System requirements
The latest version (2.21a) has been tested on Suse Linux 10.0 and 10.1, as well as with Ubuntu 6.10. Building Vimms requires the Qt3 header files to be installed and everything else needed to compile a Qt3 application (especially g++, qmake).
By installing the package "kdevelop" on Suse Linux one can ensure that all necessary packages are available
on the system.
In order to guarantee easy compilation on many different linux distributions, we have migrated
the Makefile generation process to "qmake". Now building the package is done by running
qmake && make
Ensure that the environment variable $PATH also points to the binary directory of Qt3 installation, for example "/usr/lib/qt3/bin".
If GPIB communication support is required, the Linux GPIB-Package needs to be
installed and running. GPIB support can then be enabled by running
qmake "CONFIG += gpib"
before the compilation.
For running the sample programs in Vimms, it may be necessary to do a recompilation of the included program pieces by selecting
"File / Recompile all" in the main menu.
For further instructions read the files README and INSTALL in the base directory of the Vimms package.
Running Scanning Probe Microscopes (SPM) from DME
The company DME - Danish Micro Engineering A/S (International website, or
German website) provides a library
with predefined modules for
controlling their SPM with Vimms. In order to run the instruments, Vimms must have been compiled with GPIB support enabled.
To load the DME SPM module, go to "Options / Modules" in the main menu and specify the location of the file
"vflspm.so". The library will load only if GPIB support in Vimms is enabled. For SPM operation follow the appropriate manual.
Frank Hitzel, 2007