1. Download the VolSuite setup file appropriate for your system from the downloads page.
2. Install and run:
   • Win32:
     1. Execute the setup file. It will ask you to choose a directory in which to unpack files.
     2. Execute volsuite.exe to start VolSuite.
   • OSX(binary):
     1. Double-click the VolSuite disk image (.dmg) file. This will mount the disk image so it can be accessed. It will now appear on your desktop as "vs3.2".
     2. Double-click "vs3.2" to open the image.
     3. Drag the file "volsuite" to wherever you want VolSuite installed.
     4. Edit and copy the "environment.plist" as explained in the README.
   • Linux/Unix/OSX(self-compile):
     1. Read the Installation Notes below first so you know what's coming
     2. Open a new terminal and navigate to the location where the setup file is saved. Type "sh setup.sh" where setup.sh is the name of the script file you downloaded. After answering a few questions, VolSuite and all its dependent libraries will be built. For most distributions things should go smoothly. But if you run into errors or problems let me know.
     3. Navigate to the installed location of VolSuite and execute VolSuite by typing "./volsuite".

*** Redhat 9 users please note: I have received a great deal of feedback from users having trouble installing VolSuite on some Redhat 9 systems. In most cases, this is due to a missing GLUT installation. If VolSuite does not build and reports an error of a missing "libglut", install the GLUT rpm for Redhat 9 (usually something like glut-3.7-12.i386.rpm) and try executing the setup script again (just overwrite the existing VolSuite directory).

The setup script is a combined shell script and the tar'd gzip'd source distribution. It first unpacks the source then tries to automatically build everything. If you would like the script to only unpack the source without automatically building, type "sh setup.sh --unpack-only" where setup.sh is the name of the script file you downloaded. If you do not use this option, you will still have an opportunity to abort the automatic build process after the data is unpacked.

The setup script will ask you to enter the directory in which to install VolSuite. The default directory is shown in brackets. Press <Enter> to accept the default directory, or enter a different one. If the directory does not exist, the script will ask you to confirm its creation. If an existing version of VolSuite is found, the script will ask you to confirm its replacement, or you can have the script create a backup copy of that directory.

If your machine has more than one processor, the setup script will ask you whether to perform a parallel build. Unless your system is already heavily loaded, a parallel build is recommended as it will compile VolSuite much more quickly.

The setup script then executes another script in the VolSuite directory called configure. This script first checks for a few required libraries, and will build the libraries in the OSCSR subdirectory automatically. If this process fails, the setup script will abort with an error. Otherwise, it then executes make, which builds the VolSuite executable and all available modules.

You can run volsuite by changing to the new VolSuite directory and typing "./volsuite". You may notice that this file is a script. This script first sets some environment variables to values appropriate for finding the VolSuite run-time libraries. Then it executes the main VolSuite program volsuite-exe.

Installation Notes for OSX(self-compiling):

VolSuite and the library it depends on rely on a common library called libdl for opening dynamic libraries and retrieving symbols from them. This library does not appear to be a standard on all versions of OSX. If, after executing "sh setup.sh" per the instructions above, there is an error relating to dlfcn.h or dlopen or libdl, you will need to build and install a compatability library called dlcompat that provides an implementation of libdl. We have provided a copy of this library for convenience in VolSuite/OSCSR/mac_dependencies. If necessary, enter that directory and type "make" then "sudo make install". Note that you will need root or administrator access to do this. Then go back to the main VolSuite directory and type "./configure". If you still have problems, get in touch with us.