TRiP98 Installation

Availability

TRiP98 is free of charge, but not for free download. Contact me via the (de-spammed) address at the bottom of the page for details.

System requirements

"Classic" versions

TRiP98's traditional home platform used in GSI's pilot project is the IBM RS/6000 system family (or compatibles) under the AIX operating system.
The executable needs approximately 3 MByte main memory, the total amount of memory depends on the problem size, of course. An approximate value would be 40 to 120 MB for a fairly large target volume. Sophisticated algorithms like multifield optimization require considerably more memory, up to 2 to 4 GB for 2- or 3-field plans.
A minimum installation, including all data bases, needs about 350 MB disk space.
Computation of the physical dose is relatively fast, on the order of a few seconds up to a few minutes on a PowerPC 604e 200MHz machine, depending on the size of the irradiated volume. Biological dose calculations need significantly more time, a factor between 1000 for the "classical" and 10 for the "low-dose" biological algorithm, respectively.
For special cases with exceedingly high memory requirements a TRiP98large executable is provided which allows additional data segments to be used (up to 2 GByte total at present).
If even this is not sufficient, a TRiP98vlarge executable is provided which uses the AIX very large address space model (up to 3.25 GByte total at present, requires AIX 5.2 or higher). This is the maximum available in 32 bit.
A reasonable choice of machine would be:
IBM RS/6000 Model 44P-170, 375 MHz or better, 1GB memory, AIX 5.2 or higher.

Versions 1201+

The more recent versions (Jan 1201 and above) come with 32-bit (very large only) as well as the 64-bit memory model. This better meets the demands of today's treatment plans, often exceeding the 32-bit address limit.
TRiP98 versions for platforms other than AIX/POWER are available on request.

Installation instructions

The packaging has changed from release 0509f to 0509g.

0509f and earlier (before Feb 2009)

To install the package:

Download it from here.
create the installation directory:
```
mkdir TRiP98
cd    TRiP98
```
transfer the archive into this directory and unpack, e.g.:
```
zcat TRiP98beam.aix.0509b.tar.Z | tar -xvf - ; chmod -R a-w ./
cd ..; chmod a-w TRiP98
```
which includes write-protection.
NOTE that it may happen that the decompression is already performed during download, in this case skip the zcat step.
define the location of the installed package, e.g.:
```
export TRIP98=/u/bio/TRiP98
```
put that definition in some startup script, e.g. .profile or such.

0509g (Feb 2009)

With this release, base data set packages have been decoupled from binaries, executables and so forth. This choice was made because base data sets (depth dose distributions, fragment spectra etc.) are huge and do not change very often, whereas code, docs, etc are small and may change more rapidly.
In addition, some support for installation versioning is provided. It is foreseen to store TRiP98 code and data in separate root locations, conveniently named TRiP98PROG and TRiP98DATA, respectively, which will hold the actual releases as subdirectories. Dedicated links (NEW,OLD,PRO) point to these subdirectories.
So the program directory might look like

TRiP98PROG/
           0408a/
           0509g/
           1001c/
                      
           CLASSIC -> 0408a
           OLD -> 0408a
           PRO -> 0509g
           NEW -> 1001c

Active releases may be cycled by just redefining links. A dedicated shell script, trip98env, comes as part of the code package and helps toggling between releases, i.e. defines/undefines shell variables needed for proper TRiP98 execution, e.g.:

. trip98env -new         # select "NEW", mind the dot !
. trip98env -old         # revert to "OLD", mind the dot !

To install and setup all this (basic Unix knowledge required):

On your system, choose the area where all extra apps are stored, say /ourapps.
If not yet installed, download the desired base data version (with whatever compression scheme is convenient for you) from here. Note that this will require several hundred MByte of free disk space. Let's assume it is release 9905 downloaded to /tmp. Then prepare the data location
```
mkdir -p /ourapps/TRiP98DATA/9905
cd       /ourapps/TRiP98DATA/9905
```
and unpack using one (!) of the following:
```
zcat      /tmp/TRiP98DATA-9905.tar.Z  | tar -xvf -   # for tar+compressed
gunzip -c /tmp/TRiP98DATA-9905.tar.gz | tar -xvf -   # for tar+gzipped
unzip     /tmp/TRiP98DATA-9905.zip                   # for zipped
```

Download the desired code version (with whatever compression scheme is convenient for you) from here. Let's assume it is release 0509g for AIX 5.2, downloaded to /tmp.

mkdir -p /ourapps/TRiP98PROG/0509g
cd       /ourapps/TRiP98PROG/0509g

Unpack using one (!) of the following:

zcat      /tmp/TRiP98PROG-0509g.AIX-powerpc-52.tar.Z  | tar -xvf -   # for tar+compressed
gunzip -c /tmp/TRiP98PROG-0509g.AIX-powerpc-52.tar.gz | tar -xvf -   # for tar+gzipped
unzip     /tmp/TRiP98PROG-0509g.AIX-powerpc-52.zip                   # for zipped

Then place a link to the location of the base data set

ln -s    ../../TRiP98DATA/9905/DATA   DATA

If release 0509g should become the NEW version, simply change the appropriate links

cd    /ourapps/TRiP98PROG/
ln -sf 0509g NEW                    # this is now the NEW version
ln -sf NEW/bin/trip98env trip98env  # make the environment script generally available
                                    # examples for additional optional actions follow
ln -sf 0509d PRO                    # redirect older releases
ln -sf 0509d OLD                    # different release links may point to the same release directory
...

This way a "window" of active versions can be shifted over all releases ever installed, keeping prehistoric releases as inactive directories.

In a central startup script, run by all potential users, typically a .profile or similar, define the TRiP98 progam root location:
```
export TRIP98PROG=/ourapps/TRiP98PROG
```
In the same script, set the default version, e.g.
```
. $TRIP98PROG/trip98env -new
```
(again, mind the dot !)
Alternatively:
```
export PATH=$TRIP98PROG:$PATH
. trip98env -new
```
Note that this installation step will normally be needed only once, for the very first TRiP98 installation.
If all goes well, type TRiP98 and the program should start with some predefined command sequence.

Last updated:
$Id: trip98inst.html,v 1.11 2014/05/28 13:55:10 kraemer Exp $
M.Kraemer@gsi.de