2.1 System Requirements

SVM is written in Python. It should be possible to use SVM on all the platforms and operating systems that support the Python language. However, some features of SVM requires the support from platform-dependent libraries. They will be highlighted when encountered in the following text. Despite this limitation, all the features are tested on RedHat Linux 9.0 and the Windows family.

Other requirements:

• Python (http://www.python.org) 2.2 or higher. Because Python is an interpreted language, the Python environment is required for the execution of SVM.

• PyGame (http://www.pygame.org/), the gaming library for the Python language, is required for the CD player demo and the MP3 player demo, which are distributed with SVM (found in the CDPlayer directory and the MP3Player directory, respectively). It is not a requirement for SVM itself.

• PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine, http://www.netlib.org/pvm3/) is required for distributed simulations with SVM. However, it is not required for local simulations.

• Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/), ``a Linux-like environment for Windows'', is required if the user uses Windows and wants to receive the support for distributed simulations. Tools in Cygwin, including GNU Make and GCC, are required to build the PYPVM (http://pypvm.sourceforge.net/) that interfaces Python code with the native PVM library for C.