At this time, the RPS2 software is only available as precompiled binaries on certain platforms. (See table in See Available RPS2 configurations ) If you do not have one of those platforms, you can run RPS2 by one of the alternative methods described in See Alternate Ways to Run RPS2
In principle, RPS2 should be able to run in the smaller configuration on any unix system to which tcl/tk/tcl-dp/itcl has been ported. The source code for the smaller configuration is available. If you would like to try compiling RPS2 on your own system, please contact your PC who will put you in touch with the development team.
The installation of RPS2 is intended to be as easy as possible, but it does require a basic understanding of Unix. If you are familiar with Unix, you should be able to install RPS2 without any special privileges and with minimal help from the system managers. If you or your system manager has problems installing or running RPS2, contact your Program Coordinator.
You should check with your system manager to determine the best place to install RPS2. This is especially true if there are multiple HST observers at your institution, in which case the software should be installed where they all can use it.
Note: Users located at STScI do not have to install this software. It has already been installed on the unix science cluster and is accessible from /usr/local/bin/.
The full configuration: ( solaris-RPS2bin.tar.Z for Solaris 2.x) This is the recommended configuration, which contains all of RPS2's subsystems. It requires more disk space and is more computationally intensive when RPS2 is running. After unpacking the code, about 66 MB of disk space is used; after the archive file is deleted, 47 MB is used. While the Feasibility and Schedulability program images are large, they can run on a Sparc IPX with 16MB of physical memory and 84MB of swap space.
The smaller configuration: ( sun4-RPS2bin.ta for SunOS 4.x , alpha-RPS2bin.ta for DEC Alpha, otherwise available on request) This configuration of RPS2 does not include the Feasibility and Schedulability subsystems, which will run on the STScI machines. As a result, there will be times when heavy network traffic will cause slow processing time.You will need approximately 17 MB of disk space in order to retrieve and unpack this configuration of RPS2. After installation is complete, the archive file can be deleted, leaving only about 713MB on your disk.
The RPS2 code can be retrieved from STScI using the World Wide Web or anonymous FTP. The following examples show ways this can be done:
There is only one file to retrieve. All the files needed to install and use RPS2 are archived together into this one file.
Once you have downloaded the file into your installation directory, examine the file name. If the file still has the .Z extension, use the following command (remember that unix commands are case sensitive; the solaris configuration is used as an example):
If the file no longer has the .Z extension, your FTP or WWW client uncompressed the file for you. Use the command:
When this is finished, the installation directory will contain some files (like INSTALL and README ) and subdirectories (like docs/ and testprops /). Read the INSTALL and README files. The docs/ directory contains a copy of the RPS2 User's Manual (this document) as well as a copy of a blank Phase II proposal template.
While in the installation directory, execute the following command:
This command modifies the source code to conform to its current location and sets the necessary file permissions. The " make install " command only needs to be run once, unless the files are moved to another location.
A sample RPS2 proposal is available in a subdirectory of the installation directory called testprops/ . The file name is: 2.prop (a WFPC2 example). Copy this proposal into a new directory and follow the instructions starting with See How to use RPS2 to process a proposal
Note that this sample proposal contains minor errors designed to illustrate how RPS2 diagnostics work. The README file in the testprops/ directory outlines what is illustrated in the sample proposal. This proposal is merely for demonstrating how RPS2 works. Sample proposals that demonstrate how to write a good program are available on the WWW on both the Phase II proposal development page ( http://presto.stsci.edu/public/rps2home.html) and the individual instrument pages.