Difference between revisions of "Getting ICE"

Revision as of 12:52, 7 January 2015

This page describes the process by which users can download and use the binary version of ICE. We recommend most users use the binary, however, for those who are adventurous at heart, detailed instructions on building ICE from the source code are available on the ICE Build Instructions page.

Prerequisites

ICE requires Java 1.6 or greater. Sun's version of Java can be used on Linux, Windows or Mac and the OpenJDK can also be used Linux and Mac. The ICE Development Team prefers the OpenJDK on Linux systems. Some tools in ICE also require the installation of third-party libraries. While it's not necessary to install these libraries to run ICE, the Reactors and Visualization perspectives will not work correctly without them.

HDF5

ICE requires HDF5 libraries installed locally to use the ReactorAnalyzer tools. We recommend installing the pre-built binary version.

Note that on Windows, the HDF5 libraries must be included in your system's %PATH% variable. For example, for HDF5 libraries installed in the default locations, the following pathname would need to be added to the %PATH% variable:

C:\Program Files\HDF_Group\HDF5\1.8.14\lib

For Unix-like systems, configuring HDF libraries requires a little bit more jiggery-pokery. It is not sufficient to just add the HDF5 libraries to your ld.so.config file; it must also be added to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable. If you do not know how to do this, you can run the following script from your home directory and replace <path_to_hdf5_libs> to your library directories for those packages as appropriate. The first part of this script backs up your current configuration, and the second part appends the necessary variables to your ~/.bashrc file.

cp .bashrc .bashrc.backup
echo "LD_LIBRARY_PATH"=<path_to_hdf5_libs>:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH 
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

For example, if your HDF5 libraries are stored in /opt/hdf5/lib, the script would be as follows:

cp .bashrc .bashrc.backup 
echo "LD_LIBRARY_PATH"=/opt/hdf5/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH 
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

If you make a mistake, you can restore your old ~/.bashrc by replacing .bashrc with .bashrc.backup that was created by the script. In addition to this, you may need to add these files in your ld.so.conf file. Speak to your system administrator if you do not know how to do this.

VisIt

ICE requires VisIt 2.8.2 be installed to use the VisIt Viewer tool.

We recommend you install VisIt in the default installation directory. However, if you would like to install VisIt in another location, you will need to take an extra step to ensure ICE knows where to find the VisIt libraries. Begin by finding the ICE.ini file in the directory where you extracted the zipped ICE binary.

Open this file with a text editor and find the line that begins with "-Dvisit.binpath=". For example, on a Windows machine, this would look something like:

-Dvisit.binpath=C:\PROGRA~1\LLNL\VISIT2~1.2

Change the filepath to match the location of your VisIt installation. For example, if I installed VisIt in the location C:\Users\Someone\LLNL\VisIt 2.8.2 on my system, then I would change the line in my ICE.ini file to:

-Dvisit.binpath=C:\Users\Someone\LLNL\VisIt 2.8.2

Windows users might notice filepaths in the ICE.ini file look a little funky. As long as you follow the above instructions, you don't need to worry about this. If you are still curious as to why this is, see our explanation in our ICE FAQ.

3D Graphics

ICE also requires that your system has 3D rendering enabled to edit geometries, which is normally done by installing the 3D graphics drivers from the vendor of your graphics card. You should consult your IT specialist if you do not know how to enable this on your own.

Downloading ICE

The latest stable version of ICE is version 2.1.6. The binary distribution is a fully-functional, full-featured, executable version of ICE that includes everything except for the Java Virtual Machine, third-party libraries and plug-ins currently in development.

You should select the appropriate file named ICE2.x.y-*.zip where the * is the correct operating system and processor architecture for your system, and x and y are major and minor version numbers. For example, ICE2.1.6-win32.win32.x86_64.zip is ICE version 2.1.6 for 64-bit Windows. The choices are as follows:

On a 64-bit installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL6), the ICE.product-linux.gtk.x86_64.zip version of ICE is the appropriate choice.

Running ICE

Once you download the appropriate zip file for your operating system, extract it to a directory of your choice. No additional installation steps are required because ICE is executed directly from this directory.

Windows

In the file browser, navigate to the folder where you extracted ICE. In the ICE folder, double-click ICE.exe. On Linux and Mac systems, you may follow the same procedure, but the ICE executable is only called ICE on those systems.

Macs

You may get a message that says that ICE is from an unidentified developer and cannot be opened. In the file browser, you can right-click the executable, click "Open" in the context menu that appears and then click "OK" when prompted again. Alternatively, ICE may be executed from the command line on Linux and Mac systems.

Linux

ICE may be executed from the command line on Linux systems by navigating to the folder where ICE was extracted, and then issuing the command ./ICE.

When ICE runs, it will stream data to a console window that displays debug information as the environment is used. You may safely ignore this window while you are working by keeping it minimized or in the background.

What if ICE fails to run?

If you feel you've followed all the above directions for configuring ICE and its dependencies, and ICE still fails to run, email us directly at ice-dev <at> eclipse.org. If you believe that you have identified a bug, please report it to our bug tracker.