Installation instructions for VisIt ===================================== This document contains instructions for installing VisIt on both Unix and Windows systems. The Unix installation instructions are first followed by the Windows installation instructions. Unix and Mac OS X: 1. Run the visit-install script to install visit. Note that it can create a new distribution directory or update an existing distribution. This is handled automatically. visit-install "version" "platform" "directory" where "version" will be 1.4.3 for the current distribution. "platform" will be one of the following: aix, darwin, irix6, linux, osf1, or sunos5 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 visit-install 1.4.3 irix6 /usr/local/visit will install the irix6, 1.4.3 version of visit in the directory "/usr/local/visit". Note that you will need to have the file "visit1_4_3.irix6.tar.gz" present in the current directory for this to function properly. You can install multiple binaries into the same directory. For example, you could then execute visit-install 1.4.3 linux /usr/local/visit to add a linux, 1.4.3 version of visit to the same directory. 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 NVidia 4363 driver or newer. Below are notes on the various NVidia Linux drivers. 2802 - Not recommended. It has a triangle shading bug. 2960 - Doesn't support stereo rendering, but no critical bugs. 3123 - Does support stereo rendering, but it may not render large numbers of polygons when using display lists. You can turn off display lists by bringing up the "Rendering options" window and deselecting the "Use display lists" toggle button. 4191 - Not recommended. VisIt either crashes your X server or puts up a visualization window that never gets refreshed. 4363 - Recommended. There are no known critical bugs with this or newer drivers. Windows: 1. Copy the file visit1.4.3.exe to your desktop. 2. Double click on the visit1.4.3.exe icon to run the installer. 3. Follow the directions provided by the installer.