Ferret Home Page
Ferret Installation and Update Guide
Ferret for Windows
Welcome to the release
of the windows port of Ferret.
All of the functionality
of the Unix versions is included (with the exception of external
functions and the Motif user interface).
NOTE: Windows XP requires a more
recent version of Cygwin than is bundled into the V5.53 Ferret for win32. For
now, XP users must continue to use v5.51 of Ferret. As soon as a updated cygwin
environment is installed, and Ferret and it's dependent libraries are ported,
we will officially release a newer version of Ferret for windows XP. We apologize
for any inconvenience.
Hardware requirements
- Pentium or better
processor recommended.
- 64 MB of memory.
- Disk Space:
- 35 MB free disk
space without example datasets
- 65 MB free disk
space with example datasets
Software requirements
- Win2000, WinNT
4.0, Win 95/98 or Windows ME. Note that this release has only
been extensively tested on Win2000, Service Pack 1
- A running X server.
Installation
- If you have a
previous installations of Ferret, it is a good idea to uninstall
it (via the add/remove programs in the control panel) before
proceeding with the new install. NOTE: This will NOT remove any
datasets that have been stored in $FER_DIR/fer_dsets.
- Download the appropriate
ferret zip file from the Ferret Executables link on the download page
for your operating system, either
Windows XP or Win32.
Put it into a temporary directory (C:\TEMP, for instance). This directory and it's
contents may be removed after installation.
- Unzip the files
in ferret.zip (though we can't endorse it, WinZip
works well).
- Run setup.exe.
This will lead you through the InstallShield installation process
- If the installation
is successful, a Ferret icon should appear on your desktop.
- (Optional) Download
ferret_data.zip,
unzip the files and run setup.exe. This will install data files
required for the Ferret demo scripts.
- Double click on
the Ferret icon. A new console window will appear.
- By default, the
console window will start up in the cygwin /tmp directory. This
is equivalent to the DOS c:\tmp directory.
- You must have X server software installed
on your PC. See the FAQ document
Getting started with Ferret on a PC for more information. There is a related FAQ at What kind of X Windows environment do I need to run Ferret?. Make sure you
have started your X server. Set up your DISPLAY environment variable.
This tells Ferret the location of the X server. If you are running
X on the same machine as Ferret, type the following:
setenv DISPLAY :0.0; export DISPLAY
- Type:
ferret
and press the Enter or Return key.
- Type:
go ptest
and press the Enter or Return key.
You should see a window appear with a "spirograph"
plot.
X server notes
- If a graphics
window that was obscured by another window appears to be fully
or partially blank after the obscuring window is moved, or if
the graphics in a window are drawn incorrectly after the window
is resized, then try typing:
set mode refresh
in Ferret, and redrawing the graphic.
- The X display
must be set for indexed color (a.k.a. PseudoColor) -- maximum
65K colors.
Differences from
Unix version
The Win32 port of
Ferret was developed with the Cygnus GNU Win32 tools. These tools
emulate a Unix environment on a PC running Windows NT or Windows95/98.
However, there are a few differences:
- Pathnames
The Unix version of ferret allows you to specify full pathnames:
use "/home/foo/coads.cdf"
You must use DOS style pathnames in the Win32 version of Ferret:
use "c:\home\foo\coads.cdf"
Multiple paths are separated by the semicolon character rather
than the space character; see Configuration for more info.
- Bash shell
When you start up the Ferret environment by double clicking on
the desktop Ferret icon, you are running the Bash shell. If you
are used to Unix, this shell allows you to use some familiar
Unix commands; for instance, ls and grep are supported.
Unfortunately, path names in the bash shell are specified differently
than in Ferret. A drive is specified with two forward slashes
('//') , and directories are specified with one forward slash
('/'). So, to look for the file with the DOS path c:\home\foo\coads.cdf:
ls //c/home/foo/coads.cdf
Note that you can use DOS pathnames, but all backward slashes
must be replaced with two backward slashes, i.e.:
ls c:\\home\\foo\\coads.cdf
Configuration
The Win32 version
of Ferret uses the same environment variables as the Unix version.
Default values of these are defined in the file:
<InstallationDir>/ferret.sh
(Note: the default value of <InstallationDir> is //c/Program\
Files/Tmap).
If you wish to change
the values of the environment variables , you should not
edit this file, as it will be overwritten if you install a new
version of Ferret. Instead, follow the following procedure (on
Windows NT):
- Click on the Start
button and select Settings->Control Panel.
- Double click on
the System icon.
- Click on the Environment
tab.
- Add a User Variable
named HOME that points to a directory where your startup file
will be located. For instance, if you want HOME to be in D:\foo,
type HOME in the Variable field, and D:\foo in the Value field.
- Click Set
- Click OK
- Create a file
named .bashrc with a text editor, and add the appropriate commands.
If you wanted your data search path to include the directories
foo and bar on drive d, you would add the following line to this
file:
FER_DATA="d:\foo;d:\bar"
export FER_DATA
Note that paths are separated by semicolons. Also note that you
must use DOS paths in your environment variables.
Your display variable can also be set in this file:
DISPLAY=foobar:0.0
export DISPLAY
Possible Win95/98
and Windows ME Problems
- Error: Out of Environment
Space
- This error occurs
when a DOS window attempts to start up the bash shell in order
to run Ferret. The solution, which follows, is taken from the
Microsoft web page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q230205/:
Modify the Environment for a Specific MS-DOS Program
To increase the default environment space for a specific MS-DOS program,
follow these steps:
1.Right-click the MS-DOS program icon (in this case the Ferret icon),
and then click Properties.
2.On the Memory tab, type or click the number of kilobytes (in this case 4096KB)
the program requires in the Initial Environment box, and then click OK.
Questions and feedback
Please direct any
questions and/or feedback to the
Ferret users list
Comments:
oar.pmel.contact_ferret@noaa.gov
Last modified: Wed Apr
25 11:27:58 PST 2001