Testing the Installation on Unix and Linux
The following simple commands allow you to test the installation of
Mathematica. Running these commands does not guarantee that the installation was successful, but a failed command can indicate that a serious problem occurred during installation.
You should run these tests from a regular user account and not from an account with administrator privileges.
To run
Mathematica using a network license, both the client machine and the license server must be on the network and
MathLM must be running.
If you run into problems when doing these tests, see the troubleshooting tips in
"Troubleshooting on Unix and Linux". If you do not find the answer there, check the Technical Support website at
support.wolfram.com/mathematica.
To Test the Kernel:
1. To start the kernel, type
math in a shell and press
Enter.
2. Type
N[Pi, 20] and press
Enter. The number in the output should match the output shown here.
In[1]:= N[Pi, 20]
Out[1]= 3.1415926535897932385
In[2]:=
3. To exit the kernel, type
Exit and press
Enter.
On Unix and Linux, you can test the kernel on a remote machine by using the command
ssh hostname /usr/local/bin/math. (The exact pathname could be different depending on how
Mathematica was installed.) This command will launch the kernel on the remote machine
hostname. When you see the
In[1] label, follow step 2 and step 3 in the previous instructions.
To Test the Front End:
1. Make sure that you are running X. Launch
Mathematica by typing
mathematica in a shell and pressing
Enter.
A splash screen with initialization information appears briefly, after which three windows appear.
2. Click anywhere inside the leftmost empty window. This window is a
Mathematica notebook.
Type
N[Pi, 20]. Then hold down the
Shift key and press
Enter to evaluate. This should send the command to the kernel and return the same result as before. The
In[1] and
Out[1] labels are prepended once the evaluation is completed.
In the notebook window, there should be a horizontal line across the notebook; this is the horizontal insertion bar. If you do not see one, move the pointer until it becomes a horizontal I-beam and click once to see the insertion bar.
3. Press the
Esc key. You should see three small horizontal lines in a column (
). Type
int and press
Esc again. You should see an integral sign (
). As an additional font check, typing
\[CheckmarkedBox] and
\[CirclePlus] should print the symbols
☑ and
, respectively. If the symbols show up correctly, the fonts have been properly installed.
4. From the menu, choose . The
Mathematica Documentation Center should appear.
On Unix and Linux, you can test the X front end remotely, provided the ssh server on the remote machine allows X forwarding. You must be running X on the local machine to do this. In a shell, type
ssh -X hostname /usr/local/bin/math. (The exact pathname could be different depending on how
Mathematica was installed.) This command will launch
Mathematica on the remote machine
hostname. When the splash screen appears on your screen, follow step 2 and step 3 in the previous instructions.
