Software Collection, Department of Mathematics, University of York
Release 4 2004/09/30

IMPORTANT NOTICES

I have assembled this CD in the hope that it will be useful, but neither I nor the Department of Mathematics can accept any responsibility for its operation.

I obtained the contents of this CD from reputable archives with up-to-date virus-checking software running on my computer. However, I cannot absolutely guarantee that this disc is virus-free and strongly advise you to have up-to-date anti-virus software running when you install programs from it (or any other source, for that matter).

The programs on this CD are from a variety of sources and are distributed under a variety of licenses, but they are all freely distributable for non-commercial purposes. Any charge levied by the Department of Mathematics is to cover duplication costs only; you are not being charged for the software. You are free to copy this CD or use it to install the software it contains on any number of computers, subject to the licenses governing each piece of software.

This CD has been assembled and tested under Windows 98SE, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I expect it to work under 95, 98, ME, and NT4, but this has not been tested.

Contents of the CD

If you have autorun enabled, on inserting the CD you should see an Explorer window called "maths" showing the contents of the top level of the CD (it might be hidden behind this window; if it's not there, open My Computer, right-click on your CD or DVD drive and click on Explore). Files and folders mentioned below are in this window unless otherwise stated.

Since almost nobody will want to install all of this stuff, and most of these programs have their own installation wizards, I haven't supplied a single, overarching installation tool: you'll need to install individually the bits you want. However, I have provided two scripts which run existing installers consecutively (and in the right order!): one for GhostScript/GhostView and one for the whole TeX setup.

I generally say "don't change the default settings" below. Obviously you can change them to reconfigure things, but if you want to do this then make sure you change them all consistently, and don't expect much help if it doesn't work! One hint: the extra York stuff is normally installed in c:\localtexmf. If you put this somewhere else, you must tell MiKTeX by appropriately setting "local texmf tree" in the MiKTeX installation wizard.

GhostScript and GhostView: automatic installation

Do this if you want to be able to read and print PostScript files (e.g. from our website). If you're installing TeX, GhostScript and GhostView are included: they don't need to be installed separately.

TeX and friends: automatic installation

Double-click the "setup_tex" icon and follow the instructions. This one runs four separate installation wizards back to back (GhostScript, GhostView, extra York stuff, MiKTeX), so it goes on a bit; but the defaults are all sensible, so by and large you just have to keep clicking OK and Next until it finishes, with the following exceptions:

1. If you have an existing installation of GhostView, you might see a separate window, asking if you want to uninstall it; if so, click on Uninstall and, when it's finished, Exit.
2. The installation process might stall after GhostView has been installed. This is because there's a window saying "Installation successful" in which you have to click on Exit before the next installer can run. It might be hidden behind an Explorer window containing GhostScript or GhostView icons, which you can close if it's in the way.
3. The MiKTeX wizard will give you the option of "small", "large" or "total" package set. If you have enough disk space (500Mb), you can choose "total" and have done with it; otherwise, choose "small". If you choose "small" and then try to use a feature you haven't installed, the system will find it and install it for you, either from the CD or the internet.
4. When the MiKTeX wizard asks you for a "local package repository", click on Browse and navigate to Z:\miktex-2.4-repository, where Z: is the CD or DVD drive containing the CD (usually D: or E:).

Note that MiKTeX can take quite a a while to install. I timed it on one machine at 5 minutes before the progress meters even started moving, then a further 15 to complete the installation, and I've heard of much slower installations than that.

When it's all over, you'll find an icon on the desktop called "LaTeX via MicroEMACS" and also a group in the start menu. You'll also find a MiKTeX group in the start menu, but under normal circumstances you won't need to use this.

If you prefer a more conventional Windows editor to MicroEMACS, try installing TeXnicCenter: see next section.

Restart the computer before you try to use TeX.

R, Octave, Dev-C++ 5 (beta), arc, WinBUGS, TeXnicCenter, Acrobat Reader: automatic installation

Installation wizards for all these are in the "distributions" folder: open it and double-click on the appropriate file. There are two versions of Octave because the download page on sourceforge notes of the newer one that "initial tests show that it does not work on all machines". The older one is probably safer. After installing WinBUGS, double-click on the text file WinBUGS14_cumulative_patch... and follow the instructions to install the latest updates.

In each case, just follow the instructions to install the software and some combination of start menu and desktop shortcuts.

Dev-C++ 4: installation

Since version 5 is a beta release, you might prefer to run version 4, which lives in the file devcpp4.zip in the "distributions" folder. Newer versions of Windows will show this as a compressed folder. If you have an older versions you'll need to unzip it into a temporary folder somewhere; there's an unzipper in the "tools" folder (wiz502xN.exe) if you haven't got one. Once you can see the files, run setup.exe. I'm assuming anyone in the market for a C compiler doesn't need any more detailed instructions than this!

Gnuplot: installation

This doesn't come with an installation wizard. You'll need to unzip the file gp400win32.zip in the "distributions" folder to an appropriate folder and sort out shortcuts etc. by hand. There's an unzipper in the "tools" folder (wiz502xN.exe) if you haven't got one (newer versions of Windows will show the zip file as a compressed folder).

GhostScript, GhostView, TeX, etc: Manual Installation

You should use this section if you don't trust my installation script or if it failed for some reason. Make sure you do these in the order stated.

Likely problems

WWW links