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. See the
16 <tt>NEWS</tt> file in the distribution for details on user-relevant
20 <h2>System requirements</h2>
22 Isabelle requires a real Unix box with sufficient resources, say 64 MB
23 of free main memory and a decent CPU. Speaking by today's hardware
24 standards, any moderate Linux box should give a very nice platform for
29 Furthermore, Isabelle needs the following software, which is not part
32 <li>A full Standard ML Compiler (e.g. Poly/ML).
33 <li>The GNU bash shell (version 1.x or 2.x).
34 <li>Perl 5.x - the Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister (Perl 4.x
35 is <em>not</em> sufficient).
40 The following ML system and platform combinations are known to work
43 <li>Poly/ML 4.x and 3.x on Linux/x86, Solaris/Sparc, and PowerPC platforms.
44 <li>SML/NJ 110.x on any Unix platform (Linux, Suns, SGI etc.).
47 <p> <a href="http://www.polyml.org/">Poly/ML</a>, previously a
48 commercial product, is back in the free world. It is by far the best
49 compiler for running Isabelle, requiring the least memory and offering
50 the highest performance.
52 <p> <a href="http://smlnj.sourceforge.net/">SML/NJ</a> needs more
53 store and disk space, but on the other hand supports more platforms.
54 The current official release is 110.
56 <p> MLWorks used to be a commercial ML programming environment
57 developed by <a href="http://www.harlequin.com/">Harlequin</a> and was
58 unfortunately withdrawn after that company was taken over. Isabelle
59 on MLWorks 2.0 works reasonably well.
64 Binary packages are available for Isabelle/HOL and ZF for several
65 platforms from the Isabelle web page. The system may be easily built
66 from scratch as well, taking the traditional tar.gz source
67 distribution. See file <tt>INSTALL</tt> as distributed with Isabelle
70 Further background information may be found in the <em>Isabelle System
71 Manual</em>, distributed with the sources (directory <tt>doc</tt>).
74 <h2>User interface</h2>
76 The canonical Isabelle user interface is <a
77 href="http://proofgeneral.inf.ed.ac.uk/">Proof General</a> by David Aspinall
78 and others. It is a generic (X)Emacs interface for proof assistants,
79 including Isabelle (both for the classic and Isar version). Proof
80 General is suitable for use by pacifists and Emacs militants
81 alike. Its most prominent feature is script management, providing a
82 metaphor of <em>live proof script editing</em>. Proof General has
83 recently gained a rather large following of both beginning and expert
88 Proof General is distributed together with the XEmacs
89 <a href="http://x-symbol.sourceforge.net">
90 X-Symbol package</a>, which provides a nice way to get proper
91 mathematical symbols displayed on screen.
94 <h2>Other sources of information</h2>
96 <h3>The Isabelle Page</h3>
98 The Isabelle home page may be accessed both from Cambridge and Munich:
103 href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/HVG/Isabelle/">http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/HVG/Isabelle/</a>
105 <li><a href="http://isabelle.in.tum.de">http://isabelle.in.tum.de</a>
110 <h3>Mailing list</h3>
112 The electronic mailing list <tt>isabelle-users@cl.cam.ac.uk</tt>
113 provides a forum for Isabelle users to discuss problems and exchange
114 information. To join, send a message to <a
115 href="mailto:isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk">isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk</a>.
118 <h3>Personal mail</h3>
120 <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/lcp/">Lawrence C Paulson</a><br>
121 Computer Laboratory<br>
122 University of Cambridge<br>
124 Cambridge CB2 3QG<br>
127 E-mail: <A HREF="mailto:lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk">lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk</A><br>
128 Phone: +44-223-334600<br>
129 Fax: +44-223-334748<br>
135 <a href="http://www.in.tum.de/~nipkow/">Tobias Nipkow</a><br>
136 Institut für Informatik<br>
141 E-mail: <A HREF="mailto:nipkow@in.tum.de">nipkow@in.tum.de</A><br>
142 Phone: +49-89-289-22690<br>
143 Fax: +49-89-289-28183<br>
149 Please report any problems you encounter. While we shall try to be
150 helpful, we can accept no responsibility for the deficiencies of
151 Isabelle and their consequences.