How do I actually install ROOT?

ROOT
3

Hi,
the easiest way is probably to install ROOT in a conda environment. From the terminal:

# first install conda (instructions at https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html#linux-installers)
$ wget https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh
$ bash Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh # and just follow the instructions on the terminal
# then install ROOT
$ conda create -c conda-forge --name <my-environment> root
$ conda activate <my-environment>

Whenever you want to have ROOT available in a terminal, you have to first give the command conda activate <my-environment>.

The second easiest way, in my opinion, is what @dastudillo described. To summarize the essential steps, that they described nicely in detail above:

  1. install all prerequisites for your platform
  2. download and unpack a pre-compiled binary (no need to compile anything, but make sure you download a “Binary distribution” and not the “Source distribution”)
  3. Whenever you want to have ROOT available in a terminal, you have to first give the command source path/to/unpacked/root/bin/thisroot.sh

Note that we currently do not have pre-compiled binaries for Ubuntu 20.04. I think the ones for Ubuntu 19 should just work.

Very soon we will have an even simpler method (download a root.deb package and apt install root.deb). Stay tuned :smile:

Cheers,
Enrico