HEASoft Supported Architectures & Operating Systems

Quick Links:

• PC:
• OS: Linux
• OS: Cygwin
• Mac
  

• OS: LINUX
  
  Compilers: For a detailed guide to installing HEASoft under Linux, please see our Linux installation pages:
  
  
  • Ubuntu (or Debian-based) Linux
  • Fedora (or RPM-based) Linux
  
  Known Issues:
  
  
  • Users who wish to get the HEAsoft pre-compiled Linux binaries should see our note about Perl library portability.
  
  
  • (Fedora) Transparent windows in FV (POW display): When using POW as your display device in the FV GUI, windows may appear transparent. To get around this issue, the graphics "Forced Fallback Mode" should be turned ON (in System Tools -> System Settings -> Details -> Graphics).
  
  
  • (Ubuntu) Transparent windows in FV (POW display): When using POW as your display device in the FV GUI, windows may appear transparent. KDE users should consider switching to GNOME, and when in GNOME, visual effects should be turned off (in System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects).
  
  
  

• OS: CYGWIN
  
  Compilers: Please see our Cygwin installation page for a detailed guide to installing HEASoft under Cygwin.
  
  Known Issues:
  
  
  • Anti-virus software: Some users may run into build problems as a result of anti-virus software, manifesting as "no such file..." errors referring to Perl scripts or conftest files, or "permission denied" errors referring to the hd_install program. The former problem occurs when the anti-virus program locks a new file temporarily while it scans it at the same time the build is trying to move or remove it, and the latter is a result of a known virus with the unfortunate name hd_install. Unfortunately the only solution for the first problem is to turn off your virus protection temporarily while the software builds; the second problem may be addressed by renaming the hd_install program (please contact us at the FTOOLS help desk for more information about how to do this).
  
  
  • FAT32 disks: Users trying to install HEASOFT on a FAT32 disk under Cygwin may run into various problems and should either try their build on an NTFS disk instead, or write the FTOOLS help desk for assistance.
  
  
  • Fork: Some users may encounter problems with forked processes when building HEASoft under Cygwin, for example:

            24 [main] sh 7280 C:\cygwin\bin\sh.exe: *** fatal error - couldn't
       allocate heap, Win32 error 487, base 0x680000, top 0x6E0000,
       reserve_size 389120, allocsize 393216, page_const 4096
       Stack trace:
       Frame     Function  Args
       XXXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX  (XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX)
       XXXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX  (XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX)
       XXXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX  (XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX)
       XXXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX  (XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX)
       XXXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX  (XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX)
       ...
       ...
       End of stack trace
            12 [main] sh 5068 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before
       initialization, retry 0, exit code 0x100, errno 11
       /bin/sh: fork: retry: Resource temporarily unavailable
      

    If you run into this problem, please contact the FTOOLS help desk for further assistance.

• OS: Intel OS X / Darwin
  
  OS Versions:
  
  
  • Darwin 18.x (macOS 10.14.x [Mojave])
  • Darwin 17.x (macOS 10.13.x [High Sierra])
  
  Compilers: Please see our Mac installation page for a detailed guide to installing HEASoft on a Mac.
  
  Known Issues:
  
  
  • Perl & C:
    
    It is recommended that users avoid mixing Perl and C compilers from different sources (e.g. Perl from MacPorts paired with the XCode C compilers) as Perl has underlying dependencies on the C compiler it was built with and may be incompatible with a C compiler from another source. We encourage you to always use the XCode Perl and C/C++ for any build. To ensure that your HEASoft build makes the correct choices for these compilers, we recommend setting the appropriate environment variables:

           setenv CC /usr/bin/clang     (or /usr/bin/gcc)
           setenv CXX /usr/bin/clang++  (or /usr/bin/g++)
           setenv PERL /usr/bin/perl
           setenv PYTHON /usr/bin/python
    
         or, in bash:
    
           export CC=/usr/bin/gcc     (or /usr/bin/gcc)
           export CXX=/usr/bin/g++    (or /usr/bin/g++)
           export PERL=/usr/bin/perl
           export PYTHON=/usr/bin/python
         

  • Perl architecture flags vs. XCode:
    
    Some users may run into build errors in the CFITSIO Perl module (referencing the file CFITSIO.xs) when pairing newer XCode distributions whose compilers no longer support the PowerPC architecture (designated by the "-arch ppc" compiler flag) with a Perl built using an older XCode compiler:

            ... assembler (...) for architecture ppc not installed
         

    Perl installations built with older XCode gcc will attempt to insert the "-arch ppc" flag into Makefiles for the Perl modules, causing the error above. Users may choose to either rebuild their version of Perl with the newer XCode, or alternatively force Perl to leave out the "-arch ppc" flag by editing

           /System/Library/Perl/5.X.X/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Config_heavy.pl
         

    to remove "-arch ppc" from the $archflags setting near the end of the file:

           $archflags = exists($ENV{ARCHFLAGS}) ? $ENV{ARCHFLAGS} : '-arch x86_64 -arch i386 -arch ppc';
         

    After making this edit, remove the problematic Makefile and restart the build:

             rm heasoft-6.22.1/heacore/Astro-FITS-CFITSIO/Makefile
             cd heasoft-6.22.1/BUILD_DIR/
             make >& build.log2 &
             etc.
         

  
  
  

• Sparc/SunOS (dropped in HEASOFT 6.13)
• PPC/Darwin (dropped in HEASOFT 6.11.1)
• PPC/Linux (dropped in HEASOFT 6.5)
• Alpha/OSF (dropped in HEASOFT 6.1.2)
• SGI/IRIX (dropped in HEASOFT 6.0)
• AIX
• IRAF
• VMS

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby