I've made a new release of the Autoconfed version of ROOT, based on ROOT
2.21.08, which incorporates all of the feedback and bug reports that
I've received since the initial release. The new release is ROOT
2.21.08.02, meaning that it is based on ROOT 2.21.08, and is the second
release with GNU Autoconf support.
Disclaimer: Remember that the Autoconfed version of ROOT is beta
software, and is not yet officially supported by the ROOT
team. The only reason you would want to use it is if you
need ROOT on a platform that isn't currently officially
supported by the ROOT team, or if you just like the idea of
building your own version of ROOT from scratch.
Don't download and use this version of ROOT if all you want
to do is run ROOT, and there is already a version of ROOT
for your platform. However, if you want to help out the
Autoconf effort, or want to get ROOT running on a currently
unsupported platform, or if you just like being on the
bleeding edge, then this version is for you.
In principal this release should bootstrap itself on all of the Unix
platforms that is officially supported by ROOT, and perhaps even alot
more platforms. However, I have only tested it on x86/Linux, but it has
been reported to work on Solaris and AIX as well. If you give it a try,
please report your successes and/or failures.
Documentation concerning the aspects of adding GNU Autoconf, Automake
and Libtool support to ROOT can be found in the files ANNOUNCE, HACKING,
README, TODO in the top-level directory. You will want to take a look
at these files if you want to help out the ROOT/Autoconf effort.
This release also has the WinNT support almost working. The Automake
rules are in place, thanks to some help from Valery Fine. The only
known outstanding problem (although there could be, and probably are,
many unknown problems) is that the `include/TWin32System.h' header file
is missing from the original ROOT distribution. If you have this file
(or can get your hands on it), and you know enough Automake to edit
`lib/Makefile.am' to enable the Win32 support, then this release just
might build on a WinNT system with Cygwin installed. If you try it, I
would like to know any problems you encounter.
As a test, as well as a proof of concept, I always build i386 RPMS of
the Autoconfed version of ROOT using the tarball from `make distcheck'
(a pretty good test of the system), since GNU Automake makes this so
easy. Everything (ROOT tarball, i386 RPMS, SRPMS and .spec file) is
available from:
ftp://ftp.slac.stanford.edu/users/langston/root/
If you want to give ROOT a spin on x86/Linux and you have RPM installed,
you can try the following 3 commands:
$ rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.slac.stanford.edu/users/langston/root/root-2.21.08.02-1.i386.rpm
$ rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.slac.stanford.edu/users/langston/root/root-docs-2.21.08.02-1.i386.rpm
$ rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.slac.stanford.edu/users/langston/root/root-examples-2.21.08.02-1.i386.rpm
Although you should normally get FreeType and Mesa from your favorite
RedHat mirror, I had to build these RPMS anyway to test ROOT, so you can
grab them too if you wish:
$ rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.slac.stanford.edu/users/langston/root/Mesa-3.0-2.i386.rpm
$ rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.slac.stanford.edu/users/langston/root/freetype-1.2-1.i386.rpm
$ rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.slac.stanford.edu/users/langston/root/freetype-demo-1.2-1.i386.rpm
$ rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.slac.stanford.edu/users/langston/root/freetype-devel-1.2-1.i386.rpm
Enjoy :-)
-- Matthew D. Langston SLD, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center langston@SLAC.Stanford.EDU