1.2 Installation procedure

Usually, you will need to be "administrator" to install Webots. Once installed, Webots can be used by a regular, unprivileged user. To install Webots, please follow this procedure:

1. Install the evaluation version of Webots for your operating system as explained below.

2. Setup your Webots USB dongle according the instructions described in the next section.

Note: The evaluation version will become an EDU or PRO version after installing the dongle. After installation, the major part of Webots functionalities is available. However, some additional tools (such as Java or Python) are necessary for running or compiling some specific projects. The chapter 5 covers the set up of these tools.

1.2.1 Linux

Webots will run on most recent Linux distributions runnning glibc2.3. This includes fairly recent Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, SuSE, RedHat, etc. Webots comes as three different packages: tarball, RPM and DEB which are suitable for most Linux systems. These package are located on the Webots CD-ROM in the linux / webots folder, or downloadable from our web site. Please refer to your Linux documentation to select among the RPM, DEB or tarball package for installation.

Note: Webots will run much faster if you install accelerated OpenGL drivers. If you have a NVIDIA or ATI graphics card, it is highly recommended that you install the Linux graphics drivers from these manufacturers to take the full advantage of OpenGL hardware acceleration with Webots.

tarball package

The tarball package has the can be installed without root privileges. It can be uncompressed anywhere using the tar xjf command line. Once uncompressed, it is recommended to set the WEBOTS_HOME environment variable to point to the webots directory obtained from the uncompression of the tarball:

tar xjf webots-6.0.0.tar.bz2 export WEBOTS_HOME=/home/username/webots

The export line should however be included in a configuration script like /etc/profile, so that it is set properly for every session.

RPM package

1. Log on as root

2. rpm -Uvh webots-6.0.0-1.i386.rpm

   You may need to use the --nodeps or the --force flags if rpm fails to install the packages.

DEB package

Being logged on as root, you may want to configure your apt package manager by adding:

deb http://www.cyberbotics.com/debian/ binary/

in your /etc/apt/sources.list configuration file, and then proceed to the installation of Webots using apt-get install webots or any apt graphical front-end. This ensures that you will always be able to download and install the latest version of Webots when you update your system.

Alternatively, you can install the provided DEB package directly by using the dpkg:

dpkg -i webots_6.0.0_i386.deb

1.2.2 Windows XP or Vista

1. Uninstall any previous release of Webots from the Start menu, Control Panel, Add / Remove Programs. You may also use the Start menu, Cyberbotics, Uninstall Webots.

2. Get the webots-6.0.0_setup.exe installation file either from the Webots CD-ROM (in the windows / webots folder) or from our web site.

3. Double click on this file.

4. Follow the installation instructions.

In order to compile controller programs, the Windows version of Webots uses the free MinGW compiler. The MinGW compiler is included in the Webots distribution (in the mingw subdirectory). MinGW is a Windows port of the standard GCC compiler tools for C/C++. It is fully integrated with Webots' built-in source code editor. Optionally, you may also want to install the MSYS terminal, which provides a UNIX-like terminal interface to MinGW. These two pieces of software are distributed under the terms of the GNU public license and hence are free of charge.

You may also choose to use Dev-C++ (free of charge) or Microsoft Visual C++^TM (commercial product).

1.2.3 Mac OS X

1. Get the webots-6.0.0.dmg installation file either from the Webots CD-ROM (in the mac / webots folder) or from our web site.

2. Double click on this file.

3. This will mount on the desktop a volume named Webots containing the Webots folder. Move this folder to your /Applications folder or wherever you would like to install Webots.

4. Optionally, you can set the WEBOTS_HOME environment variable to point to Webots installation directory. This is useful if you occasionally want to compile controller code in the Terminal application. This can be set for all users by adding export WEBOTS_HOME=/Applications/Webots to the /etc/profile file.

In order to compile controllers on the Mac, you will need to install Apple's Xcode Tools. The Xcode Tools come for free and are included with every copy of the Mac OS X installation DVD. Otherwise they can also be downloaded from the Apple Developer Connection website. Webots will need principally the gcc (GNU C Compiler) and make commands of the Xcode Tools.

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