E.4 Windows installation instructions

For the impatient:

• If you run Windows NT/2K/XP, make sure you are logged in with the Administrator rights.
• If you have some older version of Singular installed, please uninstall it before installing Singular-2-0-4. It is recommended to install the new Singular in the same directory where the previous version was installed. Thus your existing environment will be used automatically.
• If you have Cygwin or XEmacs installed and they do not belong of some previous Singular installation, please read the information below.
• Execute the self-extracting installation archive and carefully follow the instructions given there. Setup will analyze your system, create the corresponding configuration and give you further tips on the installation process.
• In case of troubles, see the installed files /etc/INSTALL.txt, /etc/TROUBLESHOOTING.txt or visit the Singular Forum at http://www.singular.uni-kl.de/forum.

Installation preliminaries

Running Singular on MS Windows requires that the Cygwin DLL (dynamically linked library) version 1.3.9 or higher is installed on your system (see http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/ for details about Cygwin). We install and configure Cygwin version 1.3.9 automatically, if the BasicCygwin component is selected (default setting).

To run ESingular (i.e. Singular within its Emacs interface) on MS Windows requires furthermore that the XEmacs editor is installed on your system. We install and configure XEmacs version 21.1.13 automatically, if the XEmacs component is selected.

The Singular installation is divided into the following components (you see them explicitly if you choose the Custom Setup Type during the installation):

Program Files:

Singular

Contains the Singular Program, documentation and example files.
All files of this component are installed under the directory /usr/local/Singular/2-0-4

BasicCygwin

Contains the Cygwin DLL and basic tools/programs (like bash or info) of the Cygwin environment.
The Cygwin DLL and programs are installed in the directory /bin. Miscellaneous documentation and configuration files are installed into the directory /etc.

XEmacs

Contains the Cygwin port of the XEmacs editor (see http://www.xemacs.org for more about XEmacs) version 21.1.13.
All files of this component are installed under the directory /usr/local.

ESingular

Contains the ESingular, the most comfortable Singular interface. Requires XEmacs to run.

Remark:

All essential DLLs, some programs and symbolic links are installed in the directory /usr/local/Singular/2-0-4/ix86-Win, which must be present in your PATH system variable.

Help Files:

WinHelp

Contains Singular Manual, converted to Windows help format (.hlp). We recommend to install it, because it is small in size. Moreover, we set it as default help browser in all the Singular executables.

HTML Help

Contains the "native" Singular Manual. It’s not included by default, because it is much bigger than WinHelp, though it has better typesetting of mathematical formulae.

The Typical Setup Type of the Singular-2-0-4-Typical.exe contains BasicCygwin, Singular, XEmacs, ESingular, WinHelp and HTML Help components. The Compact Setup Type does not contain only the HTML Help component.

Downloading preliminaries

To install Singular on a PC running Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP, you need to download one of the following archive files:

Minimal archive: Singular-2-0-4-Compact.exe (BasicCygwin, Singular, WinHelp components)

Typical archive : Singular-2-0-4-Typical.exe (BasicCygwin, Singular, XEmacs, ESingular, WinHelp, HTML Help components)

You can obtain these (and other) archives either from the WINDOWS directory on the Singular CD or from

ftp://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/pub/Math/Singular/.

Installing Singular

The recent Setup program analyzes your system, e.g. it detects whether Cygwin and XEmacs are present and functional. Then it gives you hints and/or error messages with instructions during the installation.

If you have Cygwin installed

If the version of cygwin1.dll is not less than 1.3.9, you will be prompted that the BasicCygwin component will not be installed. Moreover, the existing Cygwin root directory will be proposed as the default installation directory. You can accept it, then Singular will be placed into the existing Cygwin environment. If you choose another destination, Singular will use Cygwin programs anyway. If your Cygwin has incorrect settings (like inconsistent mount points among the important ones), Singular Setup will correct them.
If setup could not detect cygwin, present in the system, you can try to break the installation, start it once more, choose the "Custom" setup type and unselect the BasicCygwin component.

If you have XEmacs installed

The Cygwin port of XEmacs version 21.1.13 together with the most important packages is included in the distribution. The use of non-Cygwin ports or earlier Cygwin ports has some quirks and does not work properly together with Singular (i.e., running ESingular results in problems). Nevertheless, if you want to test the compatibility of ESingular with your own XEmacs, just de-select the XEmacs component, but leave ESingular selected. If your XEmacs happens to be incompatible with ESingular, you can install just the XEmacs component and use in fact two different XEmacs programs. The setup program will search for XEmacs and packages in <TARGETDIR>/usr/local/lib (here <TARGETDIR> is the directory which you selected while running setup). If you have Cygwin and the Cygwin port of XEmacs, you might have XEmacs installed there. To avoid overwriting your XEmacs files, setup will ask you what to do.

Customizing Singular

The following step(s) are optional:

• To conveniently access all files on your computer, mount the drives of your disk(s):
  1. Open a rxvt terminal (from Start->Programs->Singular 2.0->Tools).
  2. For each drive (letter) issue the following command (the drive C: is used in the example):

     mount -f -s -t C: /C

  After mounting the drive(s) this way, you can conveniently access the files on a drive from the bash shell and from XEmacs using the /C/ prefix. Otherwise, you need to type /cygdrive/C - that is the Cygwin convention. You can get more information on mount command by invoking mount --help. Command umount unmount the selected mount point.

• Create your personal HOME directory.
  Various applications (e.g., bash or XEmacs) store user-specific configuration/customization files in the HOME directory of the current user. During the installation, the HOME directory is globally set for all users to /home/Singular. To create your individual HOME directory follow these steps:
  1. Create a directory (folder), say, C:\home\MyHome.
  2. Copy all files from /home/Singular to C:\home\MyHome.
  3. Set the user environment variable HOME to C:\home\MyHome:
     On Windows 95/98/ME, edit the respective line the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
     On Windows NT/2K/XP add an entry in your Environment control panel.
  4. Restart your computer (On Windows 95/98/ME).

  You may furthermore examine the files copied into your HOME directory and adjust (i.e. edit) them to your personal preferences/needs. System-wide settings are stored in the file /etc/profile.

Uninstalling Singular

You can uninstall individual or all installed components by opening the Software shortcut of the Control panel. Simply double-click the Singular item and follow the instructions given there.

For any other troubles, please send an email to singular@mathematik.uni-kl.de and include the header which is displayed by starting up Singular with the -v option, and a description of your machine and operating system.