***************************************************************************
* The symlinks povlinux-3.6.tar.bz2 and povlinux-3.6.tar.gz will always *
* point to the most recent version of the 3.6 series source. If linking *
* to the binaries please use those filenames. (In fact we prefer you link *
* to this directory or to
http://www.povray.org/download/ rather than the *
* binaries themselves). *
***************************************************************************
This is the POV-Ray 3.6.1 for x86 GNU/Linux package. It requires a glibc-2.2
based GNU/Linux system running on x86 hardware. You will also require the
file povlinux-3.6.tgz which is in the same directory as this README. You
do not require the source code (povray-3.6.tar.bz2 or .gz) unless you want
to compile your own version of POV-Ray.
Installing the povlinux binary package is fairly easy but in case you are new
to GNU/Linux or POV-Ray you might find this tutorial useful.
This tutorial is exclusively for Users of x86 PCs running GNU/Linux. If you
have different hardware or run a different OS you need a different package
from the Download page.
This tutorial only covers the system level installation that requires root
privileges. If you don't have them you can still install the binary
distribution but this is not completely covered by this tutorial. To do this
follow steps 1 to 7 below and then run the install script as normal user.
1. Open a shell
2. create a temporary directory somewhere to unpack the POV-Ray distribution
for example:
user@machine:~> mkdir ~/povray/
3. Get the POV-Ray for GNU/Linux binary package from the POV-Ray site
Save this package in the new directory you just created, for example
/home/<username>/povray/.
4. switch back to the shell
5. change into the directory where you just saved the package:
for example
user@machine:~> cd ~/povray/
6. unpack the distribution:
user@machine:~/povray> tar xvfz povlinux-3.6.tgz
you should get a long listing of all files extracted from the package.
7. change into the distribution directory:
user@machine:~/povray> cd povray-3.6
8. become root:
user@machine:~/povray/povray-3.6> su
Password: <enter root password>
9. run the install script:
root@machine:/home/user/povray/povray-3.6> ./install
If you previously had no other POV-Ray version installed the installation
should run without interruptions. Otherwise there might be additional
decisions required.
Check if the install script reports any problems. At the end you will be
asked if you want to do a test render. This test render will be without
display when run as root.
10. leave the root environment:
root@machine:/home/user/povray/povray-3.6> exit
11. if you had previously installed POV-Ray
or if you want to be able to customize your configuration independently
from other users:
user@machine:~/povray/povray-3.6 > ./install user
This will update the user configuration files in ~/.povray/3.6/.
12. if you are using KDE:
user@machine:~/povray/povray-3.6> ./install kde
This installs some useful entries in the KDE panel and registers POV-Ray
file types.
13. to test if installation was successful you can run a short test render:
user@machine:~/povray/povray-3.6> ./install test
If this fails there probably was some problem during the install that
required manual action. Check the messages printed by the install script
and try to run the install again.
That was it!
You can render the sample scenes and animations coming with POV-Ray. When you
are using KDE you can do this with the corresponding links in the KDE panel,
otherwise you can call the sample scene render scripts manually - this is
explained in the documentation.
After a successful installation the documentation can be found in
/usr/local/share/doc/povray-3.6/html/.
