Since I am a ’smarty’ when it comes to installing software, I have nothing better to do than solving in 2 days problems that could normally be solved in 10 minutes. If you read my last post in the series “STScI Internship”, you’ll find out that I had the brilliant idea of uninstalling Python from my computer. I was running Fedora 8 when the idea hit me, so it hit me hard – after uninstalling Python, my operating system was completely screwed!
In any case, after installing Fedora 9, I had to reinstall all my software. Fortunately, most programs can be installed from Add/Remove Software. Not IDL. And although IDL is very easy to install if you take 5 minutes to read the instructions… well, let’s say that is a step I usually skip. Years of Windows might have taken their toll (parents, keep your kids away from windows!).
So for other lazy people out there, here are the steps you should follow for a correct/fast installation of IDL 6.3 (this is the one for which I have the license) on Fedora 9.
1. Open a terminal.
2. Login as root with su -.
3. Go to /usr/local/ by typing cd /usr/local/.
4. Create a folder called “rsi” with mkdir rsi.
5. Enter the folder using cd rsi.
6. Download IDL 6.3 Virtual Machine – Linux package from here and save it in /usr/local/rsi. I have an Intel Centrino Duo, so I have downloaded the 64-bit package.
7. The package is a *.tar.gz, so use gunzip <packagename.tar.gz> and then tar -xvpf <packagename.tar> to unpack.
8. Run the installation by typing ./install.
9. Give users the permission to run the program. If you are the only one using the computer (my case) you may type chmod 751 /home/local/rsi or chmod 764 /home/local/rsi.
10. Go here and, if you are on 64-bit, download “X.Org X11 libXp runtime library Fedora 9 for x86_64″ (libXp-1.0.0-11.fc9.i386.rmp). Otherwise download the appropriate package for 32-bit. Save this wherever you want, let’s say /home/georgiana/Download.
11. Navigate to this folder and then type rpm -ivh libXp-1.0.0-11.fc9.i386.rpm.
12. Copy the IDL license to /usr/local/rsi/license/.
13. Run IDL either at the command line with idl or in interactive mode with idlde.
Now the errors you might get…
E1 –||– The current directory must be set to the RSI directory. Change the default to the RSI directory and re-run this script.
S1 –||– You have installed the program in a wrong directory. You have to reinstall it in /usr/local/rsi.
E2 –||– /usr/local/rsi/idl_6.3/bin/bin.linux.x86/idl: error while loading shared libraries: libXp.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.
S2 –||– You miss the X.Org X11 libXp runtime library. Download and install it as explained at points 10-11 above.
E3 –||– If you are getting E2 twice (almost the same error, but appearing twice)…
S3 –||– … then you might have installed the wrong IDL distribution, e.g. 32-bit instead of 64-bit.
