Vista Installation Requirements

Vista is distributed as ANSI C source code. To build it you will need an ANSI C compiler (we use the GNU project's gcc), Release 4 or 5 of the X Window System (preferably Release 5 at patch level 21 or later), and 20 to 40 megabytes of disk space (depending on how much of Vista you choose to build).

The OSF/Motif widget library is needed to build a portion of the Vista library, and some Vista programs. We've been using V1.1.2 of the OSF/Motif library. Lacking OSF/Motif, however, it is still possible to build most Vista software, including a program for displaying images under X Windows.

Vista conforms almost completely to the relevant ANSI C, POSIX.1, and X/Open Portability Guide interfaces. The departures are:

Like the X Window System, Vista uses the imake facility to configure the build and installation procedures for a particular site and machine architecture. You will need the imake and makedepend tools distributed with the X Window System. Vista includes architecture-specific configuration files for SunOS 4.1 and 5.3, Silicon Graphics' IRIX 4.0, Linux, and Ultrix.

The distribution is shipped in compressed form. To uncompress it you will need the GNU project's gunzip program, which is available from prep.ai.mit.edu in /pub/gnu.


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