Installing Root on Windows 10

ROOT
1

Hello, my name is Sandip and I’m a first year physics student at university. I’m very new to programming and to root in particular and I have a question about installing Root.

I currently have a laptop running Windows 10 and want to know how to go about installing Root on it. I know that there are other blog posts about this particular topic but I find it quite confusing as there are a lot of different methods of installing root such as using cygwin, partitioning my hard drive with linux, using other archaic methods, etc.

Is there a reliable and simple way to install Root on Windows 10?

Thank you for your help and I apologise if I’m just rehashing an already answered question.

2

Take a look at the “Windows” section on this page for the native version of ROOT on Windows (ROOT 5 only)

Cheers, Bertrand.

3

Thank you for the prompt reply, Bertrand.

I’ve checked out the page and all the different download links and I have a question about the Windows downloads at the very bottom of the page.

All the Windows binaries I see are labelled “Windows Visual Studio”. Does that mean that I have to download Visual Studio first before I can use those binaries or can I download them regardless?

Thank you for your help.

4

You only need Visual Studio if you want to compile your code, or if you want to create your own application…

Cheers, Bertrand.

5

Just a reminder that Windows 10 now has WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and it is possible to run ROOT 6 binary distribution for Ubuntu 14/16 (depending on version installed in WSL) inside it. You’ll need X11 server for Windows, for example, XMing.

root6.png1366×768 90.1 KB

4 Likes
6

Hi,
We were trying this option, following the instructions in this article https://medium.com/@blake.leverington/installing-cern-root-under-windows-10-with-subsystem-for-linux-beta-75295defc6d4

But we can’t make the xming to work, could you please share the configurations to run the x11 server?

thanks!

7

Hi Clem,

Any details?

8
2 Likes
9

Thanks a lot for the tips.

As it turned out the default xming worked, but then we had to install additional libraries (libxft and libtiff5) to get a TCanvas to display (otherwise we had a segmentation fault claiming these missing libraries).

cheers,
Clem

10

it is really very hlepful

12

@berserker Is it essential X11 server for Window 10 (Xming…)? Window 10 has window subsystem for Linux. We only need to turn on DEVELOOPED MODE and window subsystem for Linux then we will download ubuntu from Microsoft store.

13

I think you don’t need X11 if you run root in the batch mode.

14

Where do you write code, on win 10 or on WSL? Do you need install Microsoft visual studio corresponding with version of ROOT installed on WSL?

15

Anywhere

No, you need Visual Studio only if you run ROOT on windows 10 native (not on WSL)

1 Like
16

Thank you. I installed ROOT 6.18.04 on WSL. I want to write code on Win 10 and run macros in WSL. I’m a beginner to C++ and ROOT. Firstly, i wrote code in NotePad and there isn’t code Hints. I spent a lot of time. Could you tell me what i should do to appear code hints and debug? (Now i am writing code in VScode on Win 10).

17

WSL is like Linux, you can select any code editor (I use the Visual Studio Code Editor on Windows 10) and to debug on WSL, I guess gdb might work (I only develop on native Windows)

18

Be honest, i want to work on native Windows, but i have errors many times when i install ROOT 6.18.04 on Win 10. I can run ROOT 5.34.36 property on Win 10, but this version is old and some codes changed.

19

ear All,

I would like to migrate an application initially developed with root and Cygwin

I did a migration to Linux in 2016. and had to compile the Fortran programs called as exe by my application.

Unfortunately, my application is also calling Windows ActiveX which are not working on Linux.

Also we need a standalone PC version of this application.

So I thinks to migrate our application back to Windows 10

So my question is what is the best solution on Windows10 considering the 2 aspects (code migrated to Linux, ActiveX needed)

Use a package for Visual Studio

or

WSL package?

Thank in advance for advices

Best regards :grimacing: :innocent:

Thibaut

20

Hi Thibaut,

I’m not sure if you have access to ActiveX from inside WSL… You can try to use ROOT 6 on Windows (with CMake).
And BTW, it would have been better to start a new topic instead of continuing an old (and unrelated) one.

Cheers, Bertrand.

21

Hi Bertrand,
Thanks for your reply
I can start a new topic but before can you clarify me several points:
Q1) Is Visual Studio needed? if yes which version? ( is VS2017 OK?)
Q2) is CMake usefull for a window application?
Q3) Does a simple exemple exists on the site?
Regards
Thibaut