Installing on Mac OS X

Mac OS X is the current version of the Macintosh operating system, installed on all new Apple computers. Because it is based on Unix, it can run Isabelle. The new Power Mac G5 is an excellent Isabelle machine. Here is a screenshot showing Proof General running in GNU Emacs.

This page gives advice on building Isabelle for Mac OS X. It assumes that you are familiar with both Mac OS X and Unix. You must have installed the Mac OS X developer tools.

  1. Download Isabelle to a suitable directory, as described on the download page. Be sure to get the following files
    • .tar.gz
    • ProofGeneral.tar.gz
    • polyml_base.tar.gz
    • polyml_ppc-darwin.tar.gz
    • HOL_ppc-darwin.tar.gz
  2. You may have to install the bash shell. Versions of Mac OS X prior to 10.2.2 did not provide it. If /bin/bash does not exist, you can install it using the package manager Fink.
  3. At this point, you should be able to run Isabelle with the command line interface. You can also build Isabelle from the Unix command line, following the instructions for "Compiling Logics" in file Isabelle/INSTALL.
  4. You should also be able to launch Proof General by typing Isabelle at the Unix command line. This will invoke the Apple-supplied version of Emacs in a terminal window, providing a primitive environment. Somewhat better is to run Proof General from within a version of Emacs ported as a native Mac OS X application, such as MacEmacs JP or mindlube's or Enhanced Carbon Emacs. Visiting a theory file from Emacs will automatically launch Proof General provided isabelle is on the search path. None of these options support the X-Symbol package, unfortunately.

In order to get the full benefit of Proof General, you must install the X Window System (X11) and XEmacs or GNU Emacs.

The easiest way to install XEmacs or GNU Emacs is via the package manager Fink. Install the Fink package xemacs-sumo-pkg to get the XEmacs libraries that Proof General needs to run. To install GNU Emacs, install the package emacs21. Fink can compile from sources, but this takes hours, so it is better to request binary installations.

To use GNU Emacs instead of XEmacs, you must recompile Proof General and X-Symbol following the instructions here. Note that Proof General incorporates its own copy of X-Symbol.

  1. Install X11 or OroborOSX.
  2. Install XEmacs (and its libraries), or install GNU Emacs and recompile Proof General.
  3. You may want to install this drag-and-drop Isabelle launcher. It is a simple hack that invokes xemacs on any files dropped on it.