Installing the Software

ISiS is distributed via the ISiS page of the IRCAM Forum as a dmg or tar archive containing a self contained command line application for MacOS (>=El Capitan) or Linux (running on all platforms that are supported by Anaconda Python. While ISiS has been developed in Python it comes as a binary executable so that you don’t need to install any dependencies besides the ISiS Software and the singing voice packages. The software is currently in a beta stage, it has been tested only on very few systems.

The installation is performed in the following 3 steps that are rather similar on MacOS and Linux. Please do not miss to test your installation as described under testing after you finished with step 3.

  • Step 1) Unpacking: The unpacking step is slightly different on Linux and MacOS. For MacOS: please locate and double-click the dmg ISiS_Vx.y.z.dmg which will mount a disk image containing the application. For Linux there are many different file managers that behave slightly different and therefore we will not be able to describe how to extract the distribution from the tar.bz2 file. In most cases you should be able to locate the archive ISiS_Vx.y.z.tar.bz2 in your file manager (For example Dolphin on KDE or Nautilus on gnome) and either double-click the file or right click the archive and select “extract here” to unpack it.

  • Step 2) Relocating the software: Move and rename the ISiS_Vx.y.z directory you find in the mounted dmg (MacOS) or that you extracted from the tar (Linux) to a place where you like it to reside.

  • Step 3) Configuring PATHs: Finally you need to configure executable search path of your terminal so that the isis command will be found in the terminal. This can be performed automatically (using a shell script that comes with the ISiS distribution) or manually. The two procedures are described below.

    Automatic PATH configuration: The automatic shell script configuration currently supports the use of bash (the current default shell under MacOS) and tcsh shells. In case you use other shells please see the manual configuration instructions and adapt those to the shell you use. Due to very restrictive security policies of Mac OS X the following instructions differ slightly for MacOS and Linux.

    Under MacOS please first double-click the ISiS_Vx.y.z folder to open it in the Finder and then open a terminal window. Then back in the Finder window containing the ISiS_Vx.y.z folder grap the Install_ISiS_commandline.sh script and drag it with the mouse onto the terminal window. This will paste the complete path to the Install_ISiS_commandline.sh into the terminal command line Once you have copied the path to the terminal please click on the terminal window and then simply hit return.

    Under Linux please first double-click the ISiS_Vx.y.z folder to open it in your file and directory browser. You can then simply double-click the Install_ISiS_commandline.sh script which will execute the script.

    The script will configure the terminal such that each time you open a new terminal the isis folder is added to your environment. In the following you find the output that is generated for user vox installing the ISiS software in his Applications directory on computer medcomp running MacOS, the output will be slightly different depending on your setup and OS, but the important line is the second last line telling you that you are set to run the ISiS application from your new installation.

    medcomp: (~) 501> /Users/vox/Applications/ISiS_V1.2.3/Install_ISiS_commandline.sh
updated /Users/vox/Library/Application Support/Ircam/ISiS_init_rc.sh
updated /Users/vox/Library/Application Support/Ircam/ISiS_init_rc.csh
/Users/vox/.tcshrc is up to date.
/Users/vox/.bashrc is up to date.
/Users/vox/.bash_profile is up to date.
========================================================
Shell configuration updated to use ISiS from /Users/vox/Applications/ISiS_V1.2.3
========================================================

    Manual PATH configuration: Depending on the shell you use you need to open the startup config file of the shell and add the directory ISiS software directory to your PATH. To find out which shell you use please open a terminal and type

    echo $0

    and hit <return>. The shell will display the name of the shell evt with a leading dash.

    Hitting the <return> key anywhere in a line in the terminal indicates to the shell that you are finished typing and that the line should now be executed. To avoid extreme redundancy from now on, if you are asked to execute a command, then this will mean you should type the command and hit <return>.

    The shell configuration files are located in your HOME directory. The HOME directory is the directory where you are located when you are opening a new terminal. You can always go back to the HOME directory within your terminal by means of executing

    cd

    In the following directory names the HOME directory is indicated by means of the ~ sign. This sign is understood by all unix shells, so that you could also go back to your HOME directory by means of executing

    cd ~

    For editing the files you can for example use the nano editor that is available on Linux and MacOS. Please note that while you may use TextEdit on MacOS the file open dialogs will in general not show the shell configuration files.

    Assuming again your username is vox, and you use bash as your shell, and the ISiS version is 1.2.3. In this case the software folder will be named ISiS_V1.2.3 and if you want to install ISiS_V1.2.3 into your local Applications directory the path to the software (on MacOS) will be /Users/vox/Applications/ISiS_V1.2.3. Accordingly you will need to add the following line to the file ~/.bash_profile. For this you would execute

    nano ~/.bash_profile

    scroll to the bottom, and on the beginning of a new line type

    export PATH=/Users/vox/Applications/ISiS_V1.2.3:"$PATH"
    The export command needs to be located on an individual line. To achieve this you hit <return> at the end of the line. Then you save the file by means of typing ‘control’+’x’ and selecting ‘Y’ when asked to confirm saving the changes. If you have problems operating nano you may read the description on changing PATH variable under MacOS here.
    Please note that you may not have a file ~/.bash_profile, in which case the nano command mentioned above will automatically create it.

    In the case that you use tcsh or csh as your shell you would need to edit the file ~/.login by means of executing

    nano ~/.login

    and add the line at the end

    set path = ( /Users/vox/Applications/ISiS_V1.2.3 $path )

    again - if you use tcsh or csh and this file does not exist nano will automatically create it.

    For other shells please refer to the documentation of the respective shell to see the names of the config files and the commands to be used to extend the PATH.

Important Notes

The PATH configuration is permanent and you don’t need to repeat it, besides if you install a new version of ISiS or if you move the ISiS_Vx.y.z folder to a different location.

The terminal configuration will be read whenever you open a new terminal, so
after step 3 you need to open a new terminal to work with the ISiS command.

Under MacOS the PATH configuration described above will be active only for programs you run from the terminal. Programs started via the Finder - as for example Max/MSP - do not read these configuration files. In case you would like to run ISiS from such a program, you need to add the PATH configurations to the runtime environment of the respective software. Please see the documentation of the software to understand how to do this.

In case you would later like to relocate the software package, you can repeat steps 2 and 3 whenever you want. In that case, however, only terminals that are opened after the PATH have been configured in Step 3 will contain the new location of the software.

Testing your configuration

Before working with the ISiS synthesis please test whether you have successfully configured your environment. For this please open a new terminal window and execute

echo $PATH

You should see the ISiS_Vx.y.z folder appearing somewhere at the start of the string that is displayed in the terminal. In case you don’t see the folder, then please check whether you have correctly carried out the configuration steps. Notably, after manual configuration please check that the corresponding shell configuration files do exist and contain the desired lines.