Sample Installation Walk-Through for Windows 98
TABLE OF CONTENTS
This page describes the steps we performed to install the PipTools
package on a particular PC running Windows 98. Your mileage may
vary, depending on Windows version, system configuration, other
software installed, etc., but at least this should give you a feel
for what is involved.
We chose to use the Cygwin environment to compile the tools written
in C, and ActivePerl (plus the Boulder module) to run those written
in Perl. These are popular, high-quality implementations, and all
are freely available for download.
Specific folder names are given here for concreteness, but you can
substitute different names if you prefer.
The Cygwin package aims to simulate a Unix-like working environment
under Windows. It provides many common Unix commands and development
tools, including gcc and make ,
and access to them via the bash shell. We
recommend using bash to compile and install the
PipTools, but after that you can run them directly from the Windows
command line (i.e., MS-DOS Prompt), as long as you have copied the
magic Cygwin DLL file to a place where Windows can find it.
The Cygwin installation is handled by a setup program that can download
and install the files you need all in one step. However, the instructions
recommend turning off your virus scanner, so we decided to be a little more
cautious by downloading, scanning, and then installing in separate phases.
- Go to the Cygwin home page
and read the FAQ. (It may also be helpful to read the User's Guide,
but note that the installation section there is out of date.)
- Go to their mirror page,
choose the closest mirror site to your location, and note its URL
for later. Click on the link you chose, then on the link called
"latest" and read the README file there (whose install instructions
are up to date).
- Create a temporary download folder on your hard drive called, say,
c:\cygwin.tmp , and another folder where the
software will actually be installed, say c:\cygwin .
- Go back to the Cygwin home page
and click on the "Install Now" icon. When asked, tell Windows you
want to save the setup.exe program in
c:\cygwin.tmp , rather than running it directly
from the server.
- Scan the downloaded file for viruses, and then turn off your virus
scanner.
- Run the setup.exe file, making the following
choices:
- download from internet
- c:\cygwin.tmp
- direct connection
- the same mirror site you noted before
- leave "selected packages" at default settings
- Scan these new files for viruses, and then turn off your virus scanner
again.
- Run setup.exe again, making different choices
this time:
- install from local directory
- local package directory = c:\cygwin.tmp
- install root directory = c:\cygwin
- text file type = DOS
- install for = All
- Scan the newly-installed files (you can leave your virus scanner on
this time).
- Copy the file c:\cygwin\bin\cygwin1.dll to the
c:\windows\system folder, so that once you
compile the PipTools programs you can run them directly, without
having to use the bash shell.
- If you want to save space on your disk, you can delete the
c:\cygwin.tmp folder.
- Create a temporary download folder on your hard drive called, say,
c:\perl.tmp , and another folder where the
software will actually be installed, say c:\perl .
- Go to the
ActivePerl page
and click on Windows MSI. When asked, tell Windows you want to save
the file in c:\perl.tmp , rather than opening it
directly from the server.
- Read the Now Downloading page that appears in your web browser. In
particular, note that you may need to download and install some
additional software. For example, it says that for Windows 98 you'll
need the MSI Installer, Internet Explorer 5 or higher, and something
called DCOM. If you have a fast internet connection, you might as well
download it all now just in case; otherwise you can bookmark this page
and come back if it turns out your system is missing any of these. Our
PC had IE 5 already, but we needed the MSI Installer. DCOM is a
mystery: either we had it already, or perhaps it's for parts of Perl
that the PipTools don't use.
- Copy the downloaded ActivePerl...msi file to
c:\perl , then run it and follow the instructions
on the screen, keeping the default choices. If you get an error
message about needing the MSI Installer, first install that by running
the instmsi.exe file (very simple, no questions)
and then run ActivePerl...msi again.
- When the installation is complete, a help page will pop up with
Release Notes and other information. You can access this again later
from Start - Programs - ActiveState ActivePerl - Documentation, but you
should at least look it over now to familiarize yourself with it.
- The Getting Started section of the ReadMe page explains how to test
the installation using a small Perl program that is included for this
purpose; try it now to make sure your new Perl interpreter is working.
Note that you must restart your computer (if you didn't already), in
order to make the new path settings take effect so Windows can find
the new programs.
- Eventually you can delete the c:\perl.tmp folder,
once everything is working and you're sure you don't need any additional
files you may have downloaded (like DCOM).
- We had difficulty building the Boulder module directly from its source
code, because the MakeMaker module generated a corrupted Makefile.
(According to listserv postings, this sort of problem is not uncommon
with ActivePerl+Cygwin, and may have something to do with compiler
switch settings.) Fortunately ActiveState provides pre-built versions
of many CPAN modules (including Boulder) which are much easier to install
anyway, thanks to the Perl Package Manager (PPM). The only drawback is
that these may not be quite up to date. At the time of this writing,
Boulder is at version 1.24, while the PPM version is only 1.19 (we have
requested ActiveState to update it).
- Installing Boulder using PPM is usually very simple. First make sure
you are connected to the internet (e.g., dial your modem). Then type
the following in the MS-DOS Prompt window (it does not matter what the
current directory is):
Note that if your connection uses a firewall or proxy, there are a
few extra steps; please see the PPM section of the ActivePerl
documentation for details.
- Create a folder on your hard drive called, say,
c:\piptools . Also create a subfolder for the
executables, say c:\piptools\bin . (We won't use
a temporary download folder this time; this way you'll have the source
files to refer to later.)
- Download
piptools.zip into c:\piptools .
- Unzip it, using a program that can handle PKZIP format. Make sure the
subdirectory structure gets recreated (e.g., by using
pkunzip -d ). This will produce a folder named
after the release date of the PipTools version you downloaded (e.g.
piptools.2001-07-05 ) containing all of the
source files and documentation.
- Use a plain-text editor like Notepad (not Word!) to edit the
Makefile in this folder and adjust it as follows:
- Change the DEST install location from
/usr/local/bin to
c:\piptools\bin .
- Remove the "#" character from the beginning
of the SUFF and SUFF2
lines under #-- DOS/Windows -- .
There are more Unix-isms in there, but Cygwin should be able to handle
them. Likewise, piplib\Makefile should not need
any changes.
- Double-click on the new Cygwin icon on your desktop to open Cygwin's
bash shell prompt. Enter the following commands:
|
cd c:\piptools\piptools.2001-07-05
make
make install
exit |
- On a Unix system, Perl scripts can be made executable by setting
their execute permissions and including a special line at the top
which tells the Unix shell that in order to run this script, it
should pass it to the program listed on that line, namely the Perl
interpreter. However, Windows does not support this
"#!" syntax, so you need to arrange another way
for the Perl interpreter to get called when you run the tools that
need it.
The ActivePerl documentation suggests several workarounds for this
problem, but none of them worked well for us. (Batch file "wrappers"
do not allow redirection of the output to a file, at least on Win98,
and the pl2exe utility is apparently no longer
included in the ActivePerl distribution.) So until we find a better
solution, the simplest thing is to invoke the Perl interpreter
manually by typing perl -S at the beginning of
your command, as in
|
perl -S genbank2exons genbank_file > output_file
|
Of course, this is only necessary for the three tools that use Perl,
namely genbank2exons ,
genbank2repeats , and sort-exons .
- Make sure the installed executable files are in your path, so your
operating system can find them when you try to run them from another
folder. You can do this by adding a new line
|
SET PATH=c:\piptools\bin:%PATH%
|
to the end of your c:\autoexec.bat file
(again, use a plain-text editor like Notepad, not Word!). You will
need to restart your computer for this change to take effect.
- Copies of the PipTools documentation pages (the same ones from our
server) are available in the
c:\piptools\piptools.2001-07-05\docs folder.
- Cygwin is installed by a specialized setup program which currently
does not have an automated uninstall facility. Please see the
Cygwin FAQ for instructions
on how to uninstall it manually.
- ActivePerl can be uninstalled using the standard Win98 Add/Remove Programs
window (available from Start - Settings - Control Panel). However,
this will leave a few files in your c:\perl folder
(including Boulder), so to remove the Perl stuff completely you'll have
to delete these manually. It may also leave your path set to include
c:\perl\bin ; this shouldn't do any harm, but you can
edit your c:\autoexec.bat file (with Notepad, not
Word!) to remove it if you like.
- To remove the Boulder module without removing ActivePerl, use PPM again:
- To uninstall the PipTools themselves, just delete the
c:\piptools folder and remove the line you added
to your c:\autoexec.bat file.
Cathy Riemer, August 2001