Languages

 FORTRAN77/90/95 (needed) - is the main programming language used to code EMPIRE core (physics modules) and utility codes. GNU compiler g77, available with all Linux systems, sets the reference. EMPIRE runs also with g95, Intel FORTRAN95, and Lahey/Fujitsu-6.2 (commercial). With the latter two compilers EMPIRE runs 2-3 times faster than with g77 or g95.

 bash (needed) - shell scripting language used in a number of scripts essential to the operation of the system.

 Tcl/Tk & itcl - are used to code GUI's. Linux version of the ActiveTcl package containing Tcl/Tk and itcl is provided within the EMPIRE-2.19 distribution.

 C - is used in a small pipe.c module used to execute shell commands from the FORTRAN source and in the ZVView package. All FORTRAN compilers mentioned above incorporate C. Otherwise, pipe.c can also be replaced by pipe.f but it is compiler and system dependent.

 Java - is used in the EXFOR retrieval system and EXFOR-GUI. EMPIRE-2.19 package contains all software needed to run EXFOR retrieval including MySQL server on Linux (Windows version is available from IAEA-NDS).

 gawk - of marginal importance, needed only to create plots directly from the EMPIRE output.

Platforms

Full 'out of box' functionality of EMPIRE can only be expected on LINUX. General UNIX and Mac OS X require some adjustments but complete (or nearly complete) EMPIRE system can be built. The MS Windows system is currently not well supported.

  LINUX ()

Linux has been native environment of EMPIRE and all recent releases were developed on subsequent versions of Red Hat. The current 2.19 version has been running under Red Hat Enterprise 3 and Fedora Core 3 but Red Hat 7.3, 8, and 9 were used in the development phase. Other LINUX distributions should also be fine.

  UNIX (**)

UNIX operating systems were not tested but are expected to be adequate without any (or with minor) adaptations. One should only ensure that bash script, FORTRAN compiler and Tcl/Tk along with itcl are installed. The MySQL EXFOR retrieval will not work 'out of box' on a generic UNIX.

  Mac (**)

There were successful installations of preliminary EMPIRE-2.19 versions on Mac OS X system which is pretty close to LINUX. The only problem is the itcl package that must be built by the user. The MySQL EXFOR retrieval will not work 'out of box' on Mac.

  Windows (*)

Only individual FORTRAN modules (in particular physics core) can be compiled and executed under MS Windows. Lack of the bash shell prevents automatic execution of the sequence of EMPIRE modules. Nearly all remaining components of the EMPIRE system can be obtained in the Windows versions (ActiveTcl, Ghostview, ZVView, EXFOR retrieval). One might try to use cygwin which provides bash shell but this route was not tested. We have plans to migrate all bash scripts to Tcl to solve the problem.