TeXmacs currently runs on most Unix systems, including Windows (using Cygwin) and MacOS-X (using Fink). A native Windows port is also available. We recommend running TeXmacs on fast computers in order to obtain a maximal reactivity. An absolute minimal configuration is a 200MHz processor and 32Mb of memory, but >1GHz and >128Mb are recommended.

In order to run TeXmacs, it is recommended to have a TeX/LaTeX distribution on your system. Most modern Linux systems automatically come with such a system. If you want to compile TeXmacs yourself, then you should also have the Guile/Scheme extension language installed. Below, we shortly describe how to install TeX and Guile.

1.Installation of a TeX system

The installation of a functional TeX distribution on your system can be a complicated job. We recommend you to install TeTeX, which has been most extensively tested in combination with TeXmacs.

If you use redhat linux or another linux distribution (like mandrake) which supports the rpm command, then TeTeX is most easily installed using this facility. You should first download the TeTeX distribution which corresponds to your platform. An rpm package [package]-[version].rpm is installed by root using

    rpm -i [package]-[version].rpm

An rpm package may depend on other rpm packages. When installing a package, you will be informed on missing dependencies. In our case you will probably need to install the TeTeX fonts too. In order to know whether a particular package [package]-[version].rpm has been installed on your system, you should type

    rpm -q [package]

In particular, before installing TeTeX, you should try

    rpm -q tetex

in order to know whether the package is already there on your system.

If you do not have the rpm program, then you may download it from

    ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm/dist/rpm-3.0.x

and unpack it in the / directory as root. You may also download TeTeX from CTAN by following the instructions given there. Finally, instead of installing a complete TeX distribution, it is also possible to directly install a tarball with the most important fonts provided by such a system.

2.Installation of guile

The easiest way to install Guile is again by downloading the rpm packages guile and guile-devel which correspond to your platform and install them in a similar way as above. Otherwise, you may download the source code of the official Guile distribution from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/guile and follow the instructions below.

If you have the permission to log yourself as root, then it is preferable that you log yourself as root and install the package by

    gunzip -c guile-1.3.4.tar.gz | tar xvf -
    cd guile-1.3.4
    ./configure
    make
    make install

This will install Guile into /usr/local/share/guile. The Guile binaries and libraries will be installed in /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib respectively. You should set the paths GUILE_LOAD_PATH, PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH accordingly, using

    export GUILE_LOAD_PATH=/usr/local/share/guile/1.3.4
    export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

or

    setenv GUILE_LOAD_PATH /usr/local/share/guile/1.3.4
    setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:$PATH
    setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

as a function of your shell.

If you do not have the possibility to log yourself as root, and if your system administrator is not willing to install Guile in the above way, then you may also install Guile in another directory [dir] as follows.

    gunzip -c guile-1.3.4.tar.gz | tar xvf -
    cd guile-1.3.4
    ./configure --prefix=[dir]
    make
    make install

In this case, Guile will be installed in the directory [dir]. The Guile binaries resp. libraries can be found in the subdirectories [dir]/bin resp. [dir]/lib. You should set the paths GUILE_LOAD_PATH, PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH accordingly, using

    export GUILE_LOAD_PATH=[dir]/share/guile/1.3.4
    export PATH=[dir]/bin:$PATH
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=[dir]/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

or

    setenv GUILE_LOAD_PATH [dir]/share/guile/1.3.4
    setenv PATH [dir]/bin:$PATH
    setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH [dir]/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

as a function of your shell.

You may also download Guile from its official home page. You will also find more documentation about Guile there.