Installation instructions for VisIt ===================================== This document contains instructions for installing VisIt on Windows, MacOS X, and Unix systems. The Windows and MacOS X installation instructions are first, followed by the Unix installation instructions. Windows: ======== 1. Download the visit3.0.0b.exe or visit3.0.0b_x64.exe installer program to your desktop. 2. Double click on the installer program icon to run the installer. 3. Follow the directions provided by the installer. MacOS X: ======== Downloads: 1. Download VisIt-3.0.0b.dmg and copy it to the desktop. 2. Double click on the file to open it. This will cause MacOS to mount the disk image and open it in Finder. 3. Once the disk image is open in Finder, copy the VisIt application to the desktop. 4. Eject the disk image in Finder. 5. Double click on the VisIt application to run VisIt. Unix (gzipped tar file): ======================== 1. Run the visit-install script to install visit. If you have built your own visit binary distribution, you can find the visit-install script in the svn_bin directory. The visit-install script can create a new distribution directory or update an existing distribution. This is handled automatically. chmod 755 visit-install3_0_0b ./visit-install3_0_0b "version" "platform" "directory" where "version" will be 3.0.0b for the current distribution. "platform" will be one of the following: linux-x86_64-rhel6 or linux-x86_64-ubuntu11 depending on the machine. The one you use should match the name of the accompanying distribution file. "directory" is the directory you wish to install visit into. If the directory doesn't exist the script will create it. For example chmod 755 visit-install3_0_0b ./visit-install3_0_0b 3.0.0b linux-x86_64-rhel6 /usr/local/visit will install the linux-x86_64-rhel6, 3.0.0b version of visit in the directory "/usr/local/visit". Note that you will need to have the file "visit3_0_0b.linux-x86_64-rhel6.tar.gz" present in the current directory for this to function properly. 2. Add the bin directory below the installation directory (/usr/local/visit/bin in our example) to each user's search path. The best way to do this is to add it to the user's .cshrc file. The bin directory contains the visit script which starts VisIt. It can be run on many machines. The script determines the type of machine it is running on and starts the appropriate executable. If visit were installed in the directory "/usr/local/visit", then the following commands would set your search path appropriately. cd echo "set path = ($path /usr/local/visit/bin)" >> .cshrc This completes the installation process for VisIt. 3. If you are installing VisIt on a Linux system with an NVidia graphics card, we recommend using the latest driver.