Qucs - documentation

• Requirements

Qucs needs Qt® by Trolltech®. The current version is known to work with Qt 3.1 and later.

• Usual GNU/Linux installation

Unpack the distribution tarball:

    $ tar xvzf qucs-<version>.tar.gz               (using GNU tar)
    $ gzip -cd qucs-<version>.tar.gz | tar xvf -   (using another tar)

Change into the source directory:

    $ cd qucs-<version>

Configure the source package for your system:

    $ ./configure

Now compile the package:

    $ make

Install Qucs:

    $ make install

You must have root privileges if you want to install the package in the standard location (/usr/local) or in any location that is only writable by root. For further information on installing the package, please consult the file INSTALL included in the distribution.

Please note: Users of the FreeBSD OS may use a GNU make (probably gmake) to compile and install the package.

• Install instructions for Win32

There is an installer package for Qucs for Win32 systems named

	qucs-<version>-setup.exe

The relocations of the package (the location where the package gets installed) is mainly steered by environment variables. During a normal installation the appropriate environment variables are automatically set for the user who installed the package.

One of them must be emphasised: HOME. During installation an appropriate file system location will be found. When it was already set then the previous value is assumed. The location decides where the project, intermediate and configuration files will be saved. So when the user wonders about missing project files or lost configuration it's worth to have a look at the environment variables.

If FreeHDL is meant to be used for digital simulation then also the binary installer package named

	freehdl-<version>-setup.exe

must be downloaded and installed. It requires the MinGW32 compiler. If it is not already installed, it's possible to install a prepared binary package for this, too.

 	mingw32-g++-<version>-setup.exe

It contains the minimal MinGW32 installation required to work with FreeHDL and should be installed proir to the FreeHDL package.

If Icarus Verilog is used for digital Verilog-HDL simulation the installer script

 	iverilog-<version>_setup.exe

must be installed on the computer additionally. Please note that it is necessary to install it in a path location without spaces due to a limitation in the software. Current versions can be obtained at http://bleyer.org/icarus/.

In order to use the SPICE preprocessor ps2sp successfully a TinyPerl installation is required. It can be obtained at http://tinyperl.sourceforge.net/. It must be ensured that the tinyperl.exe is accessible via the PATH environment variable.

• Install instructions for MacOSX

There are several ways to install Qucs under MacOSX.


• Building Qucs from downloaded source tarball

To build Qucs from source, you need to install X11 and Qt first.


1. Installing X11

To install X11 (if you do not already have it), insert your MacOS installation DVD, scroll down, open "Optional Installs" and choose the package "X11" for installation. Finish the installation.

2. Installing Qt

An easy way of installing Qt3 is using DarwinPorts. With DarwinPorts you can install MacOS versions of many known open source projects by using simple commands.

Get it here: http://darwinports.com/

Download the .dmg file from there, open it and install the DarwinPorts package. After that, DarwinPorts needs to be updated to the most recent version. Open a shell and type the following commmand (you will be asked for your password):

	$ sudo port -d selfupdate

Now it is time to get Qt3. In the shell, type this command:

	$ sudo port install qt3

Now DarwinPorts will fetch a lot of packages which are needed to install Qt3. Be patient, this will take some time. Once finished, you need to export a new environment variable. Do this by typing the following two lines into your shell:

	$ QTDIR=/opt/local/lib/qt3
	$ export QTDIR

Do not close the shell, we'll need it with the above environment variable for the installation of Qucs.
3. Compiling Qucs

You should get the latest version of Qucs now. I wrote this article using qucs-0.0.11, but this should work for future versions, too.

I assume you have downloaded the Qucs source code to Documents/qucs-0.0.11.tar.gz, so we can use our shell to extract the source files with the following commands:

	$ cd Documents
	$ tar ­xvzf qucs-0.0.11.tar.gz

Now compile Qucs:

	$ cd qucs-0.0.11
	$ ./configure
	$ make
	$ sudo make install
	$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/qucs /Applications/qucs

If everything went ok, you should now have a link to the binary "qucs" in your Applications. You're done!
• Building using MacPorts

To install Qucs, you need to install X11, XCode and MacPorts first.


1. Installing X11

To install X11 (if you do not already have it), insert your MacOS installation DVD, scroll down, open "Optional Installs" and choose the package "X11" for installation. Finish the installation.


2. Installing XCode

XCode is a mighty package for software developers. It comes with a fully fledged GUI, several programming languages and lots of documentation. We only need the C compiler (gcc) and its support files which come with this installation.

To check if XCode is already installed, open your Finder, then your "Macintosh HD" and look for a folder "Developer". If it's there, XCode is installed and you can skip the following step.

You have two choices:
1. download the newest version (over 900 MB for v2.4.1!)
Goto http://developer.apple.com/tools/xcode/index.html. After download, open the .dmg image and run the installer.

2. use the older version from DVD
Look through your Tiger installation media for "XCode tools". Install it.


3. Installing MacPorts and Qucs

With MacPorts (formerly DarwinPorts) you can install MacOS versions of many known open source projects by using simple commands.

Get it here: http://www.macports.org/

Download the latest .dmg file from there, open it and install the MacPorts package. After that, MacPorts needs to be updated to the most recent version. Open a shell and type the following commmand (you will be asked for your password):

	$ sudo port -d selfupdate

Now it is time to get Qucs. In the shell, type this command:

	$ sudo port install qucs

MacPorts will fetch, decompress, compile and install a lot of packages which are needed to install Qucs. Be patient, this will take some time.

After installation Qucs will be placed into /opt/local/bin. If you want, you can create a link to your Applications folder with the following command:

	$ sudo ln -s /opt/local/bin/qucs /Applications/qucs

You're done!


• Binary installer package

There is also an installer package for Qucs for MacOSX systems named

	qucs-<version>-macosx-<platform>.pkg

Copy this file onto your desktop and double-click it. Follow the installer instructions.