Almost as legendary as the vi vs. emacs war is the Matlab vs. IDL war. IDL, which stands for Interactive Data Language, brought to you by RSI, is my personal preference for a data visualization and analysis platform — especially for research and modeling in optics. The picture below is simulation that I performed as a graduate student in my Fourier Optics class (many years ago now) that modeled the propagation of a HeNe laser beam from a rectangular aperture into the far field. Simply beautiful. This is why I prefer IDL over Matlab — it simply knocks the socks off Matlab when it comes to the visual display of quantitative information.
At any rate, to install IDL requires the purchase of a license from RSI, as well as the libXp library. To install the library, use yum:
~>
sudo yum install libXp
Press 'y' when
prompted to install the programs and any additional dependencies. After it is installed, source your ~/.tcshrc
file: ~>
source ~/.tcshrc
Assuming that you have the installation CD, insert the CD into a
CD-ROM, and mount the directory: ~>
sudo mkdir /mnt/cdrom
~> sudo mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
If the /mnt/cdrom
directory does not exist, create it. Run the initialization script as
root.~> sudo mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
~>
cd /mnt/cdrom
~> sudo ./xinstall.sh
Allow the system to install
the sys5_idl_lmgrd
file, which will be placed in /etc/init.d/.
Once it is there, change the permissions to be world readable:~> sudo ./xinstall.sh
~>
sudo chmod go+r /etc/init.d/sys5_idl_lmgrd
and edit the file using sudo. Perform
a search on LOG_FILE_NAME,
and change it to the following: LOG_FILE_NAME="/var/log/rsi/license.log"
Save and exit. Next, create a /var/log/rsi
directory: ~>
sudo mkdir /var/log/rsi
Next, create an /etc/logrotate.d/rsi
file for log rotation. Place the following information in it: /var/log/rsi/license.log
{
notifempty
weekly
missingok
rotate 4
}
Save and exit. Finally, copy
over the license.dat
file from an appropriate location. The file should be copied to /usr/local/rsi/license
as license.dat.
Alternatively, you can allow the CD to do it for you.notifempty
weekly
missingok
rotate 4
}
~>
sudo cp [license file location] /usr/local/rsi/license/license.dat
The next time you reboot, the
license manager will automatically start. To start it now, simply type: ~>
sudo service sys5_idl_lmgrd start
Although you will not see a
visual confirmation of the
license manager starting it should have. If you wish to check its
status, use ps: ~>
ps aux | grep idl
You should see a service
labeled lmgrd.
If so, you are ready to launch IDL in a terminal window, after sourcing
your ~/.tcshrc
file: ~>
source ~/.tcshrc
~> idl
Enjoy!
~> idl