Installation instructions¶
There are different ways to get Box and Boxer running on your machine:
- Using a package manager: use the package manager of your distribution;
- Installation from source: can be done easily on Unix platforms (Linux, Mac OS) and somewhat less easily on Microsoft Windows platforms;
- Installation on Windows: just a matter of downloading a zip archive. The executable can be used immediately after unzipping the archive.
Using a Package manager¶
Box and Boxer can be found in the package repositories of a number of distributions:
- Fink (Mac OS) (unstable);
- Arch Linux
- FreeBSD: Box, Boxer
Other useful links:
Installation from source¶
Box¶
Download the tarball from http://sourceforge.net/projects/boxc. This is usually a file with name such as box-X.Y.Z.tar.gz, where X.Y.Z are the major, minor and patch version numbers. Untar and configure the package with:
tar xzvf box-0.3.1.tar.gz
cd box-0.3.1
./configure --prefix=/usr
configure outputs a summary at the end. Be sure it looks like that:
Configuration summary:
----------------------
Support for the Cairo 2D graphic library: yes
If you get a "no" then check that the Cairo graphics library http://www.cairographics.org is installed on your system together with the development files. On Ubuntu and Debian derivatives, you can install it with:
sudo aptitude install libcairo libcairo-dev
You should enter the root password when necessary for the installation to proceed. Reconfigure the package with ./configure --prefix=/usr in case you had to install the Cairo development files. You can then start the compilation process with:
make
If the compilation is succesful:
sudo make install
The Box executable, libraries and headers are installed on your system. You can take a look at the man page with:
man box
Further help and hints with the installation can be found in the README and INSTALL files inside the package.
The manual is online at http://boxc.sourceforge.net. If you need further help, take a look at the
Boxer¶
Download the tarball from http://sourceforge.net/projects/boxc. This is usually a file with name such as boxer-X.Y.Z.tar.gz, where X.Y.Z are the major, minor and patch version numbers. Make sure that PyGTK and pygtksourceview are installed on your system. On Ubuntu 11.10 you can install them using:
apt-get install python-gtk2 python-gtksourceview2
Untar and install the package with:
tar xzvf boxer-0.3.5.tar.gz
cd boxer-0.3.5
sudo python setup.py install
Boxer needs Box to run properly. If you installed it into a system path, then it should be able to find it automatically, otherwise you may have to specify where it should be found. For example:
boxer --box-exec=/home/myname/local/bin/box
Next time you start Boxer, you can do it simply by typing boxer as Boxer will remember the path to the Box executable, if it could run it.
Note for installation in /usr/local¶
If you install to /usr/local you must make sure that libraries in /usr/local/lib are found by the linker. On Ubuntu 11.10, installation on /usr/local requires this:
bash
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
boxer --box-exec=/usr/local/bin/box
You can alternatively modify your /etc/ld.so.conf file, to add the directory /usr/local/lib to the list used for resolving libraries.
Note that the problem does not arise when you install to non-standard locations. For example, if you install with --prefix=/home/myname/local then Box will work out of the box. This is because, /home/myname/local is recognized as a non-standard location and flags are added during the compilation to cope with this (-rpath). In contrast, /usr/local/lib is a standard location and system is expected to look inside it (this is how autoconf behaves by default).
Note for installation on Mac OS¶
If you compiled Box from source on Mac OS and you experience problems when loading libraries (-l g seems not to work as it should), try to reconfigure Box with the additional option --with-included-ltdl, such as:
./configure --prefix=/usr --with-included-ltdl
and then compile it again. This should force the use of the provided ltdl (libtool) library and should fix the bug.
Installation on Windows¶
Download the zip file from http://sourceforge.net/projects/boxc. This is usually a file with name such as boxer-0.3.2.zip. Unzip the archive. You’ll find the Boxer executable in boxer-0.3.2\boxer.exe. Double click on the file and the Boxer windows should appear.
The manual is online at http://boxc.sourceforge.net. If you need further help, take a look at the provided examples.
