Geant4 on MacOS X

Geant4 compiles and runs on MacOS X 10.10. The following is how I did it.

Preparation

Install gcc and cernlib following the instructions given in the GFORTRAN page and the CERNLIB page, if you haven't. In addition geant4 depends on CLHEP. Install it as

$ su
# apt-get update
# apt-get install clhep
# exit

If you just want to use precompiled binary packages, go directly to Installation subsection.

Geant4 Building Procedure

[1] Compilation Conditions

MacOS X Release 10.10
standard Mach Kernel (Darwin 14.0.0)
gcc-4.8.4-1osx10.10
XQuartz's X11 (v.2.7.7) for MacOS X
CERNLIB-2006
clhep-2.2.0.1-10.10hepx3a

First download all of the necessary source files from the GEANT4 site and my private patches: single arch. patch and gcc4.5.1 patch into a directory, <somewhere>.

$ ls <somewhere>
geant4.9.6.p02.tar.gz
geant4.9.4-gcc451.patch
geant4.9.5.p01-macosx10.7-single_arch.patch


Then expand the source tarballs as follows in whatever directory you want to install GEANT4.

$ tar -zxvf <somewhere>/geant4.9.6.p02.tar.gz
$ cd geant4.9.6.p02
$ patch -p1 -s < <somewhere>/geant4.9.4-gcc451.patch
$ patch -p1 -s < <somewhere>/geant4.9.5.p01-macosx10.7-single_arch.patch
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/g4/geant4.9.6.p02 -DCLHEP_ROOT_DIR=/opt/clhep/2.1.4.1 -DGEANT4_USE_OPENGL_X11=ON -DOPENGL_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/X11/include -DGEANT4_INSTALL_DATA=ON -DXERCESC_ROOT_DIR=/usr/osxws -DGEANT4_USE_GDML=ON ..
$ make
$ make install

[3] Test Run

Try exapmles in the "examples" directory.

Installation of Binary Packages

# apt-get update
# apt-get install geant4
# apt-get clean
# ln -s geant4.9.6.p02 /opt/g4/pro

By default GEANT4 will be installed under /opt/g4. Use /opt/g4/pro/bin/geant4.sh to setup environmental variables necessary to run GEANT4. /opt/g4/pro/bin/geant4-config will also come in handy

Dawn (A Visualization Tool for GEANT4)

Dawncut (A Tool to Make a Cut View for GEANT4 Geometrical Objects)

David (A Geometry Debugger for GEANT4)