
MMA is a Python program. If you don't have Python installed you should
do this first. You'll need version 2.4 or greater of Python for MMA to
work. Python is available for most operating systems at: http://www.python.org


MMA consists of several parts. They should be installed as follows:

1. The main executable script, mma, should be in /usr/local/bin or
   somewhere else in your executable path.

2. A number of modules which MMA needs (in the distro they are the files
   ending in .py in the MMA directory). They should be installed in
   /usr/local/share/mma/MMA.

3. Some other files used by the library and user extensions. These are
   installed in /usr/local/share/mma/includes.

4. The standard MMA library. These are a number of style files. They
   are installed in /usr/local/share/lib.

There are 2 install scripts you can use.

The first and recommended one is a python script called ln-install.
This simply creates the symbolic link /usr/local/share/mma pointing
to the current directory where the uncompressed tar file you downloaded
exists. I have used the link method for years now and it works fine.
The only problem you have with this is that you must not delete
or move the files from the tarball.

ln-install has only 2 important lines of code: both create a single
symbolic link. You must be root for this to work: on a Linux system
the command:

	su -c './ln-install'

should be fine. If you have previously run this script it will fail since
the directory link it is creating already exists. As root delete that one
link and all will be fine.


The second method copies all the files in the distribution to
/usr/local/share/mma. To do this just run the script 'cp-install'.
You must be 'root' to do this. On a Linux system the command:

	 su -c './cp-install'

should work just fine. If it doesn't work, you might need to use:

	   su -c 'python cp-install'

or some varient which finds Python. If you don't have Python
installed, go back to the top of this file!

The install file runs MMA with the -G command as its final step. It is
important to let this happen:

1. It updates the auto-load library data base,
2. It will create the compiled python modules while you are still
   logged in as 'root'.


If you want to install the python modules in the python
tree, that will work. Just create a file called 'MMA.pth'
in the python/site-packages directory, a directory called
'MMA' and copy the contents of the MMA directory in this
distribution to that location. However, you will still need
to have the library and include files in a location known to
MMA. For this reason, we really do recommend that you install
all of MMA in the recommended location.

You can if you want install the main MMA tree in /usr/share without
changing MMA. But, the install script will need to be changed.

You can change this to something else entirely. You'll have to make
changes to the main mma executable to reflect the location of the
module directory AND the gbl.py file for proper library file
locations. We really don't recommend you do this.

You can run MMA from the directory you unpacked it in as well without
installing. Just issue the command './mma someMMAfile'.

     !!!! NOTE FOR UPGRADING MMA !!!!!!

If you run the install script the existing /usr/local/bin/mma will be
overwritten and your existing /usr/local/share/mma directory will be
renamed to /usr/local/share/mma-old. You will receive prompts for
this before action is taken. However, if you already have a backup
directory you will need to delete this by hand. This just a bit of
safety so I don't get blamed to deleting stuff off your (or my) hard
drive.

Exercise normal prudent behaviour with backups, etc. Pay attention to
any songs you might have stored in your mma directory tree --- they
should NOT be there, but ...


Shout if problems!

bvdp, March/2006
