IEEE Programming Challenge at IWLS: Setting up the Programming Environment

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The Challenge Programming Environment

Please follow the steps below to set up your programming environment.

Step 1

Apply for an Si2 account to get OpenAccess. The account and the Open Access software is and will be provided at no cost for students and university faculty, and this time you get the latest release as all member companies including the source code

Step 2

Create a new directory. Download the tarballs for your platform as indicated in the table below and move the tarballs into the new directory. You need approximately 1.7 GB of free disk space.

Content	Linux 32bit
OA libraries	oaDev_2.2p044_linux_rhel21.tar.gz
OA headers	oaInc_2.2p044_all.tar.gz
OA API Documentation	oaDoc_2.2p044_all.tar.gz
OA source (optional)	oaSrc_2.2p044_all.tar.gz
OAGear	OAGear-0.97.tar.gz
IWLS challenge infrastructure including OAGear	iwls-2007.tar.gz
IWLS benchmarks (optional)	IWLS_2005_benchmarks_V_1.0.tgz

Note, that downloading the source code and the benchmarks is optional and you can do that later. All other tarballs are required for a working installation.

Step 3

Unpack the iwls-2007.tar.gz tarball. Like so:

  gunzip -c iwls-2007.tar.gz | tar xf -

If you do not have gunzip you can download it from here: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gzip

Step 4

This step bootstraps the infrastructure for the programming challenge. It will

build and install a set of development tools
install OA from the tarballs
compile and install OAGear
run a few testcases

It will first build and install a few programs that you need to work with OAGear. All these programs are installed within the directory that you created in Step 2. Nothing will be messed up.
Before you invoke the 'bootstrap' script make sure you have the following tools on your PATH:

a working g++ compiler
the 'tar' command
the 'awk' command
the 'gunzip' command

Execute the 'bootstrap' script. Like so:

  ./bootstrap

If there are problems consult the README file.

Step 5

The bootstrap step has created a shell script named 'iwls-setup' which defines a set of environment variables that need to be set in order to work with OAGear. You might want to arrange that this script is automatically sourced when you log in. Note, that this script is meant for Bourne shell. If you use a different shell you need to change it accordingly.

Step 6

Sign up for the iwls-challenge mailing list. We will use this list to communicate updates, bug fixes and the like. You don't want to miss this.

Please fill in the form and click 'submit' afterwards.