Prerequisites
This section describes how to install and set up SPFIT, SPCAT and LLWP.
SPFIT and SPCAT
SPFIT and SPCAT were initially written in Fortran but later ported to the C programming language. This means the first step to installing them is to obtain a version that is compiled for your operating system.
Precompiled versions for various operating systems are collected here:
SPFIT for Windows
SPCAT for Windows
SPFIT for Ubuntu
SPCAT for Ubuntu
SPFIT for macOS (ARM)
SPCAT for macOS (ARM)
SPFIT for macOS (Intel)
SPCAT for macOS (Intel)
If none of the pre-compiled versions are compatible with your operating system, there is always the option to compile SPFIT/SPCAT yourself.
Compiling SPFIT/SPCAT
The only things you need to compile SPFIT and SPCAT are the source code and a C compiler (e.g. GCC). Extract the source code, navigate in the terminal into the source code folder and run the following commands
make spfit
make spcat
This will compile exectuables for SPFIT and SPCAT.
Making the Executables Globally Accessible
Once you have obtained the correct executables, check that they are executable on your system (otherwise make them executable) and copy or move them to a folder in your PATH environment variable (or add the folder they reside in to your PATH environment variable). To list all folders in your path run
echo %PATH%
on Windows and
echo $path
on Unix systems (macOS and Ubuntu).
Now you should be able to open a terminal and run
spfit
and
spcat
which should each result in the following prompt
Enter file name
Press enter to exit the prompt. Congratulations, you have successfully installed SPFIT and SPCAT.
Install LLWP
Install a recent version of Python3 on your system. Make sure to add Python to the PATH when prompted during the installation. Then you should be able to access pip via the command line which you can check by running
pip --version
which should respond with the version and location of pip (on some systems you have to replace pip with pip3). Then you can install LLWP by running
pip install --upgrade llwp
Now you should be able to start LLWP from anywhere in the terminal by simply running
llwp
This should open the graphical user interface of LLWP. Congratulations, you have successfully installed LLWP.
Verify that Everything Works
This is a quick summary on how to verify that everything is installed correctly:
- Open a terminal
- Run llwp which should open the graphical user interface of LLWP
- Close the GUI of LLWP
- Run spfit which should prompt you Enter the file name
- Press enter
- Run spcat which should prompt you Enter the file name
- Press enter