Supported Systems
The APT tools are highly graphical and interactive applications and therefore run best on a robust machine. APT is supported on Sun Solaris 10. APT requires a minimum of 512 Megabytes of RAM (memory), but we recommend 1 Gigabyte of RAM. Please see our memory discussion for more information.
Note: A required upgrade to APT's Lisp components have made it so Solaris 8 and 9 can no longer be supported.
Additional System Configuration Issues:
- APT now uses Java 6 and to run properly, your system manager may need to install patches for the version of Solaris you are running.
- We tested on the CDE window manager. The TWM window manager is known to be a problem with Java applications so please do not try to use APT with TWM. There are some problems running Java applications on Open Windows also, but these seem to be more cosmetic and can be worked around.
- You will need Adobe Reader 5.0 or higher installed on your machine. To check your version, start Adobe Reader and select "About Adobe Reader" from the Help menu.
- You should have the web browser plugin Shockwave 5.0 or higher for viewing the training movies. (In Netscape you can check your version by clicking on "About Plugins" in the Help menu.)
- Depending on your institution's computer security measures (firewalls, blocked ports, etc.), you may initially have communication trouble with APT. If you have any concerns please see our firewall webpage.
How to find out about new releases
We maintain a distribution list for announcing new releases of APT. This may be helpful to people who install APT for others to use. Send an e-mail to majordomo@stsci.edu which contains the line:
subscribe apt-users
1. UnInstall the previous version
Note: If you are going to install APT in the same directory as a previous version, please remove the previous version first. But if you are going to install in a separate directory, you would only need to uninstall to save disk space (and possible version confusion).To get rid of the old version: Delete the entire directory tree where you installed it. (The unix command rm -rf [directory] makes this quick because it gets rid of all the subdirectories and does not ask you about overriding permissions.)
2. Download and Install
Choose your operating system: APT contains a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Because of this there is a different APT for each major platform. The installation page you enter next can choose the correct version for your machine for you (just click on the button that says "Download Now"). Or just choose the Solaris platform from the "Available Installers" table and follow the instructions.
Get the most out of your machine's memory: During installation you will be given the option of stating how much memory your machine has.
- Choose the first option if:
- your machine has less than 1 GB of memory.
- you don't know how much memory you have (memory can be determined with the "top" unix command).
- you are doing a site installation and some of your users have less than 1 GB of memory.
- Choose the second option if your machine has between 1 and 2 GB of memory.
- Choose the third option if your machine has 2 GB or more of memory.
Proceed to the Installation...
3. Start
Once you have installed APT you invoke it with a script. For instance to start APT type ./APT in the installation directory. (By default the installation directory is placed in your home directory.) Links are no longer put in your home directory automatically. If you would like to create your own link, here is is the unix command to use in your home directory to create a link named 'apt':
ln -s [your_installation_directory]/APT apt
Once the program is started you will be presented with the main APT screen.
4. Help
There is a a series of short training movies which will help get you started (there are also web pages with screen shots available on the same page). APT also has documentation available from the "Help" menu (the right most menu on the menu bar).
If you can't find what you need, please contact us at help@stsci.edu.
5. Troubleshooting
If there are problems with the installation you can turn on debug logging and sometimes that will reveal the problem. This debug log would also be useful to send us (in line, not as an attachment) if you can't figure out the problem. Contact us (through help@stsci.edu) if you have problems with installation.
To turn debug logging on during installation: Execute these commands in the directory where you downloaded the installer (install-solaris-apt.sh):
sh install-solaris-apt.sh --keep --noexec
cd install-solaris-apt
jre/bin/java -DTRACE=true -jar install-solaris-apt.jar
To turn debug logging on while running APT: add a command line switch when you invoke APT:
./APT -debug all
Known Installation Problems:
- Incorrect DISPLAY variable
The installer uses graphical pop up windows to ask you questions about the installation process. If you attempt to install APT remotely and do not have your DISPLAY variable set correctly, you will see in your stack trace:
java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment(GraphicsEnvironment.java:53)
On the other hand if you attempt to run APT remotely and do not have your DISPLAY variable set correctly, you will get a message like:
java.awt.HeadlessException: No X11 DISPLAY variable was set, but this program performed an operation which requires it. - Installing on a machine with no display
If you are a system manager attempting to install on a server that does not have a display, you will need to use the following commands to install without the interactive pop up windows:
sh install-solaris-apt.sh --keep --noexec cd install-solaris-apt jre/bin/java -jar install-solaris-apt.jar -console