HOW I INSTALLED XEPHEM 3.7.3 (free version) ON A LAPTOP PC RUNNING WINDOWS XP AND CYGWIN. DISCLAIMER: what follows describes the way I installed Xephem on my computer. I do not garantee that it is the best nor the simplest way to do so, neither that it will work in all similar cases. I do not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of the following informations. MY CONFIGURATION: ------------------ PC Type: Laptop DELL latitude D531 Processors: AMD Turion 64x2 Mobile Freq: 2.00 GHz, RAM: 1.87 GB OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack: 3 THE PROCEDURE: --------------- (this is inspired and modified from the contribution in "http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/xephem/contrib/cygwin.txt"). A) DOWNLOAD THE CYGWIN DISTRIBUTION. A.1) Download the cygwin setup program "setup.exe" on your hard disk by connecting to "htp://www.cygwin.com" and by clicking on "Install or update now!". The version I used was 2.573.2.3. A.2) Launch the setup program "setup.exe" by double-clicking on the corresponding icon, or by the "run..." item of the "Start" menu. A.3) The welcome window pops up. Click "Next>". A.4) The "Choose A Download Source" dialog appears. Select the radio-button "Download Without Installing" and click "Next>". A.5) The "Select Local Package Directory" dialog appears. click "Next>" again. A.6) The "Select Your Internet Connection" dialog appears. Click the appropriate radio-button and click "Next>". A.7) The "Choose A Download Site" dialog appears. In the scroll list, select the closest mirror site and click on "Next>". A.8) The "Select Packages" dialog appears. The first line in the hierarchical list reads: " - All <> Default" (here, "<>" stands for a symbol representing a pair of cyclical arrows). Click on the word "Default" on this first line, and wait till all subsequent lines in the list end up with "Install" instead of "Default". This specifies to the setup program that you whish to download ALL THE PACKAGES of the Cygwin distribution for a full installation. NOTE: unless you are sure to perfectly know which packages are really needed to compile Xephem and which are not, I recommend you choose a full installation. Indeed, this will make all subsequent Xephem installation/compilation steps much easier. The price to pay is a longer download/installation process for Cygwin, and a more bulky Cygwin directory. A.9) Click "Next>". The download phase begins. Be patient: this takes a long, long time, especially with a slow rated internet connexion. The resulting local package directory is 811MB! A.10)Click "Finish" when all is done. B) INSTALL CYGWIN. B.1) Once again, launch the setup program "setup.exe" by double-clicking on the corresponding icon, or by the "run..." item of the "Start" menu. B.2) The welcome window pops up. Click "Next>". B.3) The "Choose A Download Source" dialog appears. Select the radio-button "Install from Local Directory" and click "Next>". B.4) The "Select Root Install Directory" dialog pops up. Unless you have good reasons, don't change anything and click "Next>". B.5) The "Select Local Package Directory" dialog appears. Check that the right directory displays, then click "Next>" again. B.6) The "Select Packages" dialog appears. The first line in the hierarchical list display reads: " - All <> Default" (here, "<>" stands for a symbol representing a pair of cyclical arrows). Click on the word "Default" on this first line, and wait till all subsequent lines in the list end up with "Install" instead of "Default". This specifies to the setup program that you whish to install ALL THE PACKAGES of the Cygwin distribution. (See item A.8). B.7) Click "Next>". The installation phase begins. Be patient: this takes a long time. B.8) Click "Finish" when all is done. C) PREPARE THE XEPHEM FILES. C.1) Connect to "http://www.xephem.com" and download the free version package: "xephem-3.7.3.tar.gz". C.2) Copy "xephem-3.7.3.tar.gz" to the directory "C:\cygwin" (Note: this will be the root directory of the unix-like cygwin system). C.3) Double-click on the Cygwin icon to launch a Cygwin window. C.4) In this window, type "startx" to launch the XWindow server and and open an "xterm" window (with a white background). C.5) In THIS "xterm" windows, type "cd /" to set the default directory to the root directory of Cygwin. Type "ls -l" to verify that the archive file "xephem-3.7.3.tar.gz" is indeed available. C.6) Explode the Xephem archive file by typing: "tar xfz xephem-3.7.3.tar.gz". The directory "xephem-3.7.3" should now be created. Check this is indeed the case by typing "ls -l". D) INSTALL XEPHEM. D.1) In the "xterm" window, type "cd /xephem-3.7.3/GUI/xephem". D.2) Save a copy of the "Makefile" file by typing: "cp Makefile Makefile.0" D.3) Edit the "Makefile" file and search for the block of lines starting after the header line: "# for linux and pure ppc Apple OS X". The 6 following lines should not be commented (if they are, uncomment them, and comment any subsequent block of similar lines). D.4) In this block, search for the line: "XLIBS = $(MOTIFL)/libXm.a -lXp -lXt -lXext -lXmu -lX11" Replace it by: "XLIBS = -lXm.dll -lXp.dll -lXt.dll -lXext.dll -lXmu.dll -lX11.dll" This merely amounts to append ".dll" to the library names. D.5) Build the executable by typing "make". D.6) If the build is successful, the files "xephem.exe" and "xephem.1" should now exist. Check it by typing "ls -l xe*". D.7) Try to run xephem by typing "xephem &" in the "xterm" window. If the usual Xephem main dialog pops up, then the process is successful! D.8) Read the file "/xephem-3.7.3/INSTALL" and follow steps 3b) to 5) to complete the installation.