XINS - Installation Guide

Introduction

This document guides you in installing XINS on a computer.

In total this should cost you no more than 10 minutes.

Prerequisites

In order to install XINS successfully, you must:

  • be able to install software on your machine
  • know how to configure environment variables on your machine
  • have experience with using a command line interface

Overview of contents

This document is divided in the following short sections:

No assumption is made on the operating system you are using. XINS has been tested successfully on different combinations of operating systems, hardware architectures and Java implementations.

1. Installing a Java SDK

If you already have a Java JDK installed, skip to section 2 "Installing Apache Ant".

Step 1. For Windows, Linux and Solaris systems, you are advised to download the latest Java JDK from Sun and install it.

On other platforms, find and install a Java 1.4 or later JDK for your OS.
Step 2. Make sure the bin directory of your Java JDK is in your execution path.

How this is done differs per operating system:

  • On Windows systems, right-click on 'My Computer', select 'Properties', 'Advanced' and 'Environment Variables...' and then edit the variable named PATH in the section with user variables. Do not change the system settings. The paths are separated by a semi-colon character (';').
  • On other systems, edit your PATH setting in one of your startup scripts, typically in your home directory and called .profile or .bashrc. The separation character is a colon (':').
Step 3. Validate that your Java JDK is installed correctly by running the command javac -J-version. The result should be something like this: 
java version "1.5.0_06"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_06-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_06-b05, mixed mode, sharing)
If you get an unexpected result, make sure you have correctly followed steps 1 and 2.

2. Installing Apache Ant

If you have Apache Ant (1.6.2 or later) installed, skip to section 3, "Installing XINS".

Step 4. Download the latest Apache Ant and install it.
Step 5. Make sure the Apache Ant bin directory is in your path (see step 2).
Step 6. Validate that Apache Ant is installed correctly by running the command ant -version. The result should be something like this: 
Apache Ant version 1.6.5 compiled on June 2 2005
If you get an error, make sure you correctly followed steps 4 and 5.

3. Installing XINS

Finally you need to install XINS self.

Step 7. On Windows systems, download the XINS 3.1 installer. Run it and accept the default installation settings.

On other systems, download the platform-independent XINS 3.1 TAR GZ file. Just unpack it in your home directory.
Step 8. Make sure the XINS bin directory is in your path (see the note with step 2).
Step 9. Validate that XINS is correctly installed by running the command xins -version. The result should be something like this: 
[echo] Java 1.5.0_06
[echo] Apache Ant version 1.6.5 compiled on June 2 2005
[echo] XINS 3.1
If you get an error, make sure you have correctly followed the previous steps.

4. Issues

If you have an issue installing XINS, please file a bug report.