If you'd like to use your Apple Mac with OS X for some numerical computation, this site
could be useful to you. Most of these packages have been compiled/tested on several version of
OS X and XCode Tools. Feel free to contact me with questions or problems!
Compiled using source code from the GNU servers. This contains current versions (14.1 is the stable
release) of gfortran (free, open source, GNU Fortran 95 compiler), gcc (GNU C) and g++ (GNU C++)
compilers that can perform auto-vectorization (i.e. modify code to take advantage of AltiVec/SSE,
automatically) and other sophisticated optimizations like OpenMP. For more information, see
this webpage. Download my binaries, and cd
to the download folder. Then gunzip gcc-13-m1-bin.tar.gz (if your browser didn't do so already)
and then sudo tar -xvf gcc-13-m1-bin.tar -C /. It installs everything in /usr/local. You
can invoke the Fortran 95 compiler by simply typing gfortran. You will also need to have Apple's
XCode Tools installed from the Mac App Store. With XCode 4 or better you will need to download the
command-line tools as an additional step. You will find the option to download the command-line tools
in XCode's Preferences. On 10.9 Mavericks or higher, you can get the command-line tools by simply
typing xcode-select --install. And on Catalina, you may have to specify an additional
include and library path -I/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/include
-L/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/lib for the compiler to find the system
headers and libraries.
This is the FINAL release of g77 (version 3.4 compiler). Future versions of GCC will
have gfortran (see above). Download my binaries, and cd to the download
folder. Then gunzip g77-bin.tar.gz (if your browser didn't
do so already) and sudo tar -xvf g77-bin.tar -C /. It installs
everything in /usr/local. You will need to have Apple's
Developer Tools installed. They are included on the retail DVD
version of OS X and also available as a free download from Apple's Developer Site.
Please install the most current version of Developer Tools. Thanks to James
Wookey for the Intel Mac version of g77.
This is the oldest Fortran compiler available for OS X. Its been
around since OS X was in a public beta state. Download this shell
script: buildf2c, type chmod +x
buildf2c and then sudo ./buildf2c. The script will grab
f2c source from Netlib repositories and install a f2c based
compiler in /usr/local/. You are
done! The compiler can be envoked by the commands fc or
f2c.
Octave is an open source, Matlab-like numerical analysis software package that is very
popular among scientists and engineers. The good folks over at Octave-Forge provide an
OS X style Octave application, with drag and drop installation! I recommend their binaries (links below).
The Einstein Toolkit is an open-source software framework specifically targeted to
the research area of numerical relativity and astrophysics. The broad aim of the toolkit is
to provide the core computational tools that enable scientific research in this area,
and take advantage of emerging petascale computers and advanced cyberinfrastructure.
The Einstein Toolkit compiles and runs great on Mac OS X. A critical component of this toolkit
is the Cactus Computing Toolkit (see below).
Cactus is an open source problem solving environment designed for
scientists and engineers. Its modular structure ("thorns") easily
enables parallel computation across different architectures and
collaborative code development between different groups. It is
mainly used for solving complicated PDE's. It highly portable, and
has some really remarkable features like observing and even
"controlling" or "steering" a running simulation using an ordinary
web browser! Here is a link to a perpetual demo running at LSU Cactus Demo. Check it out!
Cactus compiles and runs great on Mac OS X.
This is a great tool that takes as input details about the form of
an equation (usually a partial differential equation), and some
parameters .. and then spits out a C or FORTRAN Code that solves
the equation numerically using established iterative numerical
techniques. RNPL can also be used for producing skeleton programs
and for converting existing programs. Download the source, compile
and install. This source has been modified to compile with OS X. Or
get my binary distribution. You probably want to install this in
/usr/local, to do so gunzip rnpl-bin.tar.gz (if your browser
didn't do so already) and then sudo tar -xvf rnpl-bin.tar -C / and you
are done! You will need to use the F77 flag: -fno-second-underscore,
for RNPL generated F77 codes to compile properly.
GRAVSIM is a package that contains an ever evolving and hopefully growing
set of gravitational N body solvers. These solvers attempt to track the
motion of a set of bodies moving under the influence of gravity. They are
used in many areas of astrophysical study including planetary motion,
star cluster formation and stability and galactic formation, stability
and interactions (i.e. colliding galaxies). This package is highly
AltiVec and DP optimized!
This is a very easy to use, open-source, X11 based, plotting tool. I used it during my
graduate school days and still love it. Its excellent especially for students and free! Note: I did
not create this binary, but I have tested it on both Intel and PPC Macs. It works very well.
Move the Grace application to the system /Applications folder for it to function correctly.
By the way, if you are looking for a nice, easy to use, 2D and 3D,
plotting package for OS X, try pro Fit.
It works great. They have a free trial version, that is not time-limited and is full-featured. It just has
some restrictions on the volume of data you can make it handle. Even the full version is very inexpensive.