Linux, MacOS Installation

IC Design Software for Unix/Linux and Windows Whiteley Research Inc., 456 Flora Vista Avenue, Sunnyvale CA 94086    wrcad.com

Linux Installation, Updating, and Removal The tools require certain libraries to be installed on your system. This includes at least one of the GTK2 and Qt5 graphics libraries, and a few others. It is possible that your system already has the needed libraries installed, but if not the table below lists some installation commands that might be needed. These will require root permission to run. Ubuntu, Debian apt-install libgsl libtiff libjpeg libncurses5 apt-install libgtk2.0 apt-install qt5-qtbase Fedora 40 dnf install gsl libjpeg-turbo ncurses dnf install gtk2 dnf install qt5-qtbase CentOS 8 Stream/ Rocky 8/ AlmaLinux8/ Red Hat 8 dnf install gsl ncurses libtiff libjpeg dnf install gtk2 dnf install qt5-qtbase Updating and installation is most conveniently handled by using the wr_install script, downloaded from the same location as the package files. Unlike earlier releases, this script does not manage the Safe Install feature, so that users can use the underlying package manager commands for their operating system directly, if desired. The wr_install script is just a wrapper around these native commands, but it detects which commands to use, and which options to give. It is highly recommended that all pre-4.3 packages be uninstalled from your system, to avoid any potential conflicts. You should remove the old programs by hand using your native package manager commands. If is recommended that the initial installation of 4.3 tools, at least, be performed using wr_install. Future updates of Xic and WRspice can be performed from within those programs. Other 4.3 XicTools programs will have a new checking/updating mechanism to be determined, so chances are that the tedious manual downloading and installing need only be done once. Download the necessary XicTools distribution files and scripts. Probably, the easiest course is to download everything in the distribution directory for your operating system, into a new, empty temporary directory. Presently, there are eight package files and two scripts. When downloading completes, cd to the new directory. Make sure that the wr_install and wr_uninstall scripts are executable (they might not be after the download). If not, use chmod 0755 wr_install wr_uninstall Unless you plan to install in a location where you have write permission, you will need to become 'root' in order to install packages. In this case for future use of the automated updating features of Xic and WRspice, you will need to have your account enabled for the "sudo" command, i.e., your account name should be listed in "/etc/sudoers". If this is set up, the installer will ask for your password to enable installation. Otherwise you will have to use the su command to become root. When installing, you will be given a choice of installation location. The installation location is under /usr/local/xictools by default. Life will be simpler if you choose the default location, but if necessary, an alternate can be supplied. Run wr_install with the argument(s) being the names of the distribution files, or "all". ./wr_install all The argument "all" is equivalent to *.rpm or *.deb. This automates the installation procedure. Do NOT change the names of the files, or wr_install will probably fail. If you installed in a location other than /usr/local, you should set the XT_PREFIX environment variable. The XT_PREFIX environment variable should be set to the name of the directory corresponding the /usr/local, which we call /path/mydir below. This will cause all internal default paths to point to the right directory. Most conveniently, this variable can be set in the user's shell startup file. For C shell: setenv XT_PREFIX /path/mydir For Bourne/Bash shell: export XT_PREFIX=/path/mydir This is generally all that is required to configure the programs for an alternative installation location. Add the /usr/local/xictools/bin (or equivalent) directory to your shell search path, if you haven't done so. If you had a 4.2 distribution of Xic or WRspice installed, your search path will already have the above directory, but in addition it may have one or both of /usr/local/xictools/xic/bin /usr/local/xictools/wrspice/bin If present, these should be removed from your shell search path. Note that if you changed the installation location, the /usr/local will be something else. Once Xic and WRspice have been installed, updating could not be simpler. See the program documentation: In WRspice, give the commands "help passwd" and "help wrupdate". In Xic , with the mouse pointer in the main drawing window, type "?!passwd" and "?!update"". These help topics explain how to set up and use the update features. The programs will check for updates when started. The user can download and install updates when available. You're done, and should be able to run the programs (C-shell users may have to type "rehash" first). Selecting GTK2 or QT6 graphics Presently, two sets of executable files are provided in the packages, one that calls the GTK2 graphical toolkit, and one that calls Qt6. Operation is very similar if not identical, though there are cosmetic differences and some other subtle differences. Qt will eventually replace GTK2, but for now GTK2 is kept for comparison purposes and as a backup if there is trouble. If you do nothing, the GTK2 programs are run. To run the Qt6 versions instead, you will need to create a one-line file. This file is named ".xtrc" and exists in your home directory, or the currrent directory. You can create this file using your favorite text editor, or just give the command echo grpref=QT6 > $HOME/.xtrc The text in the .xtrc file is grpref=QT6 to set the choice to Qt6. Note that there is no white space around the '=' character. To revert to GTK2 one can change the "QT6" to "GTK2", or comment the line by inserting a '#' charcter at the beginning. Removing the Installation When performing an update, one should never have to remove any distribution files, unless specifically instructed to do so. This section describes how to remove the distributions from the system. These operations must be done as root. It is recommended to use the wr_uninstall script for package removal. Users can also use their native packager commands to do this, except on MacOS where there is no such command. There are probably only two reasons to uninstall a package: if you no longer have any use for the program and want to get rid of it forever, or if somehow your installation is corrupted and you want to uninstall and then reinstall. You need to have root privileges to uninstall packages, and therefor wr_uninstall should be run as root, or from a bash shell started under the sudo command. wr_uninstall progname ... The arguments are program names from among these: adms, fastcap, fasthenry, mozy, mrouter, vl, wrspice, xic. Actually, you only need the first few characters of eacn name, enough to make it unambiguous. For each program, if a corresponding package is currently installed, it will be uninstalled. The packages files will be completely deleted, there will be no saving for Safe Install.