Using HippoDraw on SLAC Linux Systems

HippoDraw is installed at SLAC for use by Red Hat Linux 9 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 machines.

This includes both SLAC Computing Services (SCS) public machines (noric-new) and most desktop machines maintained by SCS.

If you have a SLAC UNIX account, you can log into a public machine as shown below.

> ssh noric-new
RHEL WS release 3 (Taroon Update 1) 2.4.21-9.0.3.ELsmp (2x1390MHz Intel)
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By using this system you expressly consent to the terms and conditions in
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/policy/use.html
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noric05>

Using HippoDraw as a stand a lone application.

HippoDraw can be used as stand a lone application, It has been installed in various locations by various groups. The most recent version can be started as show below.

noric13> /afs/slac/g/ek/bin/hippodraw

Note that no environment shell variables need to be set. If you use HippoDraw often, you may want to add the path /afs/slac/g/ek/bin in your PATH environment variable. But be aware (or benefit from), this directory contains newer version of frequently used program then typically found in the SCS maintained /usr/local.

See Getting Started with HippoDraw for help in learning to use HippoDraw.

Using HippoDraw as a Python extension moudle.

HippoDraw has been installed in /usr/local/lib/python2.3/site-packages, the standard location for Python extension modules. However a newer version is at /afs/slac/g/ek/lib/python2.4/site-packages.

To start a session with HippoDraw, first start the Python interactive shell as shown below.

noric05> /afs/slac/g/ek/bin/python
Python 2.4 (#1, Dec  3 2004, 12:07:24)
[GCC 3.2.3 20030502 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-42)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

Or, if this bin directory is in your PATH, then just type python.

Next, import HippoDraw into the Python session as show below

>>> import hippo
>>>

Don't worry about the warning, SCS made a slight error in installing Python which may be already fixed by the time your read this.

The last step is to create the HippoDraw application as show below

>>> app = hippo.HDApp()
>>>

You'll more likely be putting these commands in a file and have Python interpret them at startup. For examples, eee Python scripts for more infromation.

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