Here is how I installed iraf v.2.11 on a x86 machine running Red Hat 5.2 (with a 2.2.5 kernel, but I don't think that is important). Apparently this is glibc as well which is relevant when you get to installing ximtool and such. 1) make an user "iraf" by editing: /etc/passwd: iraf:*:502:502::/iraf/iraf/local:/bin/csh /etc/group: iraf:x:502: 2) Get the install files, I put mine into /u2 /iraf/v211/PCIX/as.pcix.gen/* --> /u2/iraf/* /iraf/v211/PCIX/ib.rhux.x86/* --> /u2/iraf/* /iraf/v211/PCIX/nb.rhux.x86/* --> /u2/iraf/* (Yes, I dump them all together in one big mess - I am just gonna ditch them all later anyway, and this makes things a bit simpler later ....) 3) decide where to install iraf, in my case /u1/iraf was chosen. do this: ln -s /u1/iraf /iraf mkdir /u1/iraf chown iraf:iraf /u1/iraf 4) login as iraf and do this: (ignore the warning about the home directory not existing yet.) whoami (verify that I am iraf) setenv iraf /iraf/iraf/ mkdir /iraf/iraf cd $iraf cat /u2/iraf/as.* | tar -xzvpf - cd /iraf mkdir irafbin mkdir irafbin/bin.redhat mkdir irafbin/noao.bin.redhat cd $iraf/bin.redhat cat /u2/iraf/ib.* | tar -xzvpf - cd $iraf/noao.bin.redhat cat /u2/iraf/nb.* | tar -xzvpf - cd $iraf/unix/hlib source irafuser.csh 5) Get ready to do the install thing. (this messes with stuff in /usr/local/bin, perhaps other places as well). This must be run as the super user. With the -n switch, it doesn't actually do anything. Ignore the business about /usr/tmp and /d0/iraf, since we take care of this in (7) below. ./install -n su ./install exit 6) Try the CL and see if all this works. cd source .login rehash cl (I found that it wanted me to run mkiraf, so I did) 7) for each user that will use iraf, edit the login.cl as follows: replace: imdir = "/usr/tmp/xxxxxx" with: imdir = "HDR$pixels" This means that each user will create image files and the pixels will be in a directory below the directory with the header (named pixels), rather than in some master image area (like /usr/tmp or /d0/iraf). 8) rm -rf /u2/iraf (if you want to stay tidy). -------------------------------------------------------------------- That should do it, except for xgterm and ximtool What I did for those is as follows: 1) As user iraf: mkdir $iraf/x11iraf cd $iraf/x11iraf tar xzpvf /u2/iraf/x11iraf-v1.1-linux-glibc-bin.tar.gz 2) Then distribute all the pieces as appropriate: cp bin/* /usr/local/bin 3) Remember that ximtool gets upset if you try to run it in a display with other than an 8-bit pixel depth, so you may need to restart the X server with something like: startx -bpp 8 In a window with other than an 8 bit visual, it produces some absolutely inscrutable message, so check this if anything goes wrong. xwininfo is handy for checking what bit depth you are running.