Installation Notes for Serpent

Roger B. Dannenberg

Serpent is currently released in three zip files, one each for Win32, Linux, and Mac OS X systems. This may change from time to time.

Each zip file contains source code for two versions of serpent.

serpent -- command line version
wxserpent -- serpent with wxWidgets linked in to provide a graphical interface

In addition, the Win32 and Mac OS X zip files contain compiled executables (the Mac OS X distribution currenly only has an Intel executable).

The source files have been built on the following systems:

Windows (Visual C++, linked with wxWidgets 2.2.6), use the serpent.sln and wxs/wxserpent.sln "solutions". For wxserpent, edit the include paths and libraries according to your installation of wxWidgets (not included here). You will need the PortMidi library: see the pm_util.h problem below.
Linux (Fedora Core 2, linked with wxWidgets 2.4), use Makefile and wxs/Makefile. You will need the PortMidi library and your system will have to have ALSA if you build Serpent with the default midi support.
Mac OS X (Version 10.4.2, gcc 3.3, wxWidgets 2.6.3)

You must install the Apple Developer tools.
install PortMidi.
You may have to use the command "sudo gcc_select 3.3" to switch to the version 3.3 GCC compiler.
Build PortMidi (see documentation in PortMidi).
The Serpent code assumes the portmidi directory is at the same level, e.g. /home/rbd/portmidi and /home/rbd/serpent.
Use "make -f Makefile.osx" from the serpent directory to build serpent from the sources.
For wxWindows, install wxWindows 2.6.3. Modify wxs/Makefile.osx if your paths do not match my paths.
Use "make -f Makefile.osx" in portmidi/wxs to build wxserpent from the sources.

Important: Serpent Environment

Serpent uses the environment to figure out where to search for files.

Under Win32, this is the registry entry: "My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CMU\Serpent\SERPENTPATH", which on my machine has the value "d:\rbd\serpent\lib\;d:\rbd\serpent\programs\;d:\rbd\serpent\wxslib". To set this, go to the Start menu and select "Run...", then type in "regedit" and click "OK". Use this editor to create and set the path. The RegEdit program gives you access to all kinds of critical internal settings for your machine. Be careful.
Win32 users should also (probably) set their shell environment so they can run serpent from any command line. Otherwise you'll have to type in the full path name for serpent.exe. Environment variables are changed in the control panel with the System control, the Advanced tab, and the the Environment Variables button, e.g. on my machine, I clicked New under "User variables for rbd" and added the variable named PATH with the value d:/rbd/bin, which is where I copy serpent.exe and associated DLLs, especially pm_dll.dll.
Under Linux, set the environment variable SERPENTPATH to something like "/home/rbd/serpent/programs:/home/rbd/serpent/libs:/home/rbd/serpent/wxslib". I do this by creating a file serppath with the line:
```
setenv SERPENTPATH /home/rbd/serpent/programs:/home/rbd/serpent/lib:/home/rbd/serpent/wxslib
```
Then, from the shell, I type source serppath to set the environment. Note that you cannot simply execute serppath as a shell command: this will create a new shell and set the environment in that shell. When the new shell exits, the environment is destroyed, and the current environment is left unchanged. If you have a .login file or a .cshrc file, you can set the environment there so you do not have to set the environment manually. If you use bash instead of tcsh or csh, see the Mac instructions below.
Linux (and Mac) users may want to copy their executables to ~/bin. Then, if you set up your search path appropriately, you can run serpent or wxserpent from any command prompt and any current directory.
On the Mac, I run Serpent from the command line, and set the environment just like in Linux. Chances are good you will be using bash on OS X, so the commands are
```
SERPENTPATH="/Users/rbd/serpent/programs:/home/rbd/serpent/lib:/Users/rbd/serpent/wxslib
export SERPENTPATH
```
You can put these commands into .profile in your home directory so they will be automatically run when you start a shell.
There is no standard Mac application (yet) for Serpent. You run it from a terminal window. You may want to copy executables to ~/bin and set up your path so you can execute Serpent from any terminal window and any current directory.