How do I Install Macaulay2 in Ubuntu 12.10?

I am trying to install Macaulay2. I am running Ubuntu 12.10.

I have modified /etc/apt/sources.list as explained at the official site and followed the steps but somehow when I use synaptic package manager it says that cannot load UIUC repositories. When I use apt-get I get the message that it couldn't locate Macaulay2.

Using Gdebi I get this error:

Dependency is not satisfiable Macaulay 1.5 *

I am not sure how I should go about it and any help is highly appreciated.

*: I am running intel i-5 processor and the (architecture) dependent version seems to be i3. But I do not think that is an issue.

3 Answers

The instructions at the official site are a little verbose and hard to follow, so here's how I got Macaulay2 installed.

Note: It is probably best to reverse anything that you have already done and remove anything related to macaulay2, so that the method below will be successful and without errors.

The easiest thing is to put the Macaulay repository in a separate list file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. This is what I do with all external, non-Ubuntu repositories.

1) Create and open the list with

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/Macaulay2.list

2) Now paste into that file the following (For future readers: substitute quantal for your Ubuntu version):

deb quantal main

Save the file with Ctrl+O and exit with Ctrl+X.

3) Add the repository key with

wget -q -O - | sudo apt-key add -

4) Update your repository lists with

sudo apt-get update

5) As the official page mentions, you may need to install liblapack3gf as well before you install macaulay2:

sudo apt-get install liblapack3gf 

6) In addition, you may need libntl-5.4.2 if you are running Quantal (12.10) or later as it is no longer in that repository. I already had it installed, but you should be ok to install it from the Precise repos as listed above, but just choose the right architecture and use

sudo dpkg -i file.deb 

There are no dependencies to cause any concerns in this case. Other people running 12.10 have noted that this is also necessary.

7) Now install the program with

sudo apt-get install macaulay2 

Note: If apt-get keeps failing then download and install the correct files (Macaulay2 and Macaulay2-common) for your architecture manually from the repository and install each with gdebi so any further dependencies can be resolved.

8) The command to launch it is M2 (uppercase M) and the man page can be reached by entering man M2.

I succesfully installed it following the empiric method I also posted on the Macaulay2's Google Group that I report here:

1. Add the repo as described in the official page

2. Go here and download package libntl-5.4.2 (it is no more present in 12.10)

3. Install it (using gDebi, dpkg -i or any other method)

4. Install Macaulay2

This method generates a lot of errors like these:

Ignoring install-info called from maintainer script
The package macaulay2-common should be rebuilt with new debhelper to get trigger support 

Than can be ignored, as described in the reply of that discussion.

Okay, in my computer the following seems to finally work. I will enlist the steps I took and probably the experts might clarify what is redundant and what is essential.

Please look at Mik's answer above , for details of execution.

Step 1: Updated the Repository list to quantal.The instructions on Macaulay website differ from Mik's above. So be careful about that.

Step2: Get the Key.However I tried installing Macaulay2 and it couldn't locate it.

Step3: Installed the correct version of Macaulay2 (depending on architecture).

Not that there are two files, the common one (....common.deb) and the processor dependent one (......amd.64.)

Step4: Install using gdebi-gtk.

Step5: Then use synaptic to load the repos.

It seems to work in my case.