Compatibility Notes for the Distirbuted Folding Project software package
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Due to the wide variability in today's computing platforms,
and the complexity of the Foldtraj software package, we cannot
guarantee that Foldtraj will function on your specific hardware.
All libraries used by the program are statically linked so no
3rd party files should be needed, other than the OS itself (and in 
some cases ncurses), to run it.  We have provided versions for as
many platforms as we are able, but some may have certain issues
which are discussed here.

If you would like this software built for a system not covered here
(for example, AIX platforms), please e-mail us at

trades@mshri.on.ca

and we will do our best to accomodate you.

Linux (Intel)
-------------
This is the platform on which Foldtraj has been developed and
most extensively tested.  It is compiled on a RedHat 6.0 system
and should be completely forwards compatible (kernel version 2.2.5-15)
but has not been tested for backwards compatibility so if you are
having problems try upgrading your kernel and glibc to at least this
version.  Foldtraj should work on all Pentium II and higher or equivalent
CPUs but may use instructions not supported by Pentiums, 486s, and earlier
Intel CPUs.

The linux-icc version is compiled with Intel's Linux C compiler on
a Redhat 7.1 machine.  It will NOT work on older versions of Redhat
but should work on most if not all older CPUs.  It should run slightly
faster than the gcc compiled version on equivalent hardware.  Be warned
that it also may not work on NEWER versions of Redhat, depending on
the version of glibc - in this case please try the gcc version.

Linux (PPC)
-----------
This platform resembles the Intel Linux in almost every fashion.
The kernel version it was built on was 2.4.10-12a (Yellow Dog 2.1)
so again if you have troubles and are using an earlier kernel
version, try upgrading it and/or glibc and/or ncurses.  It should 
work fine on any PowerPC CPU.

Linux (HP PA-RISC)
------------------
This platform resembles the Intel Linux in almost every fashion.
The kernel version it was built on was 2.4.9-32 (Debian GNU 3.0
'Woody') so again if you have troubles and are using an earlier
kernel version, try upgrading it and/or glibc and/or ncurses.  It
should work fine on any PA-RISC CPU.

Linux (PlayStation 2)
---------------------
This is compiled using gcc 2.95 on a 2.2.1 kernel and on a standard 
PlayStation 2 console equipped with the 'Linux Kit'.

FreeBSD
-------
This version is build under FreeBSD 4.5 on an Intel machine.  It should
work fine on any Pentium II or better CPU running this OS.

Windows
-------
This version was compiled using Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 on NT 4.0
and has only been thoroughly tested on this platform.  It should
work without trouble on Windows 9x and 2000 as well though.  If you
experience troubles on any of these platforms please e-mail the author
with a brief description of the problem.  See above notes for Intel
Linux for CPU compatiblities.

IRIX
----
The SGI version is built under IRIX 6.5 and will most likely NOT work
on earlier IRIX 5 based systems.  It uses the "high-performance" 64-bit
ABI and works with R10000, R5000, R8000 and later CPUs.  A separate
32-bit version is also available and built with the -mips1 flag, making
it compatible with all MIPS processors.

Solaris
-------
Due to changes in Solaris 2.8, this version may only work on Soalris 2.8 and
newer.  Older installations seem to be missing some shared OS libraries
needed by the executable.  We are not aware of a way around this and do
not have a Solaris 2.7 or earlier machine to build on presently.  The actual
binary is built as both a 32-bit application and a 64-bit application, so
download the one most appropriate for your particular machine.

Compaq Alpha
------------
This version is built for a Compaq Alpha 21264 CPU (also called EV6) and
uses instructions tuned for the 21264 command set.  However, earlier Alpha
CPUs should run the code without problems to the best of our knowledge.  It
is worth noting that this platform has been found to be by far the fastest
at executing the Foldtraj code and so is recommended.  This version has NOT
been thoroughly tested so please let us know if you experience any problems.
It was built on version 4.0F (1229) of the Tru64 operating system.

HP-UX
-----
This version has been tested on a 9000 N-Class server using PA-RISC 8500 64-bit
CPUs and under HP-UX 11.0.  We cannot guarantee it will function on older
versions of HP-UX or other HP CPUs.  The binary is compiled as a 64-bit
executable.  This version has NOT been thoroughly tested so please let us
know if you experience any problems.

Mac OS X
--------
This was compiled on a I-Mac running OS X 10.1 (Darwin).

QNX
---
This was built on an Intel CPU-based installation of QNX RTOS v6, using gcc.
We are not entirely sure if QNX binaries are CPU-dependent or not so please
let us know if this works on non-Intel CPUs as well.

BeOS
----
This was built on an Intel CPU-based installation of BeOS 5.0, using gcc.
It is known to work successfully on both Intel and AMD CPUs.

General
-------
If you have any problems getting the software to run (i.e. fatal errors, machine
freezes, etc) please check the above list to see if you have access to a machine
with a supported version of the OS installed on it.  When in doubt try Windows,
as this is the least variable of all the platforms listed above.  If you still
experience problems, or would like to obtain a version for a system not listed
above, please contact the authors at:

trades@mshri.on.ca

Also, make sure you have the latest version of the software, which will always
avaiable from:

          http://www.distributedfolding.org/

-- Howard Feldman
Jan. 29, 2003

