Welcome to LinOStats!
June 2007
LinOStats is a version of OpenStat available for the Linux operating system.
The program was written using the free version of the Pascal programming language called Kylix (Delphi section) and distributed by the Borland Corporation. This version of their Delphi language is somewhat different from their Windows version. For the graphical user interface they use another package called Qt that has been distributed in several different versions. Linux systems do not use the Windows "help" package which is typically accessed in a program by pressing the F1 key on the keyboard. Instead, Linux uses several help systems, the oldest being the "Manual" pages.
This version of OpenStat does not contain an "on-line" help file. As an alternative, the user is encouraged to download the textbook / manual that is available for all OpenStat programs. Since the Linux system allows one to have multiple screens, the user can open the ".pdf" version of the textbook on one screen and run LinoStats on another. In this manner help is always available.
There are a large number of Linux versions available today. LinOStats was developed using the SuSE Linux 8.2 Personal version. The "shell script" interpreter used in the command window was BASH and the desktop windowing was KDE. As Linux users know, there are many different versions of the support packages used. This makes it somewhat more difficult to assure that a program that runs on one version of Linux will run on another. As far as the author knows, LinoStats has been successfully installed on several other versions of Linux.
The typical method for installing LinOStats involves downloading the LinOStats.tar.gz package to the user's home directory and "unpacking" it in a command window using the command tar -xvzf LinOStats.tar.gz. The result of this command is that a directory labeled OpenStat will be created in the home directory. Within that directory one will find three sub-directories: bin, datafiles and lib. Within the sub-directory "bin" you will see a "Shell Script" labeled LinOStats, a "README" text file and a binary file labeled "LinoStats-binary". If a user executes the Shell Script file labeled "LinOStats" it will typically begin the execution of the program. Some users may have to type a command to run the shell script if Bash does not automatically run when a shell script name is entered or the name clicked from a KDE window. If you use the KDE or GNOME windowing system, you may also be able to copy the shell script to you home window and be able to click it there to begin the program execution.
The tar.gz version is about 3.8 megabytes in size. Within the "datafiles" sub-directory you would find a number of ".tab" or ".TAB" files which can be copied into the bin directory. If you explore the "lib" sub-directory you will see that it contains some Qt files that are required to support the running of LinoStats.
This version of LinOStats does not contain all of the procedures found in the Microsoft Windows version (OpenStat.) These additional routines will be added as the author has time. If you have Microsoft Windows, you will probably want to use one of those versions instead. Those versions were written using the C++ language. In any event, you should be aware that the version of Qt used in the free Kylix compiler has some "bugs" and does not always give graphic rendering that works the way it should. For example, the "Pie Chart" options for several procedures do not always result in the desired chart. It was hoped that Borland would update their compiler to make it more compatible to the Windows version of their Delphi Pascal compiler. Unfortunately, they seem to have dropped support for this compiler. If you are interested in learning to write or modify programs in the Pascal language, I encourage you to download this free package and experiment on your own. You may download the source code for any of the free packages on this web site.
Here then are the links for downloading LinoStats packages:
KNOWN PROBLEMS:
1. When LinOStats begins to execute, it first displays a disclosure screen. The program may take awhile to load (it loads the Qt library files needed to support the program. Be patient!
2. If you attempt to load a file from a directory other than the bin directory (or the directory in which the program is first executed) you may receive an I/O error. This is caused by the program attempting to update the options.txt file that is created when you first run LinOStats. Be sure the file you are attempting to open or save is in the same directory as the program (typically bin.)
3. Linux systems differ with respect to printing. On some systems attempting to click the print button on the output form or a graphic form may abruptly terminate the program. If this happens on your system, you are encouraged to save the file(s) on the disk and print them with another program. Using KDE or GNOME windowing systems, this is as easy as clicking on the name of the saved file and clicking the print option. This also permits you to edit the files to add additional information, format output, etc.
4. While the Pascal procedures written to produce pie charts are identical to those which work successfully in the Microsoft Windows versions, the pie charts end up with an extraneous section which partially obliterates the other pie sectors. This is probably a function of different Qt libraries and gcc libraries using in the Linux system.
If you have comments or suggestions, send them to me at: