Identifying your system ======================= We'll assume you're using either Mac OS X, or Windows, or Linux. If you're using Mac OS X, you'll be in one of two subgroups: * You'll have Apple's Xcode and the independent MacPorts system installed. Xcode is available at You have to register as an Apple Developer to download it. This is free but requires you to accept a legal agreement with Apple. The latest version of Xcode to work with Leopard is 3.14; more recent versions require Snow Leopard. The MacPorts system is available at This automates the building of Unix-type software on your Mac; it makes it a lot easier to check for dependencies, use more-recent versions of things, and so on. * Or you won't have those installed. (Most Mac users will be in this group.) Then you'll need pre-packaged (and usually pretty GUI) installers for everything. These are great when they're available and kept up-to-date; however those conditions aren't always met. IN EITHER CASE, take note of what version of the Mac OS you're running: "Tiger" 10.4, or "Leopard" 10.5, or "Snow Leopard" 10.6. If you're using Windows, you'll be in one of two subgroups: * You'll have the Cygwin system installed: This puts a Unix-like layer on top of your Windows system, and makes it easier for you to use the same software everybody else will be using, without its needing as much special-for-Windows treatment. However, many of you won't have this installed. * You won't have Cygwin installed. You might in theory have a different group of compilers installed (Microsoft ...), but we'll assume that the overwhelming majority of users in this group don't have access to a compiler and need pre-packaged installers for everything. If you're using Linux, you could be using any one of numerous packaging systems. We'll give examples using the packaging system shared by Debian and Ubuntu, and we'll assume that those of you using different packaging systems will know how to make the relevant substitutions. You may also want to take note of the output of the "uname -srm" command. On my machine this tells me "Linux 2.6.35-ARCH x86_64". That tells me I'm running the x86_64 (as opposed to the i686 or i386 or whatever) version of Linux, and that I'm running kernel version 2.6.35. PLEASE REPORT PROBLEMS (AND SOLUTIONS!) ======================================= 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. Getting Scheme ============== 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. 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.) 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. PLT Scheme had three salient components: the command-line version "mzscheme", a GUI extension "MrEd", and a teaching-friendly editor/front-end "DrScheme". In Racket these have been renamed "racket", "gracket", and "DrRacket", respectively. * Windows: Go to: . Download and install the "Windows x86" version. * Mac/without MacPorts: Go to: . Download and install the option for your system, most likely "Macintosh OS X (Intel)" * Mac/with MacPorts: You can install a command-line version of PLT Scheme (dating from early 2009) by opening a Terminal and typing: sudo port install mzscheme If you want the GUI components, I think you'll need to use the "Mac/without MacPorts" installation options above. Linux users: Use your packaging system, for example, open a Terminal and type: sudo apt-get install plt-scheme It's very likely that your packaging system has some version of PLT Scheme available, so look for it. However, if you can't find it you can also install a pre-packaged binary from the Racket website: Choose the option for your version of Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, and two varieties of Fedora are available) Getting OCaml ============= 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. It's helpful if in addition to OCaml you also install the Findlib add-on. This will make it easier to install additional add-ons further down the road. However, if you're not able to get that working, don't worry about it much. * Windows: Go to:. You can probably download and install the "Self installer for the port based on the MinGW toolchain" even if you don't know what MinGW or Cygwin are. Some features of this require Cygwin, but it looks like it should mostly work even for users without Cygwin. At the time of this writing, only an installer for the previous version of OCaml (3.11.0, from January 2010) is available. To install the Findlib add-on, you must have the Cygwin system installed. We assume few of you do, so we're not going to try to explain how to do this. If you want to figure it out yourself, go to the Findlib website: . * Mac/without MacPorts: To install OCaml 3.12 (just released the summer), go to: and download and install the "Binary distribution for Mac OS X" To install the Findlib add-on, you'll need the Xcode development tools to compile it yourself. Once you get that far, it's probably easiest for you to install MacPorts and just install things using the MacPorts instructions. (Use the MacPorts version of OCaml, instead of installing the package from the caml.inria.fr website, as described above) However, if you do have Xcode, and want to do without MacPorts, then what you need to do is download Findlib from: Unpack the download, open a Terminal and go into the folder you just unpacked, and type: ./configure make package-macosx This will build an installer package which you should be able to double-click and install. * Mac/with MacPorts: you can install the previous version of OCaml (3.11.2, from January 2010), together with the Findlib add-on, by opening a Terminal and typing: sudo port install ocaml caml-findlib * Linux: Use your packaging system, for example, open a Terminal and type: sudo apt-get install ocaml ocaml-findlib That will install a version of OCaml (probably 3.11.2, from January 2010) and the Findlib add-on. If for some reason you can't get OCaml through your packaging system, you can go to: Pre-packaged binary installers are available for several Linux systems. If you can't get findlib through your packaging system, you'll need to download it from: and use gcc to compile it yourself. If you don't know how to do that, you probably don't want to attempt this. Here are the INSTALL notes: