Getting Started

This README guides the user through the installation of Checkmate and outlines how to check and possibly install updated versions of all the necessary prerequisites. The program has been tested and will run on both Linux and MacOS.

Setting Up Python

CheckMATE requires Python 2.7 on your system. Most systems already come with a Python installation, which you can easily check by typing python and hitting `enter' in a terminal. If Python is installed, it should start and immediately tell you the version number. If the installation is too old, too new (CheckMATE won't work with Python 3) or if there is no Python at all, please install it either manually from http://www.python.org/download/ or using the software management of your system.

Setting up Root

CheckMATE uses ROOT for a variety of tasks, therefore it is inevitable that every user has a fully working ROOT installation available on their system. Furthermore, CheckMATE uses some ROOT packages which are not installed automatically and which may need to be added. Due to the large size of the ROOT source code, we refrained from including it in our package and only provide a step-by-step tutorial for how to install it from scratch or add potentially missing obligatory packages to an existing installation. Running whereis root inside the terminal tells you if there already exists an installation on your system and determines how to continue with the installation:

Case 1: There is no ROOT installed yet

You must download the source and install ROOT from scratch. Please do not use the ROOT precompiled binaries but follow these instructions, since we encountered internal linking problems with the binary version of ROOT. Start by downloading the latest version from http://root.cern.ch/drupal/content/downloading-root with: wget ftp://root.cern.ch/root/root_xyz.source.tar.gz
gzip -dc root_xyz.source.tar.gz | tar -xf -
cd root After downloading ROOT you can choose where you would like the installation located. If you don't want to do a system-wide installation in /usr/bin (e.g. because you do not have administrator rights), you have to use --prefix and --etcdir to declare the installation folder. Should you use a local Python installation (i.e. if the Python binary is not located in /usr/bin), you have to give the positions of both /include and /lib by adding --with-python-incdir=[path_to_python]/inc and --with-python-libdir=[path_to_python]/lib using: ./configure --enable-python {--with-python-incdir=[path_to_python]/inc \
                              --with-python-libdir=[path_to_python]/lib} \
            --enable-roofit --enable-minuit2 {--prefix=[desired_root_path]}
make ROOT is large, so go and have a (big) cup coffee in the meanwhile. After a successful completion, please hit: make install

Case 2: There is already a ROOT installation on the system.

If you already have ROOT on your system, let us first check if it includes all necessary packages. In the ROOT base directory, please run the following commands:

./bin/root-config --has-minuit2
./bin/root-config --has-roofit
./bin/root-config --has-python If all three commands return yes, your ROOT installation includes everything CheckMATE needs and you can safely skip to the 'Setting up CheckMATE' section. If not, you have to recompile the code and add the missing packages. Follow the instructions mentioned for 'Case 1', but make sure that

• you download the same ROOT version the system has, for which you can use ./root-config --version
  
• you install into the same ROOT-directory by choosing --prefix accordingly. Alternatively, you can always download and install a second root version locally according to step 1. Make sure that you setup CheckMATE with this local ROOT version explicitely.

In case you are using the standalone ROOT binaries, beware that we sometimes encountered problems during the compilation of CheckMATE. Should you find the same problems, i.e. that all the aforementioned checks were positive but still there are ROOT linking errors occuring, please consider using a proper installation from source code as explained above.

Setting up CheckMATE

Contrary to many other tools, CheckMATE does not have a separate `make install' routine and will set itself up in the directory you put it. You should therefore begin the following procedure from within the folder you want CheckMATE to be located.

Start by downloading the tarball either by hand or from within the terminal wget http://www.hepforge.org/archive/checkmate/CheckMATE-1.0.0.tar.gz Extract the tarball and have enter the CheckMATE folder: tar -xvf CheckMATE-1.0.0.tar.gz
cd CheckMATE-1.0.0 In order to run CheckMATE we have to compile the code, connect the Python scripts to the ROOT libraries and create the binary. The configuration step will make sure that you followed the aforementioned sections to properly setup ROOT and have a valid Python interpreter. The easiest way to proceed is to run ./configure {--with-rootsys=[path_to_root]} {--with-python=[path_to_python_binary]} and follow the instructions in case of an error. After succesful configuration, type make Depending upon your system the make command can generate various warning messages. These can be safely ignored unless the final output is an error message (e.g. make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1) in which case the installation will have failed. If you are unable to understand the cause of the problem, please check the installation FAQ on the CheckMATE website or contact the authors. The compilation will create a Checkmate binary in bin/:

Note for experienced ROOT users: CheckMATE should work even if you haven't set up $ROOTSYS (and similar) environmental variables since it takes all information from the --with-rootsys parameter. However in case of any unexpected errors, run thisroot.(c)sh inside the ROOT binary directory and retry.

To test the installation, run the test parameter file in the bin directory. cd bin
./CheckMATE testparam.dat The program will ask if the automatically chosen output directory is correct. After answering y the program should run and finish with the statement that the input is allowed. If it doesn't, check whether your configuration and compilation produced any errors or warnings. Otherwise, you finished setting up CheckMATE. Have fun!