Isabelle installation notes

===========================

1) System installation

----------------------

The Isabelle distribution includes both complete sources and

precompiled binary packages for common Unix-like platforms.

Quick installation

------------------

Ready-to-go packages are provided for the ML compiler and runtime

system, the Isabelle sources, and some major object-logics.  A minimal

site installation of Isabelle on Linux/x86 works like this:

  tar -C /usr/local -xzf Isabelle.tar.gz

  tar -C /usr/local -xzf polyml.tar.gz

  tar -C /usr/local -xzf HOL_x86-linux.tar.gz

The install prefix given above may be changed as appropriate; there is

no need to install into a system directory like /usr/local at all.  By

default the ML system (and other contributed packages) are expected in

any of the following locations:

  1) [ISABELLE_HOME]/contrib

  2) [ISABELLE_HOME]/..

  4) /usr/local

  3) /usr/share

  5) /opt

This may be changed by editing [ISABELLE_HOME]/etc/settings manually.

The installation may be finished as follows:

  cd [ISABELLE_HOME]

  ./bin/isabelle install -p /usr/local/bin

The install utility creates global references to the present Isabelle

installation, enabling users to invoke the Isabelle executables

without explicit path names.  This is the only place where a static

reference to [ISABELLE_HOME] is created; thus isabelle install has to

be run again whenever the Isabelle distribution is moved later.

Compiling logics

----------------

The Isabelle.tar.gz archive already contains all Isabelle sources (and

documentation).  Precompiled object-logics are provided for

convenience.

Assuming proper configuration of the underlying ML system

(cf. Isabelle's etc/settings), further object-logics may be compiled

like this:

  [ISABELLE_HOME]/build FOL

Special object-logic targets may be specified as follows:

  [ISABELLE_HOME]/build -m HOL-Algebra HOL

2) User installation

--------------------

Running the Isabelle binaries

-----------------------------

Users may invoke the main Isabelle binaries (isabelle and

isabelle-process) directly from their location within the distribution

directory [ISABELLE_HOME] like this:

  [ISABELLE_HOME]/bin/isabelle tty -l HOL

This starts an interactive Isabelle session within the current text

terminal.  [ISABELLE_HOME]/bin may be put into the shell's search

PATH.  An alternative is to create global references to the Isabelle

executables as follows:

  [ISABELLE_HOME]/bin/isabelle install -p ~/bin

Note that the site-wide Isabelle installation may already provide

Isabelle executables in some global bin directory (such as

/usr/local/bin).