1 ## Identifying your system ##
3 We'll assume you're using either Mac OS X, or Windows, or Linux.
5 If you're using **Mac OS X**, take note of what version of the Mac OS you're
6 running: "Tiger" 10.4, or "Leopard" 10.5, or "Snow Leopard" 10.6. Furthermore,
7 you'll be in one of two subgroups:
9 * You'll have Apple's Xcode and the independent MacPorts system
13 <http://developer.apple.com/technologies/tools/xcode.html>.
14 You have to register as an Apple Developer to download it. This
15 is free but requires you to accept a legal agreement with Apple.
16 The latest version of Xcode to work with Leopard is 3.14; more
17 recent versions require Snow Leopard.
19 The MacPorts system is available at
20 <http://www.macports.org/>.
21 This automates the building of Unix-type software on your Mac; it
22 makes it a lot easier to check for dependencies, use more-recent
23 versions of things, and so on.
25 * Or you won't have those installed. (Most Mac users will be in this group.)
26 Then you'll need pre-packaged (and usually pretty GUI) installers for
27 everything. These are great when they're available and kept up-to-date;
28 however those conditions aren't always met.
31 If you're using **Windows**, you'll be in one of two subgroups:
33 * You'll have the Cygwin system
34 <http://www.cygwin.com/> installed.
35 This puts a Unix-like layer on top of your Windows system,
36 and makes it easier for you to use the same software everybody
37 else will be using, without its needing as much special-for-Windows
38 treatment. However, many of you won't have this installed.
40 * You won't have Cygwin installed. You might in theory have
41 a different group of compilers installed (Microsoft Visual C++) but
42 we'll assume that the overwhelming majority of users in this group
43 don't have access to a compiler and need pre-packaged installers
46 If you're using **Linux**, you could be using any one of numerous packaging
49 * We'll give examples using the packaging system shared by Debian and Ubuntu,
50 and we'll assume that those of you using different packaging systems will know
51 how to make the relevant substitutions. You may also want to take note of the
52 output of the "uname -srm" command. On my machine this tells me "Linux
53 2.6.35-ARCH x86\_64". That tells me I'm running the x86\_64 (as opposed to the
54 i686 or i386 or whatever) version of Linux, and that I'm running kernel
59 ## PLEASE REPORT PROBLEMS (AND SOLUTIONS!) ##
61 We haven't tested these instructions ourselves, and they're not explicit
62 step-by-step instructions in any case. If you encounter troubles, please email
63 to let us know so that we can amend the instructions to help others. If you
64 figure out how to fix the problem youself (and please do), please also write
65 with suggestions how we can change these instructions to make the process
66 easier and more straightforward for others.
71 **Scheme** is one of two major dialects of *Lisp*, which is a large family of
72 programming languages. The other dialect is called "Common Lisp." Scheme is the
73 more clean and minimalistic dialect, and is what's mostly used in academic
76 Scheme itself has umpteen different "implementations", which share most of
77 their fundamentals, but have slightly different extensions and interact with
78 the operating system differently. One major implementation used to be called
79 PLT Scheme, and has just in the past few weeks changed their name to Racket.
80 This is what we recommend you use. (If you're already using or comfortable with
81 another Scheme implementation, though, there's no compelling reason to switch.)
83 Since the name change is so recent, you're likely to run across both sets of names.
85 PLT/Racket stands to Scheme in something like the relation Firefox stands to HTML. It's one program among others for working with the language; and many of those programs (or web browsers) permit different extensions, have small variations, and so on.
87 PLT Scheme had several components. The two most visible components for us
88 were the command-line interpreter "mzscheme" and a teaching-friendly editor/front-end "DrScheme". In
89 Racket these have been renamed "racket" and "DrRacket",
93 * **To install in Windows**
95 Go to <http://racket-lang.org/download/>. Download and install the "Windows x86" version.
97 * **To install on Mac without MacPorts**
99 Go to <http://racket-lang.org/download/>. Download and install the option for your system, most likely "Macintosh
102 * **To install on Mac with MacPorts**
104 You can install a command-line version of
105 PLT Scheme (dating from early 2009) by opening a Terminal
108 sudo port install mzscheme
110 If you want the GUI components, I think you'll need to use the
111 "Mac/without MacPorts" installation options above.
113 I recommend also typing:
115 sudo port install rlwrap
117 then if you ever use the command-line program `mzscheme` (or `racket`), you should start it by typing `rlwrap mzscheme`. This gives
118 you a nice history of the commands you've already typed, which you can scroll up and down in with your
121 * **To install on Linux**
123 Use your packaging system, for example, open a Terminal and
126 sudo apt-get install plt-scheme
128 It's very likely that your packaging system has some version of
129 PLT Scheme (or Racket) available, so look for it. However, if you can't find it you
130 can also install a pre-packaged binary from the Racket website at <http://racket-lang.org/download/>.
131 Choose the option for your version of Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, and two
132 varieties of Fedora are available).
134 As above, I recommend you also type:
138 then if you ever use the command-line program `mzscheme` (or `racket`), you should start it by typing `rlwrap mzscheme`. This gives
139 you a nice history of the commands you've already typed, which you can scroll up and down in with your
145 **Caml** is one of two major dialects of *ML*, which is another large family of
146 programming languages. The other dialect is called "SML" and has several
147 implementations. But Caml has only one active implementation, OCaml or
148 Objective Caml, developed by the INRIA academic group in France.
150 It's helpful if in addition to OCaml you also install the Findlib add-on.
151 This will make it easier to install additional add-ons further down the road.
152 However, if you're not able to get that working, don't worry about it much.
155 * **To install in Windows**
157 Go to <http://caml.inria.fr/download.en.html>.
158 You can probably download and install the
159 "Self installer for the port based on the MinGW toolchain"
160 even if you don't know what MinGW or Cygwin are.
161 Some features of this require Cygwin, but it looks like
162 it should mostly work even for users without Cygwin.
163 At the time of this writing, only an installer for the previous
164 version of OCaml (3.11.0, from January 2010) is available.
166 To install the Findlib add-on, you must have the
167 Cygwin system installed. We assume few of you do,
168 so we're not going to try to explain how to do this.
169 If you want to figure it out yourself, go to the
170 Findlib website at <http://projects.camlcity.org/projects/findlib.html>.
172 * **To install on Mac without MacPorts**
174 To install OCaml 3.12 (just released this summer), go to
175 <http://caml.inria.fr/download.en.html>
176 and download and install the "Binary distribution for Mac OS X"
178 To install the Findlib add-on, you'll need the Xcode development tools
179 to compile it yourself. Once you get that far, it's probably easiest
180 for you to install MacPorts and just install things using the MacPorts
181 instructions. (Use the MacPorts version of OCaml, instead of installing
182 the package from the caml.inria.fr website, as described above)
183 However, if you do have Xcode, and want to do without MacPorts, then
184 what you need to do is download Findlib from
185 <http://download.camlcity.org/download/findlib-1.2.6.tar.gz>.
186 Unpack the download, open a Terminal and go into the folder you just
192 This will build an installer package which you should be able to
193 double-click and install.
195 * **To install on Mac with MacPorts**
197 You can install the previous version of OCaml (3.11.2,
198 from January 2010), together with the Findlib add-on, by opening a Terminal
201 sudo port install ocaml caml-findlib
203 As with Scheme, it's helpful to also have rlwrap installed, and to start OCaml as `rlwrap ocaml`. This gives
204 you a nice history of the commands you've already typed, which you can scroll up and down in with your
208 * [More details about installing OCaml on Macs, if needed](http://cocan.org/getting_started_with_ocaml_on_mac_os_x)
210 * **To install on Linux**
212 Use your packaging system, for example, open a Terminal and
215 sudo apt-get install ocaml ocaml-findlib
217 That will install a version of OCaml (probably 3.11.2, from January 2010)
218 and the Findlib add-on.
220 If for some reason you can't get OCaml through your
221 packaging system, you can go to
222 <http://caml.inria.fr/download.en.html>.
223 Pre-packaged binary installers are available for several Linux systems.
225 If you can't get findlib through your packaging system, you'll
226 need to download it from
227 <http://download.camlcity.org/download/findlib-1.2.6.tar.gz>.
228 and use gcc to compile it yourself. If you don't know how to
229 do that, you probably don't want to attempt this.
230 Here are the INSTALL notes:
231 <https://godirepo.camlcity.org/svn/lib-findlib/trunk/INSTALL>.
233 As with Scheme, it's helpful to also have rlwrap installed, and to start OCaml as `rlwrap ocaml`. This gives
234 you a nice history of the commands you've already typed, which you can scroll up and down in with your