1 Identifying your system
2 =======================
4 We'll assume you're using either Mac OS X, or Windows, or Linux.
6 If you're using Mac OS X, you'll be in one of two subgroups:
7 * You'll have Apple's Xcode and the independent MacPorts system
10 http://developer.apple.com/technologies/tools/xcode.html
11 You have to register as an Apple Developer to download it. This
12 is free but requires you to accept a legal agreement with Apple.
13 The latest version of Xcode to work with Leopard is 3.14; more
14 recent versions require Snow Leopard.
16 The MacPorts system is available at
17 http://www.macports.org/
18 This automates the building of Unix-type software on your Mac; it
19 makes it a lot easier to check for dependencies, use more-recent
20 versions of things, and so on.
22 * Or you won't have those installed. (Most Mac users will be in this group.)
23 Then you'll need pre-packaged (and usually pretty GUI) installers for
24 everything. These are great when they're available and kept up-to-date;
25 however those conditions aren't always met.
27 IN EITHER CASE, take note of what version of the Mac OS you're running:
28 "Tiger" 10.4, or "Leopard" 10.5, or "Snow Leopard" 10.6.
31 If you're using Windows, you'll be in one of two subgroups:
32 * You'll have the Cygwin system installed:
33 http://www.cygwin.com/
34 This puts a Unix-like layer on top of your Windows system,
35 and makes it easier for you to use the same software everybody
36 else will be using, without its needing as much special-for-Windows
37 treatment. However, many of you won't have this installed.
39 * You won't have Cygwin installed. You might in theory have
40 a different group of compilers installed (Microsoft ...), but
41 we'll assume that the overwhelming majority of users in this group
42 don't have access to a compiler and need pre-packaged installers
45 If you're using Linux, you could be using any one of numerous packaging
47 We'll give examples using the packaging system shared by Debian and Ubuntu,
48 and we'll assume that those of you using different packaging systems will know
49 how to make the relevant substitutions. You may also want to take note of the
50 output of the "uname -srm" command. On my machine this tells me "Linux
51 2.6.35-ARCH x86_64". That tells me I'm running the x86_64 (as opposed to the
52 i686 or i386 or whatever) version of Linux, and that I'm running kernel
57 PLEASE REPORT PROBLEMS (AND SOLUTIONS!)
58 =======================================
60 We haven't tested these instructions ourselves, and they're not explicit step-by-step instructions in any case. If you encounter troubles, please email to let us know so that we can amend the instructions to help others. If you figure out how to fix the problem youself (and please do), please also write with suggestions how we can change these instructions to make the process easier and more straightforward for others.
66 Scheme is one of the two major dialects of Lisp. It's more clean and minimalistic than the other dialect, and is what's mostly used in academic circles.
68 Scheme itself has umpteen different "implementations", which share a large common base, but differ slightly in what commands you use to print, inteact with the filesystem, tell the compiler to include one source file inside another, and so on. One major implementation used to be called PLT Scheme, and this is what we recommend you use. (If you're already using or comfortable with another Scheme implementation, though, there's no compelling reason to switch.)
70 We say this "used to be called" PLT Scheme, because they just changed their name to "Racket." Not "Racket Scheme," just "Racket." Since the name change is so recent, you're likely to run across both sets of names.
72 PLT Scheme had three salient components: the command-line version "mzscheme", a GUI extension "MrEd", and a teaching-friendly editor/front-end "DrScheme".
73 In Racket these have been renamed "racket", "gracket", and "DrRacket", respectively.
76 http://racket-lang.org/download/
77 Download and install the "Windows x86" version.
79 Mac/without MacPorts: Go to:
80 http://racket-lang.org/download/
81 Download and install the option for your system, most likely "Macintosh
84 Mac/with MacPorts: You can install a command-line version of
85 PLT Scheme (dating from early 2009) by opening a Terminal
87 sudo port install mzscheme
88 If you want the GUI components, I think you'll need to use the
89 "Mac/without MacPorts" installation options above.
92 Use your packaging system, for example, open a Terminal and
94 sudo apt-get install plt-scheme
96 It's very likely that your packaging system has some version of
97 PLT Scheme available, so look for it. However, if you can't find it you
98 can also install a pre-packaged binary from the Racket website:
99 http://racket-lang.org/download/
100 Choose the option for your version of Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, and two
101 varieties of Fedora are available)
107 Caml is one of the two major dialects of ML. The other dialect is SML and has several implementations. Caml has only one active implementation, OCaml, developed by the INRIA academic group in France.
109 It's helpful if in addition to OCaml you also install the Findlib add-on.
110 This will make it easier to install additional add-ons further down the road.
111 However, if you're not able to get that working, don't worry about it much.
116 http://caml.inria.fr/download.en.html
117 You can probably download and install the
118 "Self installer for the port based on the MinGW toolchain"
119 even if you don't know what MinGW or Cygwin are.
120 Some features of this require Cygwin, but it looks like
121 it should mostly work even for users without Cygwin.
122 At the time of this writing, only an installer for the previous
123 version of OCaml (3.11.0, from January 2010) is available.
125 To install the Findlib add-on, you must have the
126 Cygwin system installed. We assume few of you do,
127 so we're not going to try to explain how to do this.
128 If you want to figure it out yourself, go to the
130 http://projects.camlcity.org/projects/findlib.html
132 Mac/without MacPorts:
133 To install OCaml 3.12 (just released the summer), go to:
134 http://caml.inria.fr/download.en.html
135 and download and install the "Binary distribution for Mac OS X"
137 To install the Findlib add-on, you'll need the Xcode development tools
138 to compile it yourself. Once you get that far, it's probably easiest
139 for you to install MacPorts and just install things using the MacPorts
140 instructions. (Use the MacPorts version of OCaml, instead of installing
141 the package from the caml.inria.fr website, as described above)
142 However, if you do have Xcode, and want to do without MacPorts, then
143 what you need to do is download Findlib from:
144 http://download.camlcity.org/download/findlib-1.2.6.tar.gz
145 Unpack the download, open a Terminal and go into the folder you just
149 This will build an installer package which you should be able to
150 double-click and install.
152 Mac/with MacPorts: you can install the previous version of OCaml (3.11.2,
153 from January 2010), together with the Findlib add-on, by opening a Terminal
155 sudo port install ocaml caml-findlib
157 Linux: Use your packaging system, for example, open a Terminal and
159 sudo apt-get install ocaml ocaml-findlib
160 That will install a version of OCaml (probably 3.11.2, from January 2010)
161 and the Findlib add-on.
163 If for some reason you can't get OCaml through your
164 packaging system, you can go to:
165 http://caml.inria.fr/download.en.html
166 Pre-packaged binary installers are available for several Linux systems.
168 If you can't get findlib through your packaging system, you'll
169 need to download it from:
170 http://download.camlcity.org/download/findlib-1.2.6.tar.gz
171 and use gcc to compile it yourself. If you don't know how to
172 do that, you probably don't want to attempt this.
173 Here are the INSTALL notes:
174 https://godirepo.camlcity.org/svn/lib-findlib/trunk/INSTALL