MacOSX

Downloading a disk image

To determine which downloadable disk image to download, you need to know:

• which version of MacOS you are running (10.4, 10.5, or 10.6)
• which architecture your machine is (powerpc, i386 (Intel Core Duo), or x86_64 (Intel Core 2 Duo))

You can find that information by choosing "About this Mac" under the Apple menu. The disk images for 10.4 should work on 10.5, but the versions for 10.5 do not work on 10.4! The disk images for 10.5 should work on 10.6.

Here are the downloadable disk images; the name of the file incorporates the architecture and Mac OS version number, as explained above.

After downloading

For Mac OS X 10.5 and later, remember to run the following command on the dmg file you download with a browser before opening it, or else each time you open one of its html files later with a browser, you will be warned by the browser with a pop-up dialogue box.

    xattr -d com.apple.quarantine Macaulay2*.dmg

If the system responds "No such xattr: com.apple.quarantine", then the file had not been quarantined, and everything should be fine.

Alternatively, you could have used something like the following command to download the file, without quarantine.

    curl http://www.math.uiuc.edu/Macaulay2/Downloads/MacOSX/Macaulay2-1.3.1-x86_64-MacOS-10.5.dmg -o Macaulay2-1.3.1-x86_64-MacOS-10.5.dmg

Installation

Next, mount the disk image by double-clicking on it. Then drag the Macaulay2 folder in it to somewhere else on your disk. One good location is your system Applications folder, at the top level on your main disk.

Set up

Now arrange for Macaulay2 to set up your .emacs files and your command shell init files so that M2 will be on the path.

The easiest way to set up these files is to do the following in a Terminal window (the Terminal application is found in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder. You might want to drag this application to your dock too).

First run the 'setup' command in Macaulay2 this way, replacing the path /Applications/Macaulay2-1.3.1 appropriately:

    /Applications/Macaulay2-1.3.1/bin/M2
          setup()  -- Type these lines inside Macaulay2.
                   -- Answer any questions.
          exit

After you log out and in again, your PATH will have Macaulay2's bin directory on it. The 'setup' routine will modify (some of) your shell command init files (such as .profile, .bashrc, .login, .cshrc), and your .emacs file. The existing files are backed up first. It also writes a file .profile-Macaulay2 in your home directory which does the actual work including putting M2 on your path. Once again, a backup is created first, if the file already exists.

This allows you to run Macaulay2 by typing:

      M2

at a terminal command line, to access the info and man pages, and to use the Macaulay2 emacs interface.

Try it out

See the file ReadMe-MacOSX.txt for further installation instructions.

Compiling from Sources

When the fink version of Macaulay2 is available (eventually), the instructions in ReadMe-MacOSX-fink.txt for compiling Macaulay2 from source code will apply. It will be slower than downloading a disk image, as described above.