Win 32 Ferret Installation and Update

Guide
by ansley last modified 2012-07-24 13:03
Win 32 Ferret Installation and Update Guide

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:
o 35 MB free disk space without example datasets
o 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
o 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