MIEN Quick Installation
Since you are here, I assume you want to install MIEN with the least work, or with the minimum technical knowledge. If you are a programmer, or anyone who already has a highly customized copy of the Python language on their computer, you may prefer a manual install.
The fastest way to install MIEN depends on your operating system and hardware. There are simple install options for:
For other operating systems or hardware, you should be able to get MIEN to work, but you will need to do a manual install.
Apt/dpkg (Linux)
MIEN is provided as a Debian package manager (deb) package, and can be installed with the Advanced Package Tool (apt) . Currently the MIEN packages are not official elements of the Ubuntu or Debian distribution. They are, however, listed in our private repository as members of the main group, following the Ubuntu convention that main contains packages that are 100% open source software.
The packages are built on Ubuntu Linux 9.0.4 (Jaunty Jackalope), but may also work on other deb-based Linux.
This format has the advantage that it automatically tracks the list of dependancies. The Ubuntu APT package repositories provide a source for all the packages needed by MIEN.
The main limitation is that mien requires Python >=2.6. Some earlier Ubuntu versions, such as 8.0.4 LTS (Hardy Heron) don't offer packages for Python 2.6 (only 2.5), so the apt dependancy checks will fail. On these systems, you can still install the mien package individually, but you will need to build dependancies by hand (as described here).
If you would rather just download the deb package and install it by hand (with dpkg), you can find it here (you want the file named python-mien_0.0.XXX_all.deb, where XXX is the largest available number).
To install using APT (or aptitude, synaptic, or whichever is your favorite front-end):
First, you need to add our repository to /etc/apt/sources.list. Just add the line
NOTE: This will work on systems that identify as i386, ia64, or amd64. Technically, the MIEN core package will work on any architecture, but most extension blocks require a supported binary architecture.
Now do sudo apt-get update to update the package list, and sudo apt-get install python-mien to install.
The apt package installs the mien command at /usr/bin/mien, and it installs the mien package in /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mien. You shouldn't need to change your environment after using this install (unless you have previously modified your system to use a different Python install location). You can just start using the mien command as described here or in more detail here.
Getting extension blocks (Linux)
You can also install extension blocks with apt-get. You can use apt-cache search python-mien to get a list of the available extension blocks. Blocks will always have package names of the form python-mien-pkgname.
NOTE: This package is un-verified. APT will warn you, and ask if you want to install it anyway. If you want to use it, you will have to say yes here. Yes, this is something of a security risk for you. I'm working on getting an official Ubuntu package with verification done. For now, this is what I've got available.
The packages in the APT repository should always correspond to the most recent code in the stable web repository. If you want to get development snapshots, you will need to use subversion, or the built in MIEN update manager. In these cases, it is a good idea to install new blocks via APT, so that the dependancies are installed. You can then update the package with the other tools.
Updating with apt (Linux)
If you have installed MIEN or extension blocks via apt, you can keep them up to date with apt-get upgrade <pkg>. On Ubuntu Linux, the system update manager will also add these packages to your list of available system updates, so if you run the updater regularly, it will keep MIEN up to date.
Macintosh OS X
There is an installer for MIEN and its dependancies for Macintosh OS 10.4 or 10.5. It uses universal binaries for the dependencies, and works on PPC or Intel Macs.
Get it here.
Double-click the dmg to mount it, and double-click the package contained in the dmg to run the installer.
This installer places a "mien" entry point script in /usr/bin, and adds several Macintosh apps to run various GUIS in /Applications/MIEN. You should be ready to use the mien command as described here or in more detail here. You can also use the App scripts as described here.
The mac package is usually pretty badly out of date, but it is recent enough to include the automatic updater, so the first thing you may want to do is get updates as described here.
Depending on how your Mac is set up, the Python interpreter run by the mien command (and the MIEN GUI scripts) may not be the same one you would get by typing python in your terminal. See this note about Python frameworks.
If you use Leopard, see this note.
Microsoft Windows
Note that MIEN is only partially supported on Windows. Many features should would, including the GUI viewers, but some advanced features don't work, and testing is not very frequent. See the Windows platform notes.
The only quick way to install on Windows is to use a binary package, built with py2exe.
Binary builds for Windows XP 32 bit can be found on sourceforge. Download the appropriate "mienapp" file, run mienappSetup.exe, and follow the instructions in the installer.
The binary build imbeds a Python interpreter and all the dependencies, so it should work on any XP system. It is very far out of date, however, and has several missing features. The binary build also lacks a controlling terminal, which limits some features as described here.
Some extension blocks work with the binary build, but they can't be dynamically reloaded, and some compiled (C) extensions may not work at all.
Using the binary installer is a good way to use the MIEN GUI viewers, and to see if you like MIEN. If you want to keep using MIEN, I strongly recommend doing a manual install.