19990910: verifying McIDAS installation instructions

>From: McIDAS Root <address@hidden>
>Organization: UVa
>Keywords: 199909101517.JAA04125 McIDAS-X 7.6 install

Jennie,

>I built McIDAS7.6 a while ago, but then got too busy to
>deal with testing/installing etc.  I was going to test it
>out today, but I have a question:

But, you have a question... ;-)  (feeling a little playful this morning)

>The web instructions state:
>----
>The user mcidas will need to complete the steps below to test
>Unidata McIDAS-X 7.60 before installing it.
>
>Throughout this document, we assume that the HOME directory for
>the user mcidas is /home/mcidas. If your setup is
>different, substitute the HOME directory for your user mcidas for
>/home/mcidas. 
>
>The example actions in the following all use C-Shell syntax. 
>
>1. Verify that no McIDAS-X sessions are running as the user
>mcidas. 
>
>2. Define the MCDATA, MCPATH, and MCGUI environment variables: 
>
>     Type: setenv MCDATA /home/mcidas/mcidas7.6/data
>     Type: setenv MCPATH
>/home/mcidas/mcidas7.6/data:/home/mcidas/mcidas7.6/src
>     Type: setenv MCGUI  /home/mcidas/mcidas7.6/src
>
>3. Add the /home/mcidas/mcidas7.6/src directory your PATH: 
>
>     Type: setenv PATH /home/mcidas/mcidas7.6/src:$PATH
>------

The idea here was to setup the needed environment variables temporarily
so that the new executables could be tested.  These definitions should
not be put in the shell environment file (i.e. .cshrc for C shell and
.profile and/or .kshrc for Bourne/Korn shells).

>Since I have real-time things happening on windfall, that I would
>just as soon not mess up, am I safe in doing this.

Sounds entirely reasonable.

>I believe I
>am, because the user ldm runs the real-time work, and defines its
>mcidas environment through the batch file batch.k.

Exactly.

>Therefore, if
>I change the definition of environment variables MCDATA, MCPATH,
>etc., as user mcuser

'mcuser'?  You mean 'mcidas' I hope.

>and the ldm or a cron kicks off some process at the 
>same time, don't we both proceed to work with our own environment
>definitions?  

Yes.  They are separate and should not intefere with each other.

>Once I test this, I will want to install 7.6 as we talked about before, 
>using the version control runtime links, so we can keep the
>old version running and migrate over to the new version gradually.

Yes, this is how I would do things.

Tom