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Varkon System administrators manual

# Download and installation

The Varkon system is hosted by SourceForge, the world's largest Open Source software development web site. This is the address to the home page of SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net

To download Varkon, go to the Varkon project site on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/varkon

From he Varkon project site on SourceForge you can download different versions of Varkon, You can also read news, post bug reports or feature requests and participate in a discussion on the forum. Varkon is available either as a package or through SVN. In both cases there are several options.

## Downloading a Varkon package

A package is a compressed file that includes all files needed to install Varkon. You can select between a binary package or a source package. The easiest way to go is the binary package since it is prebuilt for a specific platform and there is no need to compile the sources. If there is no binary package that suits your platform you will have to download the source package and build the system on your own computer. Each package has a version composed of two numbers and a letter, 1.19B for example. Packaged versions are released on a regular basis one or two times per year. When you browse the Varkon project site on SourceForge you will see that you can download the latest version of the system as well as older versions.

## Installing a Varkon package

Installing a package is very easy. After downloading the compressed file, just unpack it in the location where you want the system installed, any directory will do. If you have an earlier version of Varkon installed you can use the same directory but we recommend that you install a new version in a new directory.

All files in the package will be placed in a subdirectory with the name of the current version. This directory becomes the root-directory of your installation and is called VARKON_ROOT. If you install Varkon version 1.19B in `/home/username`, then VARKON_ROOT becomes:

      /home/username/varkon_1.19B

The idea with this installation procedure is to make it possible to install new versions of Varkon at any time without interfearing with previously installed versions. This way you can easily switch between two versions if you like to.

If the package you have installed is a binary package, you are now ready to start the system for the first time. If you have installed a source package you must first build the system. How to build the system is described in the README-file located in `$VARKON_ROOT/sources`. How to start the system is described in the Start Varkon section of this manual.

## Downloading Varkon through SVN

It is also possible to download sources from the SVN repository. The SVN repository contains the latest developments of the sources, sometimes not fully tested or documented and sometimes not with support for all platforms but usually with more functionality than what is availabe in the latest package. The sources in the SVN repository are updated by the Varkon development team without notice. Each update gets a new SVN version number. You can use the SVN Browse tool on the Varkon project site on Sourceforge to read the update logs. To download the Varkon sources from the SVN repository you need to have the Subversion package (svn) installed on your computer.

## Uninstalling Varkon

If you want to remove a Varkon installation the only thing you need to do is to remove its root directory. All files included in the package will then be removed.

Varkon version 1.19C svn# 97