May 27, 2019

Grinder - Installing IRAF on our new linux machine

There seem to be many copies of IRAF on this machine, including 2.16.1 -- but none properly installed. I cannot type "cl" and start iraf. There is no /iraf/iraf path -- things are all botched.

Get tcsh

This is easy enough using the debian package system. 
su
apt-get update
apt-get install tcsh

Start with what is there

There is something that looks like IRAF in /export/iraf that was installed back in 2014 (this is version 2.16.1, which is OK). 
su
ln -s /export/iraf /iraf
cd /iraf/iraf
install --system
This (among other things) puts a host of link into /usr/local/bin

ximtool and xgterm

It will be mighty handy to have links to these in /usr/local/bin, so let's make it so: 
su
cd /usr/local/bin
ln -s /iraf/iraf/vendor/x11iraf/bin.linux/xgterm
ln -s /iraf/iraf/vendor/x11iraf/bin.linux/ximtool
ln -s /iraf/iraf/vendor/x11iraf/bin.linux/ism_wcspix.e

Set up for user "tom"

I log out and back in as "tom", then: 
mkdir iraf
mkiraf
cl
This seems to work as it should, and some old buggy "mirror" package is available. My next task will be to replace that with the new one that I have built.

What about ds9?

Let's see if Debian supplies packages (it does!) 
apt-cache search ds9
funtools - Minimal buy-in FITS utility package
libfuntools-dev - Minimal buy-in FITS library (development files)
libfuntools1 - Minimal buy-in FITS library
tcl-funtools - Minimal buy-in FITS library (Tcl interface)
python-pyds9 - Communication with the ds9 image display program
saods9 - Image display tool for astronomy
saods9-data - Image display tool for astronomy (shared data)
saods9-doc - Image display tool for astronomy (help files/documentation)
I have been warned that older DS9 versions have some trouble interacting with IRAF, so once I get this installed, I need to see what version it is and ponder whether to get a newer one if such is available. 
apt-get install saods9
It fails looking for some package in jessie-backports named "liberfa1". This will require more work, and perhaps a whole system upgrade to a newer Debian than Jessie. This is: 
ERFA is a C library containing key algorithms for astronomy,
and is based on the SOFA library published by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)
The DS9 version it was trying to install is/was "saods9 amd64 7.3.2+repack-1+b1".
Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's home page / [email protected]