Installation - Linux

Requirements

PGOPHER should run on most recent Linux distributions as is provided the correct libraries are installed, mainly Gnome support libraries. Most calculations will run on any  machine; larger calculations involving multiple states can benefit from more memory or processors. Some features, particularly interactive fits, are much easier with a two or three button mouse rather than a trackpad or touch screen.

Files to Download

The website has various tar files. The main ones are:

• pgopher-x86_64-linux-gtk2.tgz for 64 bit x86 machines. This is the current recommended version; see below for alternatives if this is not suitable.
  
• pgopher_help_v....zip. This is a snapshot of the documentation and sample files

Simply download and unpack the .tgz file using the command line (tar xvf pgopher-x86_64-linux-gtk2.tgz) and run the PGOPHER executable (./pgopher). An executable (tabslave) is also provided for the TabSlave Editor in the tar file, and this should be kept in the same directory as the PGOPHER executable. To use a local copy of the documentation, unzip the pgopher_help_v....zip file in the same directory; this will produce a directory "Help".

If you are using an 32 bit system, or an older 64 bit system then the .tgz file above may not be suitable (an error message about GLIBC may indicate this). Two alternative versions are available in the epel directory, which have been compiled using older library versions:

• pgopher-i386-epel-gtk2.tgz for 32 bit x86 machines
• pgopher-x86_64-epel-6-gtk2.tgz for 64 bit x86 machines

There is little practical difference between the 32 and 64 bit versions, though the 64 bit version can, in principle, handle larger problems.

Usage Notes:

• Interactive fits are much easier with a two button mouse rather than a one button mouse or trackpad.
• If none of the binaries run on your system you may need to compile from source, or email help-pgopher@bristol.ac.uk.
• If a local copy of the help file is not installed, the help menu entries will show the on line files at http://pgopher.chm.bris.ac.uk/Help/.
• If the program looks odd it may be worth trying a different desktop theme.
• Ubuntu 19 and 20 (and possibly other versions): PGOPHER can take 30 seconds to start; this seems to be a problem with Ubuntu; see  https://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=36359 for possible solutions. Clearing the dbus variable before starting PGOPHER also works:
  

  	unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS

  or alternatively use the following one line bash script to start PGOPHER (adjust the 2nd value to be where you have the PGOPHER executable):

  	DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS= $HOME/compiled/pgopher/x86_64-linux-gtk2/pgopher $*