Ferret Home Page

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Ferret Installation and Update Guide

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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

1. Pentium or better processor recommended.
2. 64 MB of memory.
3. Disk Space:
   - 35 MB free disk space without example datasets
   - 65 MB free disk space with example datasets

### Software requirements

1. Win2000, WinNT 4.0, Win 95/98 or Windows ME. Note that this release has only been extensively tested on Win2000, Service Pack 1
2. A running X server.

### Installation

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Unzip the files in ferret.zip (though we can't endorse it, WinZip works well).
4. Run setup.exe. This will lead you through the InstallShield installation process
5. If the installation is successful, a Ferret icon should appear on your desktop.
6. (Optional) Download ferret_data.zip, unzip the files and run setup.exe. This will install data files required for the Ferret demo scripts.
7. Double click on the Ferret icon. A new console window will appear.
8. By default, the console window will start up in the cygwin /tmp directory. This is equivalent to the DOS c:\tmp directory.
9. 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
   `
10. Type:
    `ferret`
    and press the Enter or Return key.
11. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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):

1. Click on the Start button and select Settings->Control Panel.
2. Double click on the System icon.
3. Click on the Environment tab.
4. 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.
5. Click Set
6. Click OK
7. 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