10.4 Installing Maple

Contributed by Aaron Kaplan. Thanks to Robert Getschmann.

Maple is a commercial mathematics program similar to Mathematica®. You must purchase this software from http://www.maplesoft.com/ and then register there for a license file. To install this software on FreeBSD, please follow these simple steps.

  1. Execute the INSTALL shell script from the product distribution. Choose the “RedHat” option when prompted by the installation program. A typical installation directory might be /usr/local/maple.

  2. If you have not done so, order a license for Maple from Maple Waterloo Software (http://register.maplesoft.com/) and copy it to /usr/local/maple/license/license.dat.

  3. Install the FLEXlm license manager by running the INSTALL_LIC install shell script that comes with Maple. Specify the primary hostname for your machine for the license server.

  4. Patch the /usr/local/maple/bin/maple.system.type file with the following:

       ----- snip ------------------
    *** maple.system.type.orig      Sun Jul  8 16:35:33 2001
    --- maple.system.type   Sun Jul  8 16:35:51 2001
    ***************
    *** 72,77 ****
    --- 72,78 ----
              # the IBM RS/6000 AIX case
              MAPLE_BIN="bin.IBM_RISC_UNIX"
              ;;
    +     "FreeBSD"|\
          "Linux")
              # the Linux/x86 case
            # We have two Linux implementations, one for Red Hat and
       ----- snip end of patch -----
    

    Please note that after the "FreeBSD"|\ no other whitespace should be present.

    This patch instructs Maple to recognize “FreeBSD” as a type of Linux system. The bin/maple shell script calls the bin/maple.system.type shell script which in turn calls uname -a to find out the operating system name. Depending on the OS name it will find out which binaries to use.

  5. Start the license server.

    The following script, installed as /usr/local/etc/rc.d/lmgrd.sh is a convenient way to start up lmgrd:

       ----- snip ------------
    
    #! /bin/sh
    PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin
    PATH=${PATH}:/usr/local/maple/bin:/usr/local/maple/FLEXlm/UNIX/LINUX
    export PATH
    
    LICENSE_FILE=/usr/local/maple/license/license.dat
    LOG=/var/log/lmgrd.log
    
    case "$1" in
    start)
        lmgrd -c ${LICENSE_FILE} 2>> ${LOG} 1>&2
        echo -n " lmgrd"
        ;;
    stop)
        lmgrd -c ${LICENSE_FILE} -x lmdown 2>> ${LOG} 1>&2
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: `basename $0` {start|stop}" 1>&2
        exit 64
        ;;
    esac
    
    exit 0
       ----- snip ------------
    
  6. Test-start Maple:

    % cd /usr/local/maple/bin
    % ./xmaple
    

    You should be up and running. Make sure to write Maplesoft to let them know you would like a native FreeBSD version!

10.4.1 Common Pitfalls

This, and other documents, can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/.

For questions about FreeBSD, read the documentation before contacting <[email protected]>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <[email protected]>.