This archive contains answers to questions sent to Unidata support through mid-2025. Note that the archive is no longer being updated. We provide the archive for reference; many of the answers presented here remain technically correct, even if somewhat outdated. For the most up-to-date information on the use of NSF Unidata software and data services, please consult the Software Documentation first.
Ward, I am sending the GEMPAK download information directly to you in response to an inquiry from Ka Kit Lai. Since the return address for Ka Kit Lai was a hotmail.com address, I prefer to send passwords directly to the university. The information you need to download gempak is: host: ftp.unidata.ucar.edu login: gbuddy passwd: XXXXXX Please record the above information for your records. Here are the general source download and building instructions. If you are running Solaris x86 or Linux, you can download binary distributions for these platforms. In particular, GEMPAK requires Motif which is not part of Linux (must be purchased separately), so you would likely need to download the binary distribution. The source distribution for building on your Sparc 20 is found under ~gbuddy/nawips-5.4/gempak54upc_pl12.tar.gz The current tar file is patched through patch level 12. To build Gempak from source, download and unpack the distribution into a clean directory. Edit the csh file Gemenviron in the top directory and define the NAWIPS environmental variable to be the directory you unpacked into. Source the Gemenviron variables into your csh environment to define $NAWIPS and all the tree locations relative to NAWIPS. Then, if your system is standard configuration for Solaris, Solaris for Intel (X86) IRIX, OSF/1, AIX, Linux, HPUX- you should be able to just type "make all", followed by "make install" when the compilation finishes. If you have libraries in non-standard places, then the $NAWIPS/config/Makeinc.xxxxx file for your OS would have to be modified. You should not modify the optimization levels since some compilers don't work well with aggressive optimization. Documentation for GEMAPK can be found as postscript files under the $NAWIPS/doc/User_Guide directory, as well as online at: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/gempak/tutorial/ All users that use Gempak should source Gemenviron into their csh environment to define the Gempak variables and add the executable directory into their path. Once the distribution is installed, you can edit the data directory locations defined in Gemenviron- but thats not a priority for building. Please let us know how we can assist you in getting set up. Steve Chiswell