Downloading and Installing GAP 4

[There also is a Ukrainian distribution site for GAP 4.4.]

The currently released version of GAP is 4.4.12 of December 2008.

The current combined archive of distributed packages was last updated on .

There is also a beta release of GAP 4.5 available. See here for more details.

Upgrading or New Installation?

If the version number of your GAP installation starts with 4.4 (see the welcome banner when you start GAP or issue gap -h) then proceed to the upgrade page. Otherwise follow the steps below for a new installation (you can keep your current installation in parallel for a while).

Needed Computer and Operating System

GAP can be installed on computers with UNIX/Linux, Windows or Macintosh operating systems (we recommend that users of Mac OS X install the UNIX version, although you may want to test out Alexander Hulpke's Mac installer). The archives of the distribution are the same in all of these cases, while the details of the installation are slightly different on the various systems. In any case the computer must have about 500 MB of free disc space and it should have at least 128 MB of available main memory for smooth operation.

License and Copyright

The main archives contain the current release of GAP. They also contain a number of contributed packages, found in the subdirectories pkg and small of the main distribution directory. The core part of the GAP system is distributed under the terms of the GNU Public License (details are given on a separate page), packages may have other licenses. The copyright (C) (1987--2007) for the core part of the GAP distribution is by the GAP Group. The copyright of redistributed packages remains with their authors.

The Basic Steps of a GAP Installation

• Choose your preferred archive format and download the archives.
• Unpack the archives.
• On UNIX: Compile GAP. (Compiled executables for Windows and Mac are in the archives.)
• On UNIX: Some packages need further installation for full functionality (which is not available on Windows or Mac).
• Adjust some links/scripts/icons ..., depending on your system, to make the new version of GAP available to the users of your machine.
• Optional: Run a few tests.
• Optional, but appreciated: Give some feedback on your installation.

Alternative Installations.

• Frank Lübeck offers a Linux binary distribution via remote syncronization with a reference installation which includes all packages and some optimizations.
• Alexander B. Konovalov offers an Experimental GAP Installer for Windows consisting of two exe-files whose content is identical to the win.zip archives of the core GAP system plus optional components, and a merged archive of all currently redistributed GAP packages. It provides the standard installation procedure that will guide you through all steps of the installation process
• Alexander Hulpke offers a Vista or XP GAP Installer for Windows.

Debian packages. Most Debian-based GNU/Linux distributions contain .deb-packages with the core part of GAP and a small number of the GAP packages (note that after an update or new release of GAP it takes some time until these Linux distributions are updated to the newest GAP version).

Download Archives

[You can also download directly via ftp.]

We provide all archives in four formats: .zoo, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2 and -win.zip. Choose one of these and download only archives of your chosen format.

The following archives are available (they are the same for all operating systems):

• gap4r4p12[.zoo (61MB)] [.tar.gz (55MB)] [.tar.bz2 (46MB)] [-win.zip (58MB)] :
         The core GAP system (including Windows binaries and MacOS binary in the zoo-file).
• packages-2011_11_04-10_36_UTC[.zoo (142MB)] [.tar.gz (127MB)] [.tar.bz2 (110MB)] [-win.zip (142MB)] :
         A merged archive of all currently redistributed GAP packages.
• xtom1r1p4[.zoo (23MB)] [.tar.gz (18MB)] [.tar.bz2 (11MB)] [-win.zip (19MB)] :
         An optional archive containing some huge tables of marks (needs about 80 MB of disc space).

There is another small archive, tools4r4p12[.zoo (552kB)] [.tar.gz (480kB)] [.tar.bz2 (408kB)] [-win.zip (536kB)] , which contains some utilities mainly for package authors (preparing documentation and archives, ...). These are in a separated archive because they are not actively supported.

If you use Internet Explorer, you might also want to get the archives htmie4r4p12[.zoo (1.3MB)] [.tar.gz (1.1MB)] [.tar.bz2 (804kB)] [-win.zip (1.3MB)] , to replace the HTML version of the manual we supply in the main archive with a version that renders Math symbols better under IE.

Unpacking and Installing the Archives

These steps depend on the operating system you are using. Find the details via one of the following links. The instructions assume that you know how to unpack the archives you have chosen to download, as explained here.

• Installation under UNIX
• Installation under Windows
• Installation on Macintosh

Testing the Installation

For a quick test of your installation you may start GAP. Normally, you will see a GAP4 banner and the information about loaded components and packages. This information may vary in dependence on your installation. For example, for the complete installation of latest versions of all packages you will have:

    
            #########           ######         ###########           ###  
         #############          ######         ############         ####  
        ##############         ########        #############       #####  
       ###############         ########        #####   ######      #####  
      ######         #         #########       #####    #####     ######  
     ######                   ##########       #####    #####    #######  
     #####                    ##### ####       #####   ######   ########  
     ####                    #####  #####      #############   ###  ####  
     #####     #######       ####    ####      ###########    ####  ####  
     #####     #######      #####    #####     ######        ####   ####  
     #####     #######      #####    #####     #####         #############
      #####      #####     ################    #####         #############
      ######     #####     ################    #####         #############
      ################    ##################   #####                ####  
       ###############    #####        #####   #####                ####  
         #############    #####        #####   #####                ####  
          #########      #####          #####  #####                ####  
                                                                          
     Information at:  http://www.gap-system.org
     Try '?help' for help. See also  '?copyright' and  '?authors'
    
   Loading the library. Please be patient, this may take a while.
GAP4, Version: 4.4.12 of 17-Dec-2008, i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
Components:  small 2.1, small2 2.0, small3 2.0, small4 1.0, small5 1.0, 
             small6 1.0, small7 1.0, small8 1.0, small9 1.0, small10 0.2, 
             id2 3.0, id3 2.1, id4 1.0, id5 1.0, id6 1.0, id9 1.0, id10 0.1, 
             trans 1.0, prim 2.1  loaded.
Packages:    AClib 1.1, Polycyclic 2.6, Alnuth 2.2.5, nq 2.2, GAPDoc 1.3,
            IO 3.3, CrystCat 1.1.3, Cryst 4.1.6, Carat 2.1, AutPGrp 1.4,
            CRISP 1.3.3, CTblLib 1.1.3, TomLib 1.0, FactInt 1.5.2,
            FGA 1.1.0.1, IRREDSOL 1.2, LAGUNA 3.5.0, Sophus 1.23,
            Polenta 1.2.7, ResClasses 3.0.0  loaded.
gap>

Later you can suppress the GAP banner using the -b option. Now you may type a few commands at the prompt and run a short test suite (which may run up to a few minutes, depending on the speed of your computer). Note that on 64bit architectures, some tests will produce slightly different output than usual and so some 'diff' output will show up when the test file is read as below. If you observe a lot of discrepancies, see the next section.

gap> 3^80;
147808829414345923316083210206383297601
gap> tst := Filename( DirectoriesLibrary("tst"), "testall.g" );;
gap> Read(tst);
You should start GAP4 using:  `gap -N -A -x 80 -r -m 100m'.
The more GAP4stones you get, the faster your  system is.
The runtime of the following tests (in general) increases.
You should expect about 100000 GAP4stones on a Pentium III/1 GHz.
The `next' time is an approximation of the running time for the next test.

Architecture: i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc

test file         GAP4stones     time(msec)
-------------------------------------------
testing: /home/jjm/gap4r4/tst/gaussian.tst
gaussian.tst               0             28

[...  about 80 lines deleted]

grppcnrm.tst          154894          66992
-------------------------------------------
total                 127048         121192

gap> quit;

If Things Go Wrong

If you encounter problems with the above steps, try the following - in this order:

• Look at the manual chapter 73 on installation, it contains some additional remarks and a trouble shooting section.
• Tell us about your problem by writing an email to support@gap-system.org.

Feedback

The GAP Group would appreciate some feedback on installations of the system. Please provide some such feedback as described on the page Installation Feedback by email to support@gap-system.org.

All GAP users are invited to join the GAP Forum mailing list on mathematical and programming questions concerning GAP, announcements of bugfixes, new versions and new packages are also sent to that list.

If you use GAP in your research we ask you to cite it as you would cite an article or book (see recommended citation).

Getting Started

If you are new to GAP you may try to start reading and trying the examples in the first chapters of the Tutorial [PDF-version]. In particular, it is explained how to use the extensive documentation from inside GAP.