Installation Instructions for LAMPS

LAMPS is configured such that, unless you are using a completely new machine, installing the LAMPS package is relatively simple. Most of the hassle will be in getting the appropriate observation files necessary to run your case. At most, there will be only a few changes which need to be done to the files.

One can follow the step-by-step instructions in the tutorial to install LAMPS. Installation information is also listed below.

Getting the LAMPS package onto your machine

  1. Copy lamps90.tar to your system. A tar file named lamps90.tar.gz is available which contains all of the LAMPS files. Put the file in the directory that is to act as your main LAMPS directory.
  2. Extract the LAMPS files from lamps90.tar.Z. On most UNIX machines, "uncompress lamps90.tar" and then "tar xvf lamps90.tar" will extract all the files. If this doesn't work, check the computer-specific peculiarities in the User Guide. Some machines have problems with user definitions and foreign tar files.

Once all the files have been extracted, you will notice a bunch of sub-directories. Most of these will be of no concern to the novice user.

Configuring the makefiles

By using "Setup" (see User's Guide or tutorial), most of the makefile structure can be automatically set up. However, there are two files which need to be supplied by the user : the ".def" file and the ".sfx" file. These files are stored in the config/defs/ and config/sfx directories.

These files have already been created for each of the machines on which LAMPS has been implemented. If you are using the exact same machine as one that has already been used, no changes will be necessary (although one should still double-check just to make sure). If you are not, they should be used as a guide.

Machine-dependent parameters

Since each machine has different word lengths and such, a file has been set up that specifies these parameters for each machine. This file is incl/generic.cfg. The .cfg suffix is used to identify the file as containing C-preprocessor macro definitions. This suffix is used because the file will be used to "configure" the source code (this made more sense in the days before the new LAMPS but was kept for continuity reasons).

Using Install

Some machines require a different makefile or source code structure. For the machines for which LAMPS has already been installed, a shell has been set-up that will automatically make the necessary changes for you. All you have to do is type Install and specify the appropriate definition file. It will automatically determine the type of machine you are own and make the appropriate changes. If it cannot determine the type of machine, then you will have to make the necessary changes yourself.

Other helpful hints

First, read through the appendix on Peculiarities (see User's Guide) to get a feel for which peculiarities exist among UNIX machines.

Second, add your machine to src/rlib/liblamps/getdateid.F. Each machine has a different way of determining the current date and time. You need to check your FORTRAN manual to see how it is done on your machine.

Third, determine whether your machine can sequentially access fixed record-length files. Some fixed record-length files are accessed sequentially because computers like the CONVEX and HP's can handle them. If your machine cannot, you probably need to convert the files to variable record-length format and access them via the structure used by the SUN and Stardent.

Finally, compile the code and try to interpret the error messages. With a knowledge of the different identifier macros, one can identify places within the code where some machines require special coding. Your machine may be one of them. This is done by using the "#if defined" statements. These are the cpp statements that are used to put in the machine-dependent statements. By looking at these lines, one can also get an idea where discrepancies have existed in the past.

Last updated: July 17, 2019.

Questions and comments should be directed to Robert Cohen

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