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2 Getting started

2.1 Dependencies

In order to enjoy the full power of Lisplab you must install some foreign libraries. These are

2.2 Portability

Lisplab has been developed with SBCL, SLIME and ASDF on Linux, and there are yet unnecessary bindings to these platforms.

Except from this, Lisplab should be self-contained and not depend on any other projects.

2.3 Installing

Lisplab is ASDF installable, but before you come so far you need to specify the location of the foreign libraries. You specify these in three special variables,

that live their lives in the Common-Lisp-User package. You can either assign them on the top-level, in you Common Lisp installation file, in start.lisp, or probably the easiest: directly in lisplab.asd.

ASDF sub-systems:

The simplest way to test Lisplab is to load start.lisp. If you have problems loading, first look at start.lisp and see if you can hack it. Then look at lisplab.asd.

To install BLAS, LAPACK, and FFTW, if you are too lazy to do a custom build, and is lucky enough to administer a Debian or Ubuntu machine, you typically write

     # aptitude install libatlas3gf-base
     # aptitude install libfftw3-3

2.4 Naming conventions

2.5 Status - past and future

Lisplab has been developed for physics simulations and data handling. Lisplab started as a refactoring of Matlisp, but most of the code has been replaced and a lot new code has been written. The only Matlisp code that is kept is the interfaces to BLAS and LAPACK.

Some large extensions that could be fun to do:

An of course a lot more linear algebra and matrix stuff.

2.6 Bugs and limitations

The purpose of Lisplab is to be a platform for mathematical computations. From this perspective it is clear that it will never be complete. Also, since there is no spec it is not obvious what is a bug and what is not!

Hence, the list in this section must be read as non-systematic gathering of problem features.