Lugaru Wolf

Installing Epsilon 13 on 64-bit Linux systems

This page describes how to run Epsilon 13 on 64-bit Linux systems. It applies to Epsilon 13.08 through 13.17, but not Epsilon 14 since it's available as a 64-bit program. (Updating to Epsilon 14 instead of following these directions is highly recommended.) Older copies of Epsilon should be updated to at least 13.08.

Installing Epsilon on Fedora, Red Hat, or CentOS systems

Recommended method (dynamically linked Epsilon):

On 64-bit Linux distributions that use .rpm files (Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS), just double-clicking Epsilon's .rpm file should install all required shared libraries. Or from the command line, you can use sudo yum install ./path/to/filename.rpm or if your system uses dnf instead of yum, sudo dnf install ./path/to/filename.rpm.

Alternative method (statically linked Epsilon):

Alternatively, you can manually install a statically linked version of Epsilon from its .tar.bz2 file (as root, cd /usr/local ; tar xjf /path/to/filename.tar.bz2 and then run esetup in the new directory). But this won't install the 32-bit shared libraries Epsilon requires for two specific commands. The set-font and set-color commands display a dialog using a helper program which requires 32-bit shared libraries. You can manually install those shared libraries later by running:

sudo yum install libXi.i686 libXext.i686 libX11.i686 glibc.i686 libXau.i686 libXdmcp.i686 ncurses-libs.i686

On Fedora 24 and later, instead use:

sudo dnf install libXi.i686 libXext.i686 libX11.i686 glibc.i686 ncurses-compat-libs-6.0-5.20160116.fc24.i686

Both set-font and set-color should then display dialogs.

Installing Epsilon on Ubuntu systems

For Ubuntu 14 and later, use these steps to install a dynamically linked version of Epsilon.

Installing Epsilon on Debian systems

Recommended method (dynamically linked Epsilon):

The last step above should offer to install all required 32-bit libraries, but if your distribution lacks them, apt-get will instead suggest uninstalling Epsilon when it can't find the libraries it needs. If that happens, you can use the method that follows to get Epsilon running.

Alternative method (statically linked Epsilon):

Because there are multiple steps required under Debian to install Epsilon from a .deb file, you may prefer to install Epsilon using its generic .tar.bz2 package (cd /usr/local ; tar xjf /path/to/filename.tar.bz2 and then run esetup in the new directory). This gets Epsilon running without having to immediately deal with 32-bit shared library dependency issues. (On Ubuntu, install the "build-essential" package before installing Epsilon from its .tar.bz2 file.)

However, Epsilon will still require 32-bit shared libraries for two specific commands. The set-font and set-color commands display a dialog using a helper program, and it requires 32-bit shared libraries. (Without them, the set-font command will fall back to simpler list-based font-selection with no preview. Setting colors can still be done via the export-colors command, editing the file it generates and running compile-buffer on the result.)

Once you've done these steps, both set-font and set-color should display dialogs.

Last Updated: 20 October 2020