How to get Miriad working on Mac OS X 10.2 and 10.3

Also includes patches needed for big data files from SMA

Date: 18 August 2003: initial version for Jaguar Mac OS X 10.2
Date: 05 March 2004: mods for Panther Mac OS X 10.3 and large SMA data files

These notes are for Mac OS X Jaguar (10.2.6), Panther (10.3.2) and Miriad v3. According to the Miriad website, if you are using Miriad for production work use Version 3 and if you are doing development work or CARMA use version 4. I have put together a patch for OS X from various sources. This patch was needed for building and using Miriad on OS X. In order to install Miriad you will need the following programs: X11, X11SDK, Developer Tools, g77 and wget. The default install of Mac OS X 10.2 will not have these installed. If you have already installed the above programs just skip to step 5. The 10.3 version that was installed on my G5 already had X11, X11SDK, Xcode (Developer Tools) available either on the hard drive or on the Install DVD. I also updated Xcode to version 1.1 from the Apple deveopler website. Install g77 and wget from as in Step 4 using Fink.

  1. You will need X11 for Apple and the X11SDK as well. Get these from the Apple X11 website. The total download size for these two packages is between 40 - 50 MB.

  2. Jaguar Mac OS 10.2 only: Install the Dec 2002 version of Mac OS X Developer Tools. You can find this either on your OS X install CDs or download them from the Apple Developer Connection website. Do not install the additional patch from Apple which includes gcc 3.3. See the Fink - News Web Site for more details. The news item was dated 2003-06-26. The download size of the Developer tools is greater than 300 MB and the installed size can be as big 1 GB. In order to download the developer tools you may need to set up a Free Apple Developer account.

  3. Install Fink: Fink is a package manager that allows you to add very standard unix packages and programs in order to enhance your Mac OS X system. See the Fink website for more details. We will be using Fink for adding the programs g77 and wget. The easiest way to install Fink is to download the binary installer (14 MB download) from the fink web site. Before downloading and installing fink make sure that that you do not have Version 7.2 of the Virex program as it has conflicts with fink. See the Fink - News Web Site for more details. The news items were dated 2003-04-16 and 2003-02-07. After downloading the program, just install it by double-clicking it. Once, Fink is installed, I find Fink Commander (5 MB download) to be the easiest way to manage a Fink installation, that is, install and upgrade unix packages using a graphical user interface. For command line enthusiasts there is always 'dselect'. Drag the "FinkCommander" program from the mounted image to your Applications folder.

  4. You need the g77 compiler in order to build the fortran programs within miriad as the Apple Developer Tools do not come with g77. The 'wget' program is a command line program that is run from the terminal and is used to download files from the internet both via http or ftp. The wget program is needed by the program that automates the Miriad install. For details, see the next item.

    Launch Fink Commander. In the searchbox at the top next to "Name" type g77. It should show up the g77 package. Highlight it and then select Install from the Binary menu on the top. Install wget in a similar fashion if you want to use the automated miriad install script. You do not need to install wget-ssl. In order to use wget, you may need to turn off your Mac OS X firewall. It will be found in Preferences-->Sharing.

  5. This procedure assumes that you do not have miriad installed currently. If you do please backup that directory before starting. For example 'echo $MIR' will tell you what the MIR directory is. Also edit your .cshrc file and comment out the MIRRC line. Then open up a fresh Terminal/Xterm and run the remaining steps from there.

  6. Once you have successfully completed the above steps, the remaining install of Miriad can be automated by using the unix shell script miriad-osx-jaguar.csh for OS X 10.2 and miriad-osx-panther.csh for OS X 10.3. If you want to install everything manually skip the rest of this step and go to step 6. If you want to install using the script first turn off your Mac OS X firewall and then launch a Terminal window and type the following

    For Jaguar OS X 10.2
    cd ~
    wget -N http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~rrao/miriad-osx/miriad-osx-jaguar.csh
    chmod +x miriad-osx-jaguar.csh
    ./miriad-osx-jaguar.csh

    For Panther OS X 10.3
    cd ~
    wget -N http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~rrao/miriad-osx/miriad-osx-panther.csh
    chmod +x miriad-osx-panther.csh
    ./miriad-osx-panther.csh

    The install process can take some time depending on how fast your computer is. Hopefully, the install will have gone successfully. If you did have to turn off the firewall, remember to turn it back on again. In order to setup to use Miriad go to step 15 for how to do it.

  7. Download Miriad v3 from the BIMA ftp website.

  8. Download the patch for large SMA datasets. Miriad OS X patch

  9. Download the patch for Mac OS X. Miriad OS X patch

  10. For Panther only OS X 10.3: Download the patch for Mac OS X. Miriad OS X 10.3 patch

  11. Make a folder in your home directory called MIRIAD. Move the files you have downloaded (miriad3.tar.gz and the various patch files) into this folder.

  12. Now open up a terminal window and type the following commands at the prompt.

    cd ~/MIRIAD
    tar -xvzf miriad3.tar.gz
    mv miriad3_cvs miriad
    setenv MIRTEMP ~/MIRIAD/miriad
    set path = ( $MIRTEMP/src/sys/bin $path )
    rehash
    cd miriad
    patch -p1 < ../miriad3-sma.patch
    patch -p1 < ../miriad3-osx.patch
    For Panther OS X 10.3 only: patch -p1 < ../miriad3-panther.patch
    mir.mkdirs $MIRTEMP
    source MIRRC.darwin
    mir.install


    Now go get a cup of coffee and let it churn away. It should mostly build everything except xmtv, xpanel and a few others. We will fix xmtv and xpanel after mir.install is done.

  13. Fix xmtv

    cd ~/MIRIAD/miriad/src/spec/xmtv/
    make

  14. Fix xpanel. The second command must be entered on one long line. No breaks!!

    cd $MIRTEMP

    cc -O -fno-common -DWORDS_BIGENDIAN -Ddarwin -Isrc/inc -Idarwin -I/usr/X11R6/include -Isrc/tools -o bin/darwin/xpanel src/tools/xpanel.c -Llib/darwin -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lXaw -lXmu -lXt -lXext -lX11

  15. Optional: Compile xcorf. In order to use xcorf you will need lesstif. Install lesstif via Fink Commander

    cd ~/MIRIAD/miriad/src/spec/xcorf/
    make darwin


  16. Some scripts in $MIRBIN do not have executable permission. Set these with

    chmod +x $MIRBIN/*

  17. I have not been able to compile the following programs due to various errors: mxv, deproject, polargrid, pnt, mbanal, uvdecor, uvphase, atlod, hcconv, mosaic, uvhat. Some of these programs are more relevant for Miriad data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA).

  18. Finally put the line

    source ~/MIRIAD/miriad/MIRRC.darwin

    in your .cshrc or .tcshrc file if you run Miriad on a daily basis. Otherwise you will need to type
    source ~/MIRIAD/miriad/MIRRC.darwin
    everytime you want to run miriad.


Note: Some of the display programs particularly "xmtv" require an 8-bit display for X-windows. When you double click on X11 in your Applications Folder to start up X-windows it starts up with a higher bit display. In order to use "xmtv" and other 8-bit programs you have to start X-windows from a terminal window by typing the following

/Applications/X11.app/Contents/MacOS/X11 -depth 8

As far as I am aware, I don't think that you can run both regular X11 and 8-bit X11 simultaneously.


For questions and comments: rrao@cfa.harvard.edu