6 <title>The Isabelle System Distribution</title>
11 <h1>The Isabelle System Distribution</h1>
13 <h2>Version information</h2>
15 This is the internal repository version of Isabelle. The current line
16 of Isabelle99 development introduces many new concepts, while
17 attempting to keep incompatibilities over Isabelle98 at a minimum.
18 See the <tt>NEWS</tt> file in the distribution for more details.
21 <h2>System requirements</h2>
23 Isabelle requires a real Unix box with sufficient resources. Fun
24 starts at about 32-64 MB of free main memory (somewhat depending on
25 the ML system), with several tens of MB disk space and a decent CPU.
26 Speaking by today's hardware standards, any moderate Linux box should
27 give a very nice platform for Isabelle.
31 Furthermore, Isabelle needs the following software, which is not part
34 <li> A full Standard ML Compiler (e.g. Poly/ML).
35 <li> The GNU bash shell (version 1.x or 2.x).
36 <li> Perl 5.x - the Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister (Perl 4.x
37 is <em>not</em> sufficient).
42 The following ML system and platform combinations are known to work
45 <li> Poly/ML 4.x and 3.x on Linux/x86 and Solaris/Sparc.
46 <li> SML/NJ 110.x on any Unix platform (Linux, Suns, SGI etc.).
49 <p> <a href="http://www.polyml.org/">Poly/ML</a>, previously a
50 commercial product, is back in the free world. It is by far the best
51 compiler for running Isabelle, requiring the least memory and offering
52 the highest performance.
55 href="http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/what/smlnj/software.html">SML/NJ</a>
56 needs lots of store and disk space, but supports many more platforms.
57 The current official release is 110. Basically, we still support the
58 old 0.93 release, but do not recommend to use it under normal
61 <p> MLWorks is a commercial ML programming environment developed by <a
62 href="http://www.harlequin.com/">Harlequin</a> and was unfortunately
63 withdrawn after that company was taken over. Isabelle on MLWorks 2.0
64 works reasonably well.
69 Binary packages are available for Isabelle/HOL and ZF on the Linux/x86
70 platform. The system may be easily built from scratch as well, taking
71 the traditional tar.gz source distribution. See file <tt>INSTALL</tt>
72 as distributed with Isabelle for more information.
74 Further background information may be found in the <em>Isabelle System
75 Manual</em>, distributed with the sources (directory <tt>doc</tt>).
78 <h2>User interface</h2>
80 The canonical Isabelle user interface is <a
81 href="http://www.proofgeneral.org">Proof General</a> by David Aspinall
82 and others. It is a generic (X)Emacs interface for proof assistants,
83 including Isabelle (both for the classic and Isar version). Proof
84 General is suitable for use by pacifists and Emacs militants
85 alike. Its most prominent feature is script management, providing a
86 metaphor of <em>live proof script editing</em>. Proof General has
87 recently gained a rather large following of both beginning and expert
92 Proof General may be used together with the Emacs
93 <a href="http://www.fmi.uni-passau.de/~wedler/x-symbol/">
94 X-Symbol package</a>, which provides a nice way to get proper
95 mathematical symbols displayed on screen.
98 <h2>Other sources of information</h2>
100 <h3>The Isabelle Page</h3>
102 The Isabelle home page may be accessed both from Cambridge and Munich:
107 href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/HVG/Isabelle/">http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/HVG/Isabelle/</a>
109 <li> <a href="http://isabelle.in.tum.de">http://isabelle.in.tum.de</a>
114 <h3>Mailing list</h3>
116 The electronic mailing list <tt>isabelle-users@cl.cam.ac.uk</tt>
117 provides a forum for Isabelle users to discuss problems and exchange
118 information. To join, send a message to <a
119 href="mailto:isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk">isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk</a>.
122 <h3>Personal mail</h3>
124 <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/lcp/">Lawrence C Paulson</a><br>
125 Computer Laboratory<br>
126 University of Cambridge<br>
128 Cambridge CB2 3QG<br>
131 E-mail: <A HREF="mailto:lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk">lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk</A><br>
132 Phone: +44-223-334600<br>
133 Fax: +44-223-334748<br>
139 <a href="http://www.in.tum.de/~nipkow/">Tobias Nipkow</a><br>
140 Institut für Informatik<br>
145 E-mail: <A HREF="mailto:nipkow@in.tum.de">nipkow@in.tum.de</A><br>
146 Phone: +49-89-289-22690<br>
147 Fax: +49-89-289-28183<br>
153 Please report any problems you encounter. While we shall try to be
154 helpful, we can accept no responsibility for the deficiencies of
155 Isabelle and their consequences.