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Last modified: 15 November 2010

URL: http://cxc-newtest.cfa.harvard.edu/ciao4.2/download/index.html

Downloading CIAO 4.2

WHAT'S NEW | WATCH OUT

The ciao-install script is designed to simplify and automate the installation and upgrade of the CIAO and the Chandra Calibration DataBase (CALDB).

ciao-install FTPs the selected files to your computer, verifies them via md5sum, and unpacks them. The script configures CIAO, sets up the command-line ahelp system, and (optionally) runs the CIAO smoke tests.

The ciao-install.README file had detailed information on the script. For a summary of options, run the script with the "--help" option.

Version 2 of the Sherpa package for CIAO 4.2 was released on 19 July 2010. Sherpa v2 has a number of enhancements, such as two new iterative fitting methods, refinements to parallelization, and many improvements to instrument and source models.

Support for the S-Lang scripting language has been removed from Sherpa in this release. S-Lang is still included for the CIAO tools and modules and for the ChIPS plotting application.

Sherpa v2 is available for all platforms except Mac OS X 10.4 PPC.

Quick Installation | Custom Installation | Manual Installation

Quick Installation

This method allows ciao-install to determine what platform you are using, then downloads and installs the standard CIAO installation: CIAO tools, ChIPS, Sherpa, the main CALDB tarfile, and the contributed science scripts.

For existing CIAO installations, this method may also be used to download and install software patches and contributed science script updates.

This option will not choose one of the beta 64-bit builds even if you are on a 64-bit system. To install 64-bit CIAO, use the Custom Installation option.

  2. Run the script: 

    unix% bash /<path>/ciao-install

    For detailed instructions, refer to the ciao-install thread page.

Custom Installation

Select the CIAO and CALDB packages you need, then download the custom ciao-install script to install them.

Step 1: Choose a Platform

The default setting - "Autodetect Platform" - allows ciao-install to determine what platform you are using and to select the appropriate build of CIAO. The autodetect option will not choose one of the beta 64-bit builds even if you are on a 64-bit system; you must select it manually from the menu.

The Platform Support page has more information on the officially supported CIAO platforms.

Step 2: Customize your Software Installation

Standard CIAO installation
  • Selects a complete binary installation of CIAO tools, ChIPS and Sherpa, the main CALDB tarfile, and the contributed science scripts.
Binary Packages
  • CIAO analysis tools - v1
  • Sherpa modeling and fitting package - v2 [Updated] (19 Jul 2010)
  • Chips plotting package - v1
  • Prism file-browsing GUI - v1
  • ObsVis observation visualizer for proposal planning - v1
Calibration Database (CALDB)

The CALDB contains all the calibration files required for Chandra data analysis.

ciao_install can currently only be used for full CALDB installations. If you already have CalDB 4.2.0 or higher installed, download the upgrade package from the CALDB page.

  • CALDB v4.3.1 [Updated] (28 Sep 2010)
  • ACIS background event files v4.3.1 [Updated] (28 Sep 2010)
  • HRC background event files v4.3.0
  • ACIS PSF libraries
  • HRC PSF libraries
Contributed Science Scripts

The contributed science tarfile contains analysis scripts and modules that extend the functionality of CIAO.

  • Contributed Scripts - version 15 November 2010
Source Build

The source build option is for users who wish to compile CIAO themselves. Refer to the 4.2 INSTALL_SOURCE file for instructions and the bug page for known source build issues.

  • Full source build
  • Source files for the selected binary packages

Step 3: Download the Installation Script

If a version of ciao-install exists in your download directory, some browsers will save the new script with a number in filename, e.g. "ciao-install(2)". Be sure you are running the newest download of your script.

Run the script: 

unix% bash /<path>/ciao-install

For detailed instructions, refer to the ciao-install thread page.

Manual Installation

If you are having problems using the ciao-install script, refer to the Manually Installing CIAO 4.2 thread. It explains how to retrieve the files with wget and then install CIAO step-by-step.


Last modified: 15 November 2010