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Installing the compiler.

The installation of Free Pascal is easy, but is platform-dependent. We discuss the process for each platform separately.

Installing under DOS

Mandatory installation steps.

First, you must get the latest distribution files of Free Pascal. They come as zip files, which you must unzip first. The distribution zip file contains an installation program INSTALL.EXE. You must run this program to install the compiler.

The screen of the installation program looks like this:

external

The program allows you to select:

The installation program generates a batch file which sets some environment variables : SET_PP.BAT. This file is located in the directory where you installed Free Pascal. The installation program doesn't modify the AUTOEXEC.BAT, since many people (including the authors of Free Pascal) don't like this.

You can choose to insert a call to this batch file in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, like this :

  CALL C:\PP\SET_PP.BAT
(This is assuming that you installed Free Pascal in the default location.) In order to run Free Pascal from any directory on your system, you must extend your path variable to contain the C:\PP\BIN directory. You can choose to do this in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, but you can also insert a statement in the SET_PP.BAT file. Whatever the location you choose, It should look something like this :
  SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\PP\BIN
(Again, assuming that you installed in the default location).

If you want to use the graphic drivers you must modify the environment variable GO32. Instructions for doing this can be found in the documentation of the Graph unit, at the InitGraph procedure.

Optional Installation: The coprocessor emulation

For people who have an older CPU type, without math coprocessor (i387) it is necessary to install a coprocessor emulation, since Free Pascal uses the coprocessor to do all floating point operations.

The installation of the coprocessor emulation is handled by the installation program (INSTALL.EXE). However, the installation program has currently a bug: If you select the coprocessor emulation the program ignores this and you must do this by hand. You should change the GO32 environment variable in the SET_PP.BAT file, as follows:

SET GO32=emu C:\PP\DRIVERS\EMU387

Installing under Linux

Mandatory installation steps.

The LINUX distribution of Free Pascal comes in three forms:

All of these packages contain a ELF version of the compiler binaries and units. the older aout binaries are no longer distributed, although you still can use the comiler on an aout system if you recompile it.

If you use the .rpm format, installation is limited to

rpm -i fpc-pascal-XXX.rpm
(XXX is the version number of the .rpm file)

If you use debian, installation is limited to

dpkg -i fpc-XXX.deb
Here again, XXX is the version number of the .deb file.

You need root access to install these packages. The .tar file allows you to do an installation if you don't have root permissions.

When downloading the .tar file, installation is more interactive:

This means that you should first untar the file, in some directory where you have write permission, using the following command:

tar -xvf fpc.tar
We supposed here that you downloaded the file fpc.tar somewhere from the Internet. (The real filename will have some version number in it, which we omit here for clarity.)

When the file is untarred, you will be left with more archive files, and an install program: an installation shell script. To install Free Pascal, all that you need to do now is give the following command:

./install.sh
And then you must answer some questions. They're very simple, they're mainly concerned with 2 things :
  1. Places where you can install different things.
  2. Deciding if you want to install certain components (such as sources and demo programs).
If you run the installation script as the root user, you can just accept all installation defaults. If you don't run as root, you must take care to supply the installation program with directory names where you have write permission, as it will attempt to create the directories you specify. In principle, you can install it wherever you want, though.

At the end of installation, the installation program will generate a configuration file for the Free Pascal compiler which reflects the settings that you chose. It will install this file in the /etc directory, (if you are not installing as root, this will fail), and in the directory where you installed the libraries.

If you want the Free Pascal compiler to use this configuration file, it must be present in /etc, or you can set the environment variable PPC_CONFIG_PATH. Under csh, you can do this by adding a

setenv PPC_CONFIG_PATH /usr/lib/ppc/0.99.1
line to your .login file in your home directory. (see also the next section)

Optional configuration steps

You may wish to set some environment variables. The LINUX version of Free Pascal recognizes the following variables :

These locations are, however, set in the sample configuration file which is built at the end of the installation process, except for the PPC_CONFIG_PATH variable, which you must set if you didn't install things in the default places.

finally

Also distributed in Free Pascal is a README file. It contains the latest instructions for installing Free Pascal, and should always be read first.


next up previous contents
Next: Testing the compiler Up: Installing the compiler Previous: Before Installation : Requirements

Michael Van Canneyt
Tue Mar 31 16:44:14 CEST 1998