1.1   Mac OS X

You can compile nmag and required helping libraries from source (download tar file, Method A installation instructions).

If you have VMware Fusion, you can run the Nmag Virtual Machine (see Method D).

1.2   Debian Linux, Ubuntu, Knoppix and other debian derivatives

Please compile from source.

There is a debian package available for the Nmag release 6131 from March 2009 (see Debian package installation instructions).

You can also use the Nmag Virtual Machine (Method D).

1.3   Linux/UNIX in general

You can compile nmag and required helping libraries from source (download tar file, Method A installation instructions)

You can also use the Nmag Virtual Machine (Method D).

1.4   Windows

There is currently no nmag version for Windows. You have two options of running nmag:

1. You install a virtual machine player on your Windows machine, and run the Nmag virtual machine in this application (Method D). This is the right choice for most users who want to use nmag.

2. You can use the bootable CD (download, Method C instructions) to boot your PC from the CD into a running (linux) system. This is ideal to test nmag (and will not modify your hard drive).

   Note that with this setup you will run out of memory sooner than with any other method, as part of the RAM is used as a RAM disk. That is typically no problem if you just want to compute a few examples from the tutorial.

   This release is out-of-date.

2.1   Method A: compile everything from source

Download a large archive that provides nmag together with (nearly) all required tools, and compile everything from source. Compile time is between 15 minutes and one hour, disk space required about 1 GB.

2.2   Method B: Debian package

A debian package is provided. This is very convenient if you happen to run a debian (etch) distribution, or linux distributions that are derived from Debian (such as Ubuntu).

2.3   Method C: Knoppix CD

An CD iso image is provided which can be burnt to an CD. Any i386 machine can use this CD to boot from. This will boot into a special Linux distribution (Knoppix) which has nmag installed. This process will not touch the harddrives in the machine, and can thus be used to evaluate Nmag quickly without needing any disk space.

2.4   Method D: Virtual Appliance

A Virtual appliance (also called virtual machine) is provided that provides a (Debian etch) Linux environment, including nmag, a mesh generactor (Netgen) and many post-processing tools (MayaVi, Gnuplot, Xmgrace, ...)

The Virtual appliance is basically an operating system together with applications stored in a directory, and can be executed using the VMWare Player. One therefore needs to download an install VMWare Player, and can subsequently run this Virtual appliance in a window (or in full-screen mode) along side your usual operating system.

The advantages of this approach are that

• one can carry on using your normal Operating system (say, Windows)
• No need to compile anything, or install extra software
• Data can be saved and kept on the Virtual Machine, or transferred to the host system (the Windows machine) using the 'shared folders' mechanism.

The only requirement is that there is a lot of disk space available (about 5GB) to keep the virtual machine.