Generic

This directory contains generic versions of Macaulay 2, which we have compiled for GNU/Linux so the executable program M2 depends on as few dynamic libraries as possible. We do that to make it as likely as possible that you can run it on your machine.

One of the dynamic libraries we must link with is libc, which comes in various versions on various linux distributions. We include the version number of libc on the machine where M2 was compiled as part of the file name in some cases, like this: Macaulay2-*-*-Linux-Generic-libc-VERSIONNUMBER.tar.gz. By executing the command /lib/libc.so.* you can find out what version of libc you have on your machine, and use that information to pick a file to download. For example, it seems to be desirable for the inequality VERSIONNUMBER < 2.4 to have the same truth values on your machine and on our compilation machine.

Starting with version 1.1, the tar files come in pairs, one containing the architecture dependent files (in this directory), and one containing the architecture independent files and having "common" in the name. The latter can be obtained in Common/. Please download and unpack both files. If you forget to do so, there will be an error message about the file setup.m2 not being found.

There are some dynamic libraries that we must nevertheless link with, such as libc and libncurses. If you have versions of these on your machine are sufficiently different from the versions on ours, the program will not work. See the corresponding *.README files for information about the libraries M2 is linked against.

Please let us know if your (modern) GNU/Linux system is incompatible with this distribution of Macaulay 2.