Linux

This guide is intended to provide installation instructions on several Linux Distributions. It begins with a list of dependencies required for each distribution and concludes with instructions for installing RST. If you do not see you Linux distribution or version please create an issue on GitHub page and we can help and add it into our installation guide.

If you run into any problems with installing RST please create an issue addressing your problem and the error message you recieve. The community will then help you with solving your problem and add it into our troubleshooting section to help other future users.

Table of Contents:

  1. Library Requirements
    1. Debian
    2. Mint
    3. OpenSuse
    4. Ubuntu
    5. Fedora
    6. CentOS
    7. CDF Library
  2. Installation
  3. Troubleshooting

Library Requirements

Warning

sudo privileges needed to install the various libraries If you do not have sudo privileges please contact the system administrator of your system to install the follow libraries for your distribution.

Ubuntu

16.04 18.04 20.04
libhdf5-serial-dev libhdf5-serial-dev libhdf5-serial-dev
libncurses-dev libncurses-dev libncurses-dev
libnetcdf-dev libnetcdf-dev libnetcdf-dev
libpng12-dev libpng-dev libpng-dev
libx11-dev libx11-dev libx11-dev
libxext-dev libxext-dev libxext-dev
netpbm (10.77.03_2+x11) netpbm (10.77.03_2+x11) netpbm (10.77.03_2+x11)
    build-essential

Installation line: Ubuntu 16.04

sudo apt-get install libhdf5-serial-dev libncurses-dev libnetcdf-dev libpng12-dev libx11-dev libxext-dev netpbm

Ubuntu 18.04

sudo apt-get install libhdf5-serial-dev libncurses-dev libnetcdf-dev libpng-dev libx11-dev libxext-dev netpbm

Ubuntu 20.04

sudo apt install libhdf5-serial-dev libncurses-dev libnetcdf-dev libpng-dev libx11-dev libxext-dev netpbm build-essential

Now install the CDF library

Debian

8.7
gcc
libhdf5-serial-dev
libnetcdf-dev
libncurses
libpng12-dev
libx11-dev
libxext-dev
netpbm

Debian 8.7

sudo apt-get install gcc libhdf5-serial-dev libnetcdf-dev libncurses libpng12-dev libx11-dev libxext-dev netpbm

Now install the CDF library

Mint

Mint 20.2
libc6-dev
libncurses5-dev
libnetcdf-dev
libpng-dev
libx11-dev
libxext-dev
netcdf
netcdf-devel

Mint 20.2

apt install libc6-dev libncurses5-dev libnetcdf-dev libpng-dev libx11-dev libxext-dev

Now install the CDF library

OpenSuse

OpenSUSE 42.2/Leap 15.0
gcc
hdf5-devel
libpng16-devel
libX11-devel
libXext6
libXext-devel
netpbm
ncurses-devel
zlib-devel

OpenSUSE 42.2/Leap 15.0

sudo zypper install gcc hdf5-devel libpng16-devel libX11-devel libXext6 libXext-devel netcdf netcdf-devel ncurses-devel zlib-devel

Now install the CDF library

Fedora

25 to 29
hdf5-devel
ncurses-dev
netcdf
netcdf-dev
libpng-devel
libx11-devel
libxext-devel
libext
zlib-devel

Fedora 25 to 29

sudo dnf install hdf5-devel libpng-devel libX11-devel libXext libXext-devel netcdf netcdf-devel ncurses-devel zlib-devel

Now install the CDF library

CentOS

6.10 7
libhdf5 hdf5-devel
libnetcdf ncurses-devel
libcurses netcdf-devel
libpng12 netcdf
libX11 libpng12-devel
libXest libx11-devel
netpbm libxext
zlib libxext-devel
_ zlib-devel

CentOS 6.10

sudo yum install libhdf5 libnetcdf libcurses libpng12 libX11 libXest netpbm zlib

CentOS 7

sudo yum install hdf5-devel libpng12-devel libX11-devel libXext libXext-devel netcdf netcdf-devel ncurses-devel zlib-devel

Now install the CDF library

CDF Library

You will also need the CDF (Common Data Format) library which can be downloaded from NASA.

Note

Make sure you successfully installed the ncurses library for your distribution first.

You can find the latest release at: http://cdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/

For Opensuse you will need to make a symlink lcurses library to libncuses (recommended) or modify the CDF Makefile.

Example installation for Ubuntu/Mint

From the above site, navigate to the linux directory and download the file cdf[XX_X]-dist-cdf.tar.gz, where XX_X is the version number of the latest release.

Unpack and install the package (see README.install for more information):

tar -xzvf cdf[XX_X]-dist-cdf.tar.gz
cd cdfXX_X-dist
make OS=linux ENV=gnu all
make test
sudo make INSTALLDIR=/usr/local/cdf install

You can now delete the cdfXX_X-dist directory and the tar.gz archive.

Now go to the Installation

TroubleShooting:

If you find any problems/solutions, please make a github issue so the community can help you or add it to the documentation

Problem

Error: curses.h not found

Solution

  • (Recommended) To make a symlink from lncurses library to lcurses; run the following commands in the terminal:

    ln -s /usr/lib64/libncurses.so /usr/lib64/libcurses.so
ln -s /usr/lib64/libncurses.a /usr/lib64/libcurses.a

  • To modify the Makefile change the following:
    CURSESLIB_linux_gnu=-lcurses to CURSESLIB_linux_gnu=-lncurses
    CURSESLIB_linux_gnu32=-lcurses to CURSESLIB_linux_gnu32=-lncurses
    CURSESLIB_linux_gnu64=-lcurses to CURSESLIB_linux_gnu64=-lncurses

Installation

  1. Obtaining RST software:

    • Download the official release with a citable DOI from Zenodo (recommended for most users)
    • Clone from Github (for developers): git clone https://github.com/superdarn/rst/

  2. Check RST environment variables: Open rst/.profile.bash using your preferred text editor: OSTYPE="linux" SYSTEM="linux"

Open rst/.profile/base.bash to check paths are correctly set:

XPATH, NETCDF_PATH, CDF_PATH To check if the paths are set correctly locate the following header files: For NETCDF_PATH locate netcdf.h For CDF PATH locate cdf.h

  • If you have IDL, check to see that IDL_IPATH in rst/.profile/idl.bash is correct. (Note: for users without access to IDL, modifying the IDL_IPATH environment variable is not required).

  • Load the RST environment variables. Open and edit your ~/.bashrc file to include:

    # bash profile for rst
export RSTPATH="INSTALL LOCATION"/rst
. $RSTPATH/.profile.bash

where the INSTALL LOCATION is the path with the RST repository that has been copied to your computer. In order to load the environment variables you just setup, you'll need to close your current terminal and open a new terminal, or from the command line type:

   source ~/.bashrc

  1. Run make.build from the command line. You may need to change directory to $RSTPATH/build/script. This runs a helper script that sets up other compiling code.

  2. In the same directory run make.code to compile all of the code. This runs a script to find all of the source codes and compile them into binaries. A log of this compilation is stored in $RSTPATH/log.

Compiling HTML Documentation

To compile the html documentation, run make.doc from the command line. You may need to modify the URLBASE environment variable in $RSTPATH/.profile/rst.bash for the links in the html pages to function correctly. Online documentation is available at:

https://superdarn.github.io/rst/index.html

Troubleshooting

If you find any problems/solutions, please make a github issue so the community can help you or add it to the documentation

Without IDL

Error

make.code fails with the error upon the inability to locate idl_export.h.

Solution cd $RSTPATH/codebase/superdarn/src.lib/tk tar -P -czvf idl.tar.gz idl rm -rf idl cd $RSTPATH/build/script make.code

Error If the order of make.code is executed incorrectly, you will see an error upon the inability to locate a header file (i.e. sza.h). If this happens (using sza.h as an example):

Solution

find $RSTPATH -name "sza.h"
>> $RSTPATH/codebase/imagery/src.lib/sza.1.9/include/sza.h
cd $RSTPATH/codebase/imagery/src.lib/sza.1.9/src
make clean
make
cd $RSTPATH/build/script
make.code