TRAX Installation


System requirements

TRAX is designed to run on computers with some variant of the UNIX operating system family. Mainly supported are currently: More platforms may actually be supported, consult the download section.
The executable currently needs less than 2 MByte of RAM, the total amount of memory depends on the problem size, of course. For example, approximately 10 MB of cross section data would typically be needed for each material present in the simulation.
A minimum installation, including all base data, currently needs about 20 MB free disk space.
Computation times depend to a large extent on the simulation scenario. As a rule of thumb, the complete slowing down of electrons takes about 3 milliseconds per keV initial energy, the stopping of a heavy particle like a proton or carbon ion about 3 seconds per MeV of total energy. These numbers are estimated for a (now obsolete) PowerPC 604e @ 375 MHz equivalent. Your mileage may vary.

The standard executable supports 32-bit address space. For eligible platforms, a 64-bit executable, trax-64, is supported as well from version 1102 onwards.
For older versions, the traxlarge and traxvlarge executables provide 2GB and 3.25GB heap space, respectively (AIX only).

Prerequisites

Minimum prerequisites to install and run are:

Installation

For usage within the GSI biophysics groups the installation is already done and everything should work out-of-the-box.
For use outside GSI export packages are available here, or, maybe, in some distant future, on GSI's ftp server (once they manage to set up one, but don't hold your breath).
It comprises the executable, shell scripts, tutorial data and documentation in HTML (and possibly system specific format).
It is recommended to keep all TRAX-related files in a single directory. Assume this installation directory is TRAX. Then:

  1.    cd TRAX
    
  2. Download the export package pertaining to the desired platform.
  3. unpack it, e.g. one of the following:
       zcat      TRAX-1102.MacOSX-powerpc-1039.tar.Z  | tar -xvf -
       gunzip -c TRAX-1102.MacOSX-powerpc-1039.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
       unzip     TRAX-1102.MacOSX-powerpc-1039.zip
    
    (you may also use separate calls of uncompress and tar)
  4. Define the shell variable $TRAX to point to the TRAX directory:
       export TRAX=`pwd`
    
    This is the quick and dirty way. For a permanent definition you must define the $TRAX shell variable in your login script (e.g. .profile if you use the ksh), or some other central location.
  5. Also, upgrade your command path:
       export PATH=$TRAX/bin:$PATH
    
This should be sufficient. Then, on the shell level, enter:
   trax
and the command prompt should appear.
Last updated: M.Kraemer,
$Id: traxinst.html,v 1.11 2016/03/02 14:34:14 kraemer Exp $

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