L.2 Cygwin and GMT

Because GMT works best in conjugation with UNIX tools we suggest you install GMT using the Cygwin product from Cygnus (now assimilated by Redhat, Inc.). Note there are two versions: One is commercially available and contains a few more tools, in particular the tcsh shell, but is only available for WIndows NT or Windows 2000. The other is the free version for any Windows version and it uses the Bourne Again shell bash. Here we will assume you have the free version and will be using this shell. You also have access to most standard GNU development tools such as compilers and text processing tools (awk, grep, sed, etc.). If you don’t mind learning bash scripting^L.3 you can write any type of GMT scripts (The GMT examples also come in bash form).

Follow the instructions on the Cygwin page^L.4 on how to install the executables; it takes an effort not to do this correctly.

Once you are up and running under Cygwin, you may install GMT the same way you do under any other UNIX platform by either running the automated install via install_gmt or manually running configure first, then type make all. For details see the general README file. After installing you should make a few changes to the setup:

1. In Windows/DOS, set the two environmental variables HOME and GMTHOME to point to your ``home'' directory while running Cygwin and the GMT install directory. These two parameters should be defined in the autoexec.bat file and could be something like^L.5
   • SET HOME=C:$\backslash$USER
   • SET GMTHOME=C:$\backslash$GMT

   Under Windows NT or 2000 you set these environmental parameters via the System control panel.

2. In this home directory, make the file .bashrc where you place a few definitions:
   • HOME=//C/USER
   • GMTHOME=//C/GMT