system, get Xlisp-Stat and instructions for installing it.
  2. Download the file arc.shar, or arc.shar.gz, which is a compressed Unix/Linux shar file that should be uncompressed with the Unix command
         % gunzip arc.shar.gz
  3. Decide on a directory to store the program. We recommend
         % mkdir /APPS/lib/Arc 
  4. Move the uncompressed file to the directory you have selected
         % mv arc.shar /APPS/lib/Arc/.
  5. Type the Unix commands
         % cd /APPS/lib/Arc
         % /bin/sh arc.shar
  6. Unless you used /APPS/lib/Arc, you will need to edit arcinit1.lsp to have the right path. In arcinit1.lsp, edit the line
         (defparameter *home-path* "/APPS/lib/Arc/") 
    to have the correct path. Do not forget the final "/"! To be sure that you have changed every instance of APPS, you can use the following commands (thanks to Goran Arnoldsson):
         % rm arc.shar
         % grep /APPS *
    
    This will give you a listing of any occurrences of /APPS that have not been changed, and you can change them.
  7. Some users have reported problems with setting permissions (particularly with Red Hat Linux) for Arc and xlispstat directories. Be sure to set permissions so anyone can read these directories.
  8. The next step is to create a workspace. Be sure you have write permission in the directory you are using; if you are using /APPS/lib/Arc, you will probably need to be logged-in as root. One user reported that when installing Arc with Xlispstat-3.52.18 on Debian Linux you must have access to the X server when creating the workspace, or you get a segmentation fault. It does work fine if you have access to the X server. Then, type
         % xlispstat savews.lsp 
    where xlispstat starts Xlisp-Stat (and so may be different on your system). This will create a file arc.wks in the current directory that is the workspace file for Arc.
  9. The file arc is a shell script that will start Xlisp-Stat using the workspace you have created. You will need to edit this file to get the right command for starting Xlisp-Stat (if it is other than the default of xlispstat), and also to get the correct path if
         RCLIB=/APPS/lib/Arc 
    is not correct. Copy the file arc to /usr/local/bin or some equivalent place, and make sure that it is public and executable (e.g., chmod ugo+x arc). Arc can now be started by any user by typing
         % arc 
    If you run Xlisp-Stat under emacs, you may want to modify arc, probably by changing xlispstat to whatever you use to start Xlisp-Stat under emacs. If you find that this shell script doesn't work, and you fix it, please send email to arc@stat.umn.edu.
  10. The directory Extras has a text file and a file updates.lsp that is initially empty. Any file ending in .lsp or .fsl in this directory will be loaded (in alphabetical order) every time that Arc is run. For example, if the file getpic.lsp is in this directory, then it will be loaded for all users. If an updates.lsp file is released, it should replace the dummy file in this directory. Check http://www.stat.umn.edu/arc/update.html for the most recent updates.lsp file.
  11. Users may have a private Extras directory as a subdirectory from the directory in which Arc is started. The user's local Extras file takes precedence over the global directory, if files of the same name appear in both.
  12. The directory Extras-home contains a few files that some users may wish to load (such as getpic.lsp, which is used to produce LaTeX output from graphs). These files can be moved to the global Extras directory, or users can link to them in their local Extras directory. Additional extras are available from http://www.stat.umn.edu/arc/addons.html.
  13. After you are sure all this works, you can remove the file arc.shar and also the sub-directory Arc that contains all the .fsl files. The directory Data contains lots of data files.

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