Instruction on downloading and installation of the Atlas software.

UNIX (including linux, solaris, and Mac OSX)

1) Download the source code, which is a tgz (tarred and gzipped) file.

2) To unpack the archive give the command 

tar xvfz atlas.tgz

to unpack the archive. (On Solaris you might need gtar). 

On some systems the file will automatically untar to give a file
atlas.tar, in which case give the command 

tar xvf atlas.tar

3) Now cd to the directory that has been created and give the command

make

and cross your fingers.

4) If all goes well the command atlas, or ./atlas, will run the
program.

If you get some errors about readline see below, or io, try:

make readline=false

to compile without the readline. Some other options are:

verbose=true 
debug=true 
optimize=true 
profile=true 
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Compiling with readline on a Mac (contributed by David Vogan)

readline allows you to recall the previous command with control-p, and
other useful command line shortcuts.

Get readline-5.1.tar.gz, for example from

ftp://ftp.cwru.edu/pub/bash/readline-5.1.tar.gz

Mac automatically unzips.  Put file readline-5.1.tar someplace
convenient.  In a terminal window, go to the directory with this tar
file, and type

  tar -xvf readline-5.1.tar

This will create a new subdirectory "readline-5.1."  Do a cd to that
directory, and type

  ./configure

Type 
  
  make everything

Type

  sudo make install

The Gnu readline library should now be installed on your Mac.

There is a problem when the atlas software is linked: the linker
will find most of the readline commands in someplace like

/usr/lib/libreadline.dylib,

instead of in the Gnu readline library that you just installed, which
lives at

/usr/local/lib/libreadline.5.1.dylib

The difficulty is that the Mac library lacks two or three of the
commands used in the atlas readline, so the linker will refuse to
finish.  I don't know the best or most natural way to fix this.  One
thing which works is to edit the atlas makefile, modifying the line

        rlincludes := -lreadline -lcurses

to read

        rlincludes := -lreadline.5.1 -lcurses

Now the atlas software should link; there will be some warnings that
the symbols UP, PC, and BC were multiply defined, but as far as I can
see they are harmless.
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WINDOWS

1) Download the distribution atlasWindows.zip to your windows
machine. 

2) Right click on the file to extract the archive.

3) Double click on the atlas file to execute.

When you extract the file you create a folder. This contains the
executable atlas.exe. It also contains three necessary dll files. You
must run the executable from a folder containing these files. 
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Getting the help system to work

The help files are located in the subdirectory /messages of the
distribution. For help to work you need to run the program from the
distribution directory. Alternatively you can run it from any
directory, provided it has the messages subdirectory.

To test if help is working, give the command help. You should get
get about six paragraphs of explanation about the software.
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jda@math.umd.edu
