Installing your own software

If you are considering installing your own software please check that

  1. it is not already installed on the UNIX system
  2. someone else may have installed it in the central user maintained software area
  3. the software may be a standard package for our UNIX system (Scientific Linux) which a web-search might show you or email help@maths

How to install software yourself

You do not need root access to install the vast majority of software on Linux/UNIX computers.

When you are installing software you may only install it into your home directory, in data/scratch space or the shared location mentioned above.

If you are new to UNIX please read the Introduction to the DAMTP UNIX system, booklet (PDF), and do the "Unix: Introduction to the Command Line Interface (Self-paced)" course run (FREE to staff and students) by the University Computing Service Training Programme.

Then do the excellent "Unix: Building, Installing and Running Software" course.

If you are installing some software which you believe may be useful to someone else please consider placing it in the shared software installs location.

Requesting Software be installed for You

If the software must be installed in a location you cannot write to such as /usr/local/bin then email help@maths, explaining what the software does, why you need it and where we can download the source code or binary.

Some software can be time-consuming and difficult to install so it may take a while to get it done - especially if it is not mathematically related.