You will need a computer running a unix-like system with the following software installed:
tdom
tcl --if you plan to use the OpenACS installation script
gmake and the compile and build environment.
BSD users: in most places in these instructions, gmake will work better than make. (more information on FreeBSD installation). Also, fetch is a native replacement for wget.
Note: Instructions for installing tDOM and threaded tcl are included with the AOLserver4 installation instructions, if these are not yet installed.
The following programs may be useful or required for some configurations. They are included in most distributions:
emacs
cvs (and initialize it)
ImageMagick (used by some packages for server side image manipulation)
Aspell (more information on spell-checking)
DocBook and supporting software (and install emacs keybindings for DocBook SGML)
daemontools (install from source)
a Mail Transport Agent, such as exim or sendmail (or install qmail from source)
In order to cut and paste the example code into your shell, you must first do Setting a global shell variable for cut and paste.
To install a machine to the specifications of the Reference Platform, do the walkthrough of the Red Hat 8.0 Install for OpenACS.