19990420: Unidata McIDAS-X 7.50 installation

>From: Jimmy Mejia <address@hidden>
>Organization: University of Costa Rica
>Keywords: 199904201958.NAA12778 McIDAS-X 7.50 installation

Jimmy,

>I need a little help, so, I am looking if you can help me with something.

No problem, that is what we are here for.

>I am trying to install mcidas in a sun machine (Ultra enterprise 1), but
>like I did not have gcc I installed it (the gcc-2.8.1 version) with g77,
>the only problem is that mcidas does not compile very well with g77,

There are numerous problems trying to use g77 in building McIDAS-X.
I address this in the online documentation:

Unidata McIDAS-X
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/mcx
  Building and Installing Unidata McIDAS-X
  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/mcx/make_mcx.html
    Reviewing System-specific Notes and Warnings
    http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/mcx/warnings_mcx.html
      GNU g77 can NOT be used
      http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/mcx/warnings_mcx.html#g77
      
>I
>made a lot of changes to the mcidas source and finaly I get sucsessfull
>compilataion but when I ran it fall miserably, so, I am trying to comile
>it with the fort77 package, ok, I have 5 days compiling it and still I
>can not install it.

Did you back out of the changes you made to the source code?  This is
the first step that I would take.  I would then:

cd ~mcidas/mcidas7.5/src
make clobber

This will get you back to a known state.

>So, I am looking if you have some version of fort77
>for Sparc machines. If yes, please, get it to me...:)I am so desperate
>installing this package.

Unidata McIDAS-X 7.50 comes bundled with a script that is designed to
be used instead of the fort77 Perl script.  This script, mcfc, is
created at the first stages of the McIDAS build from a template file,
mcfc.sh.  In order to use this script, you will need to make one change
in the McIDAS makefile.  This change is described in

gcc/f2c Users
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/mcx/warnings_mcx.html#gcc

This section talks about using gcc/f2c in a Linux or Solaris x86 environment,
but in actuality the same thing should work for Solaris SPARC (although
I havn't tried it).

>Other question is,  I will need mcidas in the sun machine (the one with
>ldm) for to change format of data for the the mcidas clients in the Linux
>box, right?

You will need to run the decoding portion of Unidata McIDAS-X to create
data files that are usable by other machines running McIDAS (includes,
but is not limited to Linux).  The decoding component of Unidata McIDAS
is the McIDAS-XCD package.

Please refer to:

McIDAS-XCD
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/mcx/mcidas-xcd.html

for details on building, installing, and configuring McIDAS-XCD.
Before you worry about this, however, I would make sure that you
have a clean McIDAS build, and that you have no problems running the
basic McIDAS applications.

>My question is if mcidas has to be running all the time like
>the ldm or ldm only use the mcidas rutines for to change format of data.

The only McIDAS routines that will need to be running continuously are
those that decode the raw data in the IDD into McIDAS-compatible
files.

>I will apreciate very much any help that you can give me.

Please let me know if the information above doesn't help you get going.

Tom Yoksas

>From address@hidden  Tue Apr 20 15:21:35 1999
--On Mon, Apr 19, 1999 12:50 PM -0700 Vilma Castro
<address@hidden> wrote:

> I hope you had a good trip back home, I thank you again for all the
> efforts to make this project come true.

Vilma, I enjoyed working with you and Jimmie, and I'm excited about having
an active Unidata site at the University of Costa Rica.

> I have to be sure I understood  this: you said that McIdas has to be in
> the machine to transform the data that comes through LDM to McIdas
> format, though McIdas is not necessarily running (answer yes or no).

All of the McIDAS software should be present in the computer with LDM, but
there is no need for an ongoing McIDAS session.  Each of the XCD decoders
runs independently (launched by the LDM), creating its own McIDAS
environment as needed.  I'm copying address@hidden on this
message so the experts can correct me if necessary!

> This is important because if there are other people using the machine,
> when they use their own accounts, they will close McIdas.

Users should be able to start and stop McIDAS sessions (running in parallel
with the LDM) and not interfere with data reception or data decoding,
assuming they do not turn off the computer.

> I forgot to tell you that the machine is only temporarily where you saw
> it, it will be moved to another room and the IP address will have to be
> changed. I'll let you know when we are ready.

I think our LDM configuration refers to the computer's name rather than its
IP address, so things should work ok soon after your nameserver advertises
the new IP address.

> Remember about Direct PC and Hughes? Can you find somebody to find out
> its geographical coverage?

I'll try to find out about their southern extents, but I may not get to it
until next week.

> Regards, Vilma.

Thanks for hosting us so nicely and including me in the seminars.

Best regards,
Dave

P.S.  We keep records (that often are quite useful) of our question and
answer interactions with users; this all happens through
address@hidden so I would appreciate it if any future messages of
a technical nature be addressed to support (Cc'd to me as you please).