Install GMT

Preamble

GMT installation is explained in detail in the GMT Homepge. I recommend the following to windows users.

While it is perfectly possible to run Cygwin using the dos shell, it is much less painfull to first install Cygwin -- a free, open-source, UNIX-like shell environment for Windows and then use that environment to get going as if you are on a UNIX computer.

Assuming that you either are on a UNIX computer or have Cygwin installed on Windows with all the basic stuff like compilers (gcc, g77), utilities (awk, sed), etc., do the following to install GMT.

Installation

• Check whether you can acces ftp sites. If you are behind a firwall, there may be problems. Then the following method will NOT work.
• Access the install form on GMT homepage. (Last time I checked, it was here.
• There is a link on the form to download the script called install_gmt. Download and save it now.
• Fill in the form. Keep the following in mind.

  NetCDF Setup

  • Select "Please get and install netCDF ..." option
  • Give /usr/local/netCDF/ as the path

  High and Full resolutions coastline data

  • Click to get them unless your network is very very slow (Default is not to get).

  Select the C compiler you want to use

  • gcc

  Select default GMTHOME directory

  • /usr/local/GMT

  Select supplemental packages to install

  Unclick this unless you have Matlab: *MEX: Matlab interface for reading/writing GMT grdfiles

• Submit the form and save the result as gmt_install.txt
• Go to the place where you have install_gmt script and the above file. Do the following

  sh install_gmt gmt_install