National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
United States Department of Commerce

9.1 SETTING UP TO RUN FERRET

Last modified: Mon, 07/10/2017 - 12:58

This discussion assumes that Ferret is already installed on your system. Installation documentation is available separately from the Ferret Downloads web pages.

STEP 1

Execute interactively or add to your .login file the Unix C-shell command

% source /usr/local/ferret_paths

(Note: If this command doesn't work consult your system manager, who may have placed ferret_paths in a different directory.)

The Ferret program requires access to several files and directories. These Unix paths are stored in environment variables defined by the file "ferret_paths". Your Unix account must be "made aware" of where the Ferret utilities are located. This is done by adding to the definition of your environment variable PATH the directory "$FER_DIR/bin". Unless your system manager has modified the typical setup, this will occur automatically when you execute the above command.

STEP 2 (personal customization—optional)

Execute the "cp" command below:

% cp $FER_DIR/bin/my_ferret_paths_template \
$HOME/my_ferret_paths

Or save that file from here: my_ferret_paths_template

Then use a text editor to customize my_ferret_paths. Instructions are inside the file.

Some of the Ferret environment variables identify files and directories that are integral to the Ferret program, but others identify files that you may maintain—your data files, GO scripts, and palette files, for example. (The environment variables that you may want to customize are discussed in the next end section.) To assist in customizing the Ferret environment variables the template file in the "cp" command, above, has been provided. The file is self-explanatory. In your .login file, execute this file after running ferret_paths:

% source /usr/local/ferret_paths
% source $HOME/my_ferret_paths

See also the command Faddpath,to add a directory to your path variables for the current Unix session.

STEP 3

Execute the command below interactively or add it to your .login file.

% setenv DISPLAY node:0.0 e.g., % setenv DISPLAY anorak:0.0

This command sets the environment variable "DISPLAY" to point to the workstation console or X-terminal where you want Ferret graphical output displayed. In the example above, graphical output is directed to the screen of workstation "anorak." The X display must be set for indexed color (a.k.a. pseudo-color); a maximum of 65K colors.