ROOT on MacOS X

ROOT on MacOS X requires X11 to run interactively. If you have not yet installed X11, install it.

As of ROOT v.3.01.05, MacOS X is officially supported. Consequently, the recent ROOT versions should compile and run out of the box unless you need modules that require gfortran.
So now building "ROOT" is fairly straightforward.
Moreover some official binary distributions for MacOS 10.5 are availabe. If you just want to use ROOT, there is no need for you to compile it. The instruction given below is for those who might want to build it themselves or to use features that require gfortran.

[1] Compilation Conditions

MacOS X Release 10.5.6
standard Mach Kernel (Darwin 9.6.0)
gcc-4.3.0-10.5hepx1e
Apple's X11 for MacOS X
CERNLIB-2006
fftw3-3.1.2-10.5hepx1a
[2] Compilation Procedure

Get the source tar ball from ftp://root.cern.ch/root/ and expand it as

$ tar -zxvf <somewhere>/root_v5.22.00a.source.tar.gz

then follow the steps below:

$ tar -zxvf <somewhere>/pythia6.tar.gz
$ cd pythia6
$ patch -p1 -s < <somewhere>/pythia6416-gfortran.patch
$ ./makePythia6.macosx
$ mkdir ../root/lib
$ cp -p libPythia6.* ../root/lib
$ cd ../root
$ export ROOTSYS=`pwd`
$ export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ROOTSYS/lib
$ export PATH=$ROOTSYS/bin:$PATH
$ patch -p1 -s < <somewhere>/root_v5.22.00a-macosx10.5.patch
$ ./configure macosx --with-pythia6-libdir=<somewhere>/root/lib --enable-minuit2 --enable-roofit --with-fftw3-incdir=/usr/osxws/include --with-fftw3-libdir=/usr/osxws/lib
$ make

where <somewhere> stands for a directory into which you downloaded the source tarballs and my private patch for root to compile with gfortran.

[3] Installation of a Precompiled Binary Package

Thanks to Remi Mommsen and the ROOT team, ROOT for MacOS X is now available as a Fink package or as a binary tarball from the official ROOT site (unfortunately, there is no binary binary available for MacOS X 10.5 as of 2008/03/28).

Alternatively, you can use an RPM package through APT/RPM as

$ su
# apt-get update
# apt-get install root
# apt-get clean

After installing ROOT in either way, make a symbolic link:

# ln -s root_v5.22.00-macosx10.5-<processor> /opt/root/pro
# exit

where <processor> is either i386 or ppc as determined by the processor architecture of your MacOS X box.

Then set some environmental variables:

$ export ROOTSYS=/opt/root/pro
$ export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH:$ROOTSYS/lib
$ export PATH=$PATH:$ROOTSYS/bin

Now you are ready to use ROOT.


Back to Keisuke Fujii's HEP on X Page
keisuke.fujii@kek.jp March 26, 2008