Platform Support

The CIAO binaries are built for 32-bit machines. In order to run CIAO on a 64-bit machine, regardless of operating system, the basic 32-bit libraries must be installed. The 32-bit libraries are not packaged with CIAO; the user is responsible for installing them.

CIAO 4.1 is available for the following platforms:

Solaris 8 (SunOS 5.8)

Solaris 8 is the official version of this CIAO platform. The binaries are not compatible with earlier versions of the operating system.

Solaris 10 (SunOS 5.10, SPARC)

CIAO 4.1.2 is the first release available on Solaris 10.

Fedora Core 4

This build is tested on Fedora Core 4. It works well on Fedora Core 6 and many other newer Linux platforms; see the unsupported platforms section of this page.

Fedora Core 8

This build is tested on Fedora Core 8. Users running newer versions of Fedora Core should try this build.

Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 Intel

The Mac OS X Intel release is a native Intel build, compatible with any Intel Mac running 10.4 (Tiger) or 10.5 (Leopard).

Mac OS X 10.4 PowerPC

Mac OS X 10.4 PowerPC (Tiger) is the official version of this CIAO platform. The binaries are not compatible with earlier versions of the operating system.

We currently do not support CIAO on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) PowerPC. Please contact the Helpdesk if you are interested in having this version of CIAO available.

Please read the bugs and caveats page for a particular application to see if there are known issues and contact the Helpdesk if you have any problems.

Installing on Unsupported Platforms

Users have successfully installed CIAO on these unsupported platforms. Email the Helpdesk to contribute your installation to this list. This information is made available solely to assist users who are running an unsupported platform; the CXC has not tested these installations.

64-bit Machines

In order to run CIAO on a 64-bit machine, regardless of operating system, the basic 32-bit libraries must be installed. The 32-bit libraries are not packaged with CIAO; the user is responsible for installing them.

Linux

Fedora Core 6

Install the Fedora Core 4 binaries

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5

Install the Fedora Core 4 binaries

Scientific Linux

Install the Fedora Core 4 binaries

Ubuntu 7 and 8

Install the Fedora Core 8 binaries. You may also need to install the gfortran libraries through the Ubuntu package manager.

Mac OS X

Mac 10.5 PPC (Leopard)

The best possibility is to install the 10.4 PPC binaries. The GUI applications may not work (prism, chips), but the CIAO tools should.

Explanation of Platform Support

The CXC's commitment to support a platform - i.e. a version of an operating system - means that we undertake to fix bugs on that system. This requires that we are able to compile CIAO from source on each platform, which is a much greater commitment than simply providing a compatible binary. Additionally, it is typically necessary to support three versions of each operating system: former, current and new.

When we support a system:

1. We test every tool on every platform via a large number of regression tests and scripts; this requires a greater amount of time when the number of systems increases.
2. We have to have current machines running each of these systems.
3. We make a tarball and install it on each system; this process is never problem-free, and takes manpower and time.

As a result, we are not able to support a larger number of systems than we currently do. We gather information from users on what platforms they are running (or want to use) in order to prevent the overextension of our resources.