Why is software [...] installed on some Linux systems, but not on others?

There are mainly two possible reasons:

Why is Adobe Reader not installed on Linux systems?

Because Adobe no longer provides a supported build. Security updates are no longer available for version 9, and that's the last one that was available for Linux. Given the security record of this software, we must assume that using it is just not secure unless you blindly trust the source of a document. If you wouldn't give your passwords to whoever provided you with the document, open it with something else - or on a platform where updated versions are available. More information about the Adobe Reader Removal.

Maple 16 does not start/work on some systems

This version of Maple will try to reserve a significant portion of the total memory in the system - no matter how much of it is already in use. On systems where memory overcommitment is disabled, this will often fail because some memory is already committed to other running tasks. Just set a memory limit to make it behave more reasonably: After a limit -s addr 4096m it will work - if that amount is sufficient.

ROOT does not start/work, or prints error messages about missing/wrong shared libraries during startup

Please remove or rename the files .rootrc and rootlogon.C in your home directory and the current working directory, and also make sure that the environment variables LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LD_PRELOAD are unset or at least definitely point to the right shared objects for the ROOT version you're using. If ROOT now works normally, you'll have to find out what in your startup files is causing this behaviour, or why your environment variables point to the wring shared libraries.

Where's cernlib?

Please see SL6_User_Information.

When linking against cernlib, I get lots of "missing _gfortran..." errors

Starting with SL5, the default Fortran compiler is gfortran and no longer g77, and the cernlib installed on SL5 was built with and for that compiler.

Standard disclaimer: cernlib is obsolete. We provide it in order to allow legacy projects to use a contemporary platform. It should not be used anywhere else, and it won't be around forever.

Firefox refuses to start, claiming it's already running, but it isn't

Run the command find ~/.mozilla -name '*lock' and delete the files found. Then try again.

Frequently_Asked_Questions/Software (last edited 2015-02-04 11:16:02 by GötzWaschk)