National Aeronautics and Space Administration

QUESTION AND ANSWER

An Interrogative Introduction to HEAsoft 5.3.1

 Q1: What is HEASOFT?
 A1: HEASOFT is a software suite consisting of the union of FTOOLS/FV,
     XIMAGE, XRONOS, XSPEC and XSTAR.

 Q2: What is XANADU?
 A2: The packages XIMAGE, XRONOS and XSPEC were originally
     distributed together as the XANADU package. Over the years,
     while the three continued to complement each others' function,
     they ceased to be fully integrated, and were distributed
     separately. As of the release of HEASOFT 5.0, the three
     packages are once again fully integrated. XANADU is the union
     of XIMAGE, XRONOS, and XSPEC.  XANADU is thus a subset of HEASOFT.

 Q3: What is FTOOLS / FV?
 A3: FTOOLS / FV is a suite of several hundred tools, each of which
     has a fairly specific, narrow function for the analysis of FITS
     format files. Some of these tools are specific to particular
     missions, like ASCA, ROSAT and XTE. Other tools are more general,
     or support specific mission-independent functions, such as accessing
     the LHEA Calibration Database (CALDB). FV is a GUI-based tool for
     examining and manipulating FITS format files.

 Q4: What is XSTAR?
 A4: XSTAR is a command-driven computer program for calculating the
     physical conditions and emission spectra of photoionized gases.
     The XSTAR package was originally distributed separately, but is
     now fully integrated into the HEASOFT framework.

 Q5: Is there a binary distribution available for my machine?
 A5: There are binary distributions available for SUN/Solaris,
     Intel/Linux, Macintosh OS X/Darwin, DEC/OSF, Macintosh/LinuxPPC,
     SGI/IRIX, and x86/Cygwin. These include binaries for all the
     subsets of HEASOFT.

 Q6: Why should I build my own copy of HEASOFT, if pre-built
     binaries are available for my machine?
 A6: There are several reasons to build the software instead of
     installing pre-built binaries. First, binaries generally
     run better on the system where they were built. Second, the
     source code is considerably smaller, hence easier to download.
     Third, the pre-built binaries are statically linked, which
     typically makes them much larger.

 Q7: How is the HEASOFT source code packaged?
 A7: For convenience, the HEASOFT source code is bundled in
     the following gzipped tarfiles:

        lheasoft5.3.1src.tar.gz -- HEASOFT 5.3.1 complete
           (see question 1 above for detailed list of contents)
        ftools5.3.1src.tar.gz   -- FTOOLS 5.3.1 / FV 4.1.2 only
        xanadu5.3.1src.tar.gz   -- XANADU 5.3.1 only
           (see question 2 above for detailed list of contents)
        xstar2.1ksrc.tar.gz   -- XSTAR 2.1k only

 Q8: What is the gzipped tarfile xspec11.3.1data.tar.gz, and why and
     when is it needed?
 A8: This file contains the XSPEC data files, which are required for XSPEC
     to run. These data files are excluded from lheasoft5.3.1src.tar.gz
     and xanadu5.3.1src.tar.gz for a purely practical reason: the data
     files would add about 230 MB to the size of these files! This file
     is needed if and only if XSPEC is installed.

 Q9: Is it possible to build just parts of FTOOLS, or parts of XANADU?
 A9: Yes. Although the source code is only available in the groups
     described above, it is possible to build just a portion of the
     source code, for example, just the XTE FTOOLS, or just XIMAGE.

Q10: What if I want to install FTOOLS / FV separately from some
     other package(s), like XSPEC?
A10: Nothing prevents installing two disjoint gzipped tarfiles,
     like ftools5.3.1src.tar.gz and xanadu5.3.1src.tar.gz, in two
     separate areas. After installation, either one or both
     of these areas may be used by running the standard
     initialization described below for each package in sequence.

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