We assume you have downloaded and installed the appropriate version of OpenDX for the computer and operating system you have available. Due to the great variety of configurations, we are not able to offer assistance in this process. You can get additional information, help, and the actual binaries from
http://www.opendx.org.
There you will find a link back to IBM's site: http://www.research.ibm.com/dx/transition.html where you can still download the last commercial release (version 3.1.4B) for various Unix platforms and for Windows/Intel. You need an X-server for the Windows/Intel version; this is not provided by IBM or opendx.org. If you download the commercial version of DX for either Unix or Windows, you need to fetch and install the publicly available license key; OpenDX requires no license server or key.
When you install DX, everything that comes with it will be under a directory we'll hereafter refer to as $DXROOT (the actual location depends on your system and the choices you make about its location). As part of the overall installation, you should have an extensive samples directory, all the documentation, help files, and of course, the executables installed in various directories under $DXROOT.
This directory structure ($DXROOT) should contain the following directories (as well as others we're not concerned with):
- /bin (contains the "dx.workerscript" that actually is invoked to start up Data Explorer)
- /bin_$ARCH (platform-specific compiled executable programs: dxui, dxexec, prompter, tutor, startupui, and builder; we'll discuss these as we go along)
- /doc (README files for the various platforms)
- /dxsamples-x.x (the version number "-x.x" varies. Within this directory are many different kinds of samples)
- /fonts (special fonts used only by Data Explorer for output images; DX cannot use either X-windows or Windows TrueType fonts for output imagery at this time)
- /help (the help files used for the contextual help within Data Explorer: not useful to access any other way except through the DX user interface while building a program)
- /html (VERY USEFUL! Use your browser to read the entire set of documentation for Data Explorer by linking to allguide.html within this directory)
As you can see, the location of $DXROOT is very important, and you'll need it often. Note the exact path, and keep it in a handy place for future reference.
