Install VND as a Linux user, without needing root or sudo permissions

In this example, we''ll make an install directory in your home directory.

Below, type what is in bold at your terminal prompt ($ or similar).

Indented text shows responses from the Linux terminal

Check your home directory path

cd

/home/your_username

    In the following, use your own home directory path instead of /home/your_username .

    Use whatever vnd-[…]tar.gz version you downloaded instead of “vnd-1.9.4a53p7b.LINUXAMD64.opengl.tar.gz”

You can use any location you have read/write access to,    /home/your_username/vnd-test-install is just a testing suggestion

mkdir /home/your_username/vnd-test-install

cd /home/your_username/vnd-test-install

/home/your_username/vnd-test-install

mkdir lib

mkdir bin

    Now, we’ll make a directory for the installer.    In case you don’t have a favorite temporary directory

mkdir ~/my-temp/

cd ~/my-temp/

Now make a directory for the installer (inside your favorite temporary items directory)

mkdir vnd-installer

cd vnd-installer

pwd

/home/your_username/my-temp/vnd-installer

# move the .tar.gz file from where you downloaded it to your temporary installer directory

mv ~/Downloads/vnd-1.9.4a53p7b.LINUXAMD64.opengl.tar.gz ~/my-temp/vnd-installer

#    go to the temp directory and decompress / untar

cd ~/my-temp/vnd-installer

gunzip vnd-1.9.4a53p7b.LINUXAMD64.opengl.tar.gz

tar xvf vnd-1.9.4a53p7b.LINUXAMD64.opengl.tar

cd vnd-1.9.4a53

pwd

/home/your_username/my-temp/vnd-installer/vnd-1.9.4a53

#    Edit ./configure to change the install_bin_dir and install_library_dir lines (use a text editor like vi, nano, Sublime Text, emacs, etc)

vi configure

# (or “nano configure", or whatever editor you use)

    In this example case, the relevant lines in ...

/home/your_username/my-temp/vnd-installer/vnd-1.9.4a53/configure

... look like this when done:

=====

# Directory where VMD startup script is installed, should be in users' paths.

$install_bin_dir="/home/your_username/vnd-test-install/bin";

# Directory where VMD files and executables are installed

$install_library_dir="/home/your_username/vnd-test-install/lib/$install_name";

=====

    You should still be in    ~/my-temp/vnd-installer/vnd-1.9.4a53 . Check with pwd. Now,

./configure

cd src

make install

Now add the binary directory (ends in /bin ) to your PATH variable..

For example, I am using tcsh as my shell, so I would add this line to the end

of my ~/.cshrc file:

setenv PATH /home/your_username/vnd-test-install/bin:$PATH

A bash user might instead add this line to ~/.bashrc

export PATH=" /home/your_username/vnd-test-install/bin:$PATH"

Save the configuration file.

Now, open a new terminal window.

Type

which vnd

to check where vnd is installed. Then type

vnd

to run VND.