Ngspice installation instructions
=================================

Important notice: If you upgrade, it
is not sufficient to only re-make the main executable,
you will have to compile and install the code models as well.

Table of contents

  1 Ngspice installation (LINUX)
   1.1 Prerequisites
   1.2 Install from tarball (e.g. ngspice-38.tar.gz)
   1.3 Install from git repository
   1.4 ngspice as a shared library
   1.5 Advanced Install
    1.5.1 Most useful options
    1.5.2 Options Specific to Enable Ngspice as a shared library
    1.5.3 Options Useful for Debugging Ngspice
   1.6 Installation on Red Hat, Oracle or CentOS Linux
  2 Compilers and Options
  3 NGSPICE COMPILATION UNDER WINDOWS OS
   3.1 How to make ngspice with MINGW and MSYS
   3.2 make ngspice with MS Visual Studio 2022
   3.3 make ngspice with pure CYGWIN
   3.4 ngspice console app with MINGW or CYGWIN
   3.5 cross compiling ngspice for Windows from LINUX
  4 NGSPICE COMPILATION UNDER macOS M1 - M4
   4.1 Prerequisites
   4.2 Compile scripts for the bash terminal
  5 NGSPICE COMPILATION UNDER macOS (tested with Intel CPUs)
   5.1 Use precompiled binary package
   5.2 Compile NGSPICE manually from a tarball
   5.3 Compile NGSPICE manually from git
   5.4 About compilers

This file describes the procedures to install ngspice from sources.


1 Ngspice Installation (LINUX, maybe others)
  ====================

1.1 Prerequisites

 Ngspice is written in C and thus a complete C compilation environment
 is needed. Almost any LINUX offers a complete C development environment.
 Ngspice is developed on GNU/Linux with gcc and GNU make.

 Ngspice may be compiled in three different variants, each with its own
 configure settings. Standard ngsoice executable, ngspice as a shared
 library and ngspice as a tcl/tk library.
 
 Compilation to 64 bit is recommended and available per default in
 the ./compile_linux_new.sh compile script. 32 bit might be possible,
 but is not tested.

 The following software must be installed in your system to compile
 ngspice as a standard executable (command-line input, file and graphics
 output):
 bison, flex, X11 headers and libs, Xaw, Xmu, Xext, Xft, FontConfig,
 Xrender, freetype headers and readline.
 Typically one needs the headers (e.g. libX11-devel) and the libs (e.g. libX11-6)
 of the packages mentioned above.

 ngspice as a shared library (no graphics and no command-line interfaces)
 will need bison and flex only.

 If libfftw is detected on your system, it will be used instead of the
 internal fft algorithms.

 If you want to compile the source from the git repository, or if you want to
 use the compile script ./compile_linux_new.sh, you will need additional software:
 autoconf, automake, libtool.

 The following software may be needed when enabling additional features:
 editline (as a replacement for readline), tcl/tk (when compiling tclspice).

 Please have a look at the current ngspice manual, downloadable at
 http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/docs.html, which gives you much more
 information on ngspice and its usage.

 For compiling ngspice as a shared library, see section 1.4.


1.2 Install from tarball (e.g. ngspice-45.tar.gz)

 This covers installation from a release distribution (for example
 ngspice-45.tar.gz, the so called tar ball).

 After downloading the tar ball to a local directory, unpack it by command:

 $ tar -zxvf ngspice-44.tar.gz

 Now change directories in to the top-level source directory (where this
 INSTALL file can be found).

 The most comfortable way to compile ngspice is running the compile script
 compile_linux.sh within the terminal window by ./compile_linux.sh. The
 script has to be declared as 'executable', and admin
 rights are required to allow the installation of ngspice.

 CentOS users may need to add -std=c99 to the CFLAGS in the ../configure
 statement.

 If you want to compile ngspice manually, you should be able to do:

 $ mkdir release
 $ cd release
 $ ../configure  --with-x
 $ make
 $ sudo make install

 The default install directory for executables is /usr/local/bin, the XSPICE
 code models will be installed in /usr/local/lib/ngspice. Some distros use lib64
 instead. The following options are now included automatically: readline, openmp,
 osdi, xspice. Only CIDER has to be selected as an extra option.

 A fully featured ngspice on LINUX may be obtained with the following commands:
 $ mkdir release
 $ cd release
 $ ../configure --with-x --enable-cider --enable-predictor 
 $ make 2>&1 | tee make.log
 $ sudo make install

 To remove the executables and libraries from the install directory, you may call
 $ sudo make uninstall
 
 To disable one of the already inlcuded options, you may call --with-readline=no, or
 --disable-openmp, --disable-osdi, --disable-xspice


1.3 Install from the git repository

 This section describes how to install from source code taken directly
 from the git repository.  It is intended for those who want to use the most
 recent enhancements of ngspice and for developers. For user install
 instructions using source from a released distributions, please see the
 sections titled 'Install from tarball' and 'Advanced Install'.

 Download ngspice sources from the git repository as described on the sourceforge project page
 (see https://ngspice.sourceforge.io/download.html and click on the git link)

 Now change directories in to the top-level source directory (where this
 INSTALL file can be found).

 The project uses the GNU build process. The compile output should go into a separate
 directory, so to e.g. maintain separate debug and release versions.

 The most comfortable way to compile ngspice is running the compile script
 compile_linux_new.sh within the terminal window by ./compile_linux_new.sh. Admin
 rights are required to allow the installation included in the script.

 If you want to copile ngspice manually, you may run

 $ ./autogen.sh
 $ mkdir debug
 $ cd debug
 $ ../configure --with-x
 $ make
 $ sudo make install

 See the section 1.5 titled 'Advanced Install' for instructions about arguments
 that can be passed to ./configure to customize the build and installation.

 Preferred arguments to ./configure to obtain a comfortably working ngspice may be
 --with-readline=yes and --disable-debug (for a smaller and speed optimized
 executable).

 A fully featured ngspice on LINUX may be obtained with the following commands:
 $ ./autogen.sh
 $ mkdir release
 $ cd release
 $ ../configure --with-x --enable-cider
 $ make 2>&1 | tee make.log
 $ sudo make install

 The bash script compile_linux.sh includes all the useful options,
 compiling and installation procedures.


1.4 ngspice as a shared library

 The relevant configure options for the ngspice shared library are:
 $ --with-ngshared --enable-cider

 Typically the two aliases libngspice.so, libngspice.so.0 and the compiled
 library libngspice.so.0.0.1 are made. The install locations depend on
 the Linux distribution and may be set by the --prefix configure flag.

 Again there is a bash script compile_linux_shared.sh with all useful options,
 compiling and installation procedures.

 libtool versioning is available and may be set in configure.ac, if relevant
 changes to the source code have been made.


1.5 Advanced Install

 Some extra options can be provided to './configure'. To get all available
 options do:

 $ ./configure --help

 Some of these options are generic to the GNU build process that is used by
 Ngspice, other are specific to Ngspice.

 The following sections provide some guidance and descriptions for many,
 but not all, of these options.

 1.5.1 Most useful options:

(the following are already included)

 --enable-xspice
        Enable XSpice enhancements,
        A mixed signal simulator built upon spice3 with codemodel
        dynamic loading support. See the ngspice manual for details.

 --with-readline=yes
        Enable GNU readline support for the command line interface.

 --enable-openmp
        Compile ngspice for multi-core processors.
        Parallelization is done by OpenMP, for MOS models in BSIM3.3.0
        BSIM4.6.0 and and BSOI4 only. See the ngspice manual for details.

 --enable-osdi
        Add the OSDI interface to ngspice. This interface allow to dynamically
        load compiled Veriloag-A compact models. Compiling is done with
        OpenVAF. Thus for the first time ngspice has access to modern
        device models like BSOMBULK or BSIM_CMG.
        

(the following have to be selected explicitely to become available)

 --enable-cider
        Cider is a mixed-level simulator that couples Spice3 and DSIM
        to simulate devices from their technological parameters.

 --enable-oldapps
        The old apllications ngsconvert ngproc2mod ngmultidec and ngmakeidx
        are made only per user request, by adding this flag.

 --with-fftw3=no
        Disable using fftw fast fourier transform library. Use internal
        fft instead. Default is 'yes'.

 --with-editline=yes
        Enables the use of the BSD editline library (libedit) instead
        of readline.
        See https://www.thrysoee.dk/editline/
        (requires --with-readline=no)

 --enable-shortcheck
        Enables a 'make check' with strongly reduced runtime. Besides some
        regression tests only BSIM3 and BSM4 devices are checked.


1.5.2 Options Specific to Enable Ngspice as a shared library

 --with-ngshared
        This option let you compile ngspice as a shared
        library or dll, allowing an application controlling
        ngspice. This option excludes using --with-x or
        --with-wingui. Useful additional options are
        --enable-xspice --enable-cider --enable-openmp.
        No graphics interface is provided, this has to be
        handled by the controlling application.

 --with-tcl=tcldir
        When configured with this option, the tcl module
        "tclspice" is compiled and installed instead of
        plain ngspice.

1.5.3 Options Useful for Debugging ngspice (but not used often)

 --enable-ansi
        Configure will try to find an option for your compiler so that
        it expects ansi-C.

--enable-asdebug
        Debug sensitivity code *ASDEBUG*.

 --enable-blktmsdebug
        Debug distortion code *BLOCKTIMES*

 --enable-checkergcc
        Option for compilation with checkergcc.

 --enable-cpdebug
        Enable ngspice shell code debug.

 --disable-sp
        Disable S Parameter Analysis 

 --enable-ftedebug
        Enable ngspice frontend debug.

 --enable-pzdebug
        Debug pole/zero code.

 --enable-sensdebug
        Debug sensitivity code *SENSDEBUG*.

 --enable-smltmsdebug
        Debug distortion code *SMALLTIMES*

 --enable-smoketest
        Enable smoketest compile.

 --enable-stepdebug
        Turns on debugging of convergence stepping??


 If a problem is found with the build process, please submit a report
 to the ngspice development team using the ngspice discussion forum at
 https://sourceforge.net/p/ngspice/discussion/133842/. Please provide
 information about your system and any ./configure arguments you are
 using, together with any error messages. If you have fixed the
 problem yourself, then the development team will love to hear from you.


1.6 Installation on Red Hat, Oracle or CentOS

 These OSs, widely distributed among commercial users, but offering
 only an old gcc compiler, e.g. version 4.8, will require some
 special considerations. There is an extra document, "NGSPICE on Red
 Hat Like Distributions.pdf", provided by Justin Fisher, available with
 the ngspice distribution.

 CentOS users may need to add -std=c99 to the CFLAGS in their ../configure
 statement.


2 Compilers and Options
  =====================

 On CentOS with older GCC it might be necessary to add -std=c99
 to the CFLAGS in ./compile_linux.sh .


3 NGSPICE COMPILATION UNDER WINDOWS OS
  ====================================

3.1 How to make ngspice with MINGW and MSYS2

 Creating ngspice with MINGW is a straight forward procedure,
 if you have MSYS2/MINGW installed properly.  A modern environment is
 offered by MSYS2 (https://www.msys2.org/). An installation procedure for
 gcc in MSYS2 is decribed in
 https://github.com/orlp/dev-on-windows/wiki/Installing-GCC--&-MSYS2
 You will need some enhancements to the standard install (git, autoconf,
 automake, libtool, FLEX and BISON, all available with pacman in MSYSS2).
 Some links are given below which describe the procedures.
 
 Unfortunately compiling with MINGW is slow. Compiling with Visual Studio
 may be more than 10 times faster!

 Installing from the tarball, e.g. ngspice-45.tar.gz, is simple: After
 expanding, you may just run ./compile_min.sh from the ngspice directory.

 The default installation location of ngspice is the Windows path
 C:\spice64. The install path can be altered by passing --prefix=NEWPATH
 as an argument to ./configure during the build process.

 Put the install path you desire inside "", e.g. "D:/NewSpice". Be
 careful to use forward slashes "/", not backward slashes "\" (something
 still to be fixed).  Then add --prefix="D:/NewSpice" as an argument to
 ./configure in the normal way.

 The procedure of compiling a distribution (for example, a tarball from
 the ngspice website), if you don't want to use the script named above
 is as follows:

 $ cd ngspice
 $ mkdir release
 $ cd release
 $ ../configure --with-wingui ...and other options
 $ make
 $ make install

 A fully featured ngspice on Windows may be obtained with the following commands:
 $ ./autogen.sh
 $ mkdir release
 $ cd release
 $ ../configure --with-wingui --enable-cider --disable-debug
 $ make install

 However, to compile code extracted from the git repository the procedure is
 a little different. Firstly install git, e.g. from https://git-scm.com/download/win
 To obtain ngspice, you may do the following:

 Open the git command window. Go to a directory of your choice, e.g. D:\Spice
 $ cd /d/Spice

 Issue the command for downloading ngspice:
 $ git clone git://ngspice.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/ngspice/ngspice

 This will create directory /ngspice .

 Go to directory ngspice
 $ cd /d/Spice/ngspice
 Start compiling, e.g. by calling
 $ ./autogen.sh
 $ ./compile_min.sh

 Update the ngspice files:
 Go to directory ngspice
 $ cd /d/Spice/ngspice
 Issue command for update
 $ git pull

 Instead of calling  ./compile_min.sh, you may choose to issue
 individual commands like:
 $ cd ngspice
 $ ./autogen.sh
 $ mkdir release
 $ cd release
 $ ../configure --enable-maintainer-mode --with-wingui ...and other options
 $ make
 $ make install

 The install tree generated during 'make install' is:

  C:\Spice64\
    bin\
        ngspice.exe
        cmpp.exe
    lib\
        spice\
            analog.cm
            digital.cm
            spice2poly.cm
            extradev.cm
            extravt.cm
    share\
        man\
            man1\
                cmpp.1
                ngspice.1
        ngspice\
            scripts\
                ciderinit
                devaxis
                devload
                setplot
                spectrum
                spinit

 The scripts in directory ngspice/scripts are somewhat outdated
 (except for spinit, the basic ngspice initialization script),
 but may give some hints how to use the ngspice control language.

 A bash script compile_min.sh is available including all useful options,
 compiling and installation procedures.

 The shared library libngspice-0.dll may be created by using the
 script compile_min_shared.sh.


3.2 make ngspice with MS Visual Studio 2022

 ngspice may be compiled with MS Visual Studio 2022 or newer.

 CIDER and XSPICE are included, the code models for XSPICE
 (*.cm) are made as well.

 ngspice is installed into C:\Spice64\ (release version) or
 C:\Spice64d\ (debug version).

 The directory (visualc) with its files
 vngspice.sln (project starter) and
 vngspice.vcproj (project contents)
 allows to compile and link ngspice with MS Visual Studio 2022.

 /visualc/include contains a dedicated config.h file. It contains the
 preprocessor definitions required to properly compile the code.
 strings.h has been necessary during setting up the project.

 Install Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 Community with C/C++. For
 example, the German edition is available at no cost from
 https://www.visualstudio.com/de/vs/community/.

 Install flex/bison from https://github.com/lexxmark/winflexbison/releases.
 When the ngspice sources are installed in D:\myspices\ngspice, then
 create a directory D:\myspices\flex-bison and expand the contents from
 https://github.com/lexxmark/winflexbison/releases/download/v2.5.24/win_flex_bison-2.5.24.zip
 into this directory.

 Goto  /ngspice/visualc.

 Start MS Visual Studio 2022 by double click onto vngspice.sln.

 After MS Visual Studio has opened up, select debug or release version
 by checking 'Build' , 'Configuration Manager', 'Debug' or 'ReleaseOmp'.
 32 bit compilation (x86) is possible, but deprecated and will be removed
 in the near future. 64 bit (x64) is the preferred option.

 Start making ngspice (called vngspice.exe) by selecting 'Build' and
 'Rebuild vngspice'.

 Object files will be created and stored in visualc/debug or visualc/release.
 The executable will be stored to visualc/debug/bin or visualc/release/bin.

 An installation tree (as provided with MINGW make install) and also used by
 vngspice is (maybe created manually):

 C:\Spice64\
    bin\
        ngspice.exe
    lib\
        spice\
            analog.cm
            digital.cm
            spice2poly.cm
            extradev.cm
            extravt.cm
    share\
        ngspice\
            scripts\
                spinit

 If you intend to install vngspice into another directory, e.g. D:\MySpice,
 you have to edit  /visualc/include/config.h and alter the entries:
 #define NGSPICEBINDIR "C:/Spice64/bin"
 #define NGSPICEDATADIR "C:/Spice64/share/ngspice"
 to
 #define NGSPICEBINDIR "D:/MySpice/bin"
 #define NGSPICEDATADIR "D:/MySpice/share/ngspice"

 If the code model files *.cm are not available, you will get warning messages,
 but you may use ngspice in the normal way (of course without XSPICE extensions).

 The ngspice.dll shared library may be made by selecting sharedspice.sln from
 ngspice/visualc. Code models are not made (see above how to generate them), and
 ngspice.dll is not installed to anywhere, but (for release) may be found in
 ngspice\visualc\sharedspice\ReleaseOMP.x64.


3.3 make ngspice with pure CYGWIN

 If you don't have libdl.a you may need to link libcygwin.a
 to libdl.a symbolically.

 for example:

 $ cd /lib
 $ ln -s libcygwin.a libdl.a.

 The procedure of compiling is the same as with OS Linux.


3.4 ngspice console app with MINGW or CYGWIN

 Omitting the configure flag --with-wingui will yield a console ngspice.
 You then will not have any graphics interface. In CYGWIN you may add --with-x
 for the X11 graphics (not available in MINGW). A typical configure command
 may look like
 ./configure --enable-cider --disable-debug CFLAGS=-m64 LDFLAGS=-m64 prefix=C:/Spice64


3.5 cross compiling ngspice for Windows from LINUX

 Two scripts are available in the ngspice directory that allow cross
 compiling for NMS Windows, if you are running LINUX. ngspice.exe or
 ngspice.dll may be made. For details please see cross-compile.sh or
 cross-compile-shared.sh.


4 NGSPICE COMPILATION UNDER macOS M1 - M4
  =======================================
  (tested on a mac mini with Sonoma 13.2.1 and M2 CPU)

4.1 Prerequisites
 1. Install xcode command line tools
 2. Install Homebrew
    All installs following are via Homebrew (except for OpenMP)
 3. Install ngspice (this will add a lot of dependencies useful
    also for compilation)
 4  Install gnuplot (plotting externally, or creating ps or png)
 5. Install XQuartz, libtool, autoconf, automake, readline, ncurses
 6. Install OpenMP from mac.r-project.org (a sufficiently modern OpenMP,
    required by the ngspice OSDI interface).

4.2 Compile scripts for the bash terminal
 1. standard ngspice executable
    compile_macos_clang_M2.sh
 2. ngspice as a shared library
    compile_macos_clang_M2_shared.sh


5 NGSPICE COMPILATION UNDER macOS (tested with Intel CPUs)
  ========================================================

5.1 Use precompiled binary package
 1. Install an X11 interface (like Xquartz)
 2. Packages are available from Homebrew or MacPorts
    Install the downloaded NGSPICE package
    It may happen though that a package has been compiled without graphics support
 3. Open a terminal window and start using NGSPICE

5.2 Compile NGSPICE manually from a tarball
 1. Install an X11 interface (like Xquartz)
 2. Install MacPorts from https://www.macports.org
 3. Execute this command:
      sudo port install autoconf automake libtool bison flex ncurses
           readline fontconfig freetype libomp xorg-libXaw
 4. Use one of the scripts provided: compile_macos_clang.sh or compile_macos_gcc.sh
    gcc may be installed from Homebre at https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/gcc, with the
    advantage that it supports OpenMP.
 5. Or run the commands manually:  Configure NGSPICE invoking "./configure".
    A complete set of features is:
      ./configure --with-x --enable-cider --disable-debug
 6. Compile NGSPICE invoking "make -j4"
 7. Install NGSPICE invoking "make install" or "sudo make install"

5.3 Compile NGSPICE manually from git
 1. Install an X11 interface (like Xquartz)
 2. Install MacPorts from https://www.macports.org
 3. Execute this command:
      sudo port install automake autoconf libtool bison flex ncurses xorg-libXaw
          readline fontconfig freetype libomp SM ICE
 4. Execute this command:
      ./autogen.sh
 5. Configure NGSPICE invoking "./configure". A complete set of feature is:
      ./configure --enable-cider --disable-debug
 6. Compile NGSPICE invoking "make -j4"
 7. Install NGSPICE invoking "make install" or "sudo make install"

Resulting dependencies of ngspice
    /usr/local/opt/ncurses/lib/libncursesw.6.dylib
    /usr/local/opt/gcc/lib/gcc/11/libstdc++.6.dylib
    /usr/local/opt/fftw/lib/fftw3.3.dylib
    /usr/local/opt/readline/lib/libreadline.8.dylib
    /opt/local/lib/libXaw.7.dylib
    /opt/local/lib/libXmu.6.dylib
    /opt/local/lib/libXt.6.dylib
    /opt/local/lib/libXext.6.dylib
    /opt/local/lib/libX11.6.dylib
    /opt/local/lib/libfontconfig.1.dylib
    /opt/local/lib/libXrender.1.dylib
    /opt/local/lib/libfreetype.6.dylib
    /opt/local/lib/libSM.6.dylib
    /opt/local/lib/libICE.6.dylib
    /usr/local/opt/gcc/lib/gcc/11/libgomp.1.dylib
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
    /usr/local/lib/gcc/11/libgcc_s.1.dylib

5.4 About compilers
 A compile script compile_macos_clang.sh contains all necessary steps for compiling
 with the Xcode clang/llvm compiler. This compiler however does not support -fopenmp.
 Therefore you may download and install gcc, e.g. from Homebrew and run the new
 compile script compile_macos_gcc.sh. OpenMp enables parallel processing of
 BSIM3/4 model evaluation, thus speeding up simulation.