41) Running AVANA on a Mac / Linux machine

Although the AVANA tool is build using Java, the installer available on SourceForge (https://sourceforge.net/projects/avana/) is custom-built for Windows machines. In order to run it on a Mac or Linux machine, one needs to follow the steps below:

1) Download the tool executable from https://sourceforge.net/projects/avana/

2) Install the file by double clicking on the downloaded file. While installing, if you don't have certain java run time environment file, you will be promoted to download. Complete the download and installation of the Java files. Then try installing again. During the installation process, you would be asked where to install Avana. It would be preferred to not install this in the Applications folder, instead save it in an easy to find directory under your user profile, such "/Users/asif/Downloads/AVANA", where "AVANA" is a folder you created under the "Downloads".

3) Go to the folder where you installed AVANA. For this tutorial, let's say it is installed in "/Users/asif/Downloads/AVANA". Go to that folder and you should see a bunch of files, in particular a file entitled "runAvana.bat". We would need to either convert this Windows batch file (*.bat) to a Unix batch file (*.sh). To do this, either rename the windows batch file to "runAvana.sh" or create a new file with the name "runAvana.sh". You can choose to either keep or delete the "*.bat" file, it would not affect the execution of AVANA on a Mac / Linux machine.

4) Open the "runAvana.sh" file and delete the existing content inside. Then paste the following new content to the file:

#!/bin/bash

export AVANA_HOME=/Users/asif/Downloads/AVANA
export CLASSPATH=$AVANA_HOME/avana.jar:$AVANA_HOME/avana-gui.jar:$AVANA_HOME/lib/biojava-1.4.jar:$AVANA_HOME/lib/bytecode-0.92.jar:$AVANA_HOME/lib/commons-beanutils-1.7.0.jar:$AVANA_HOME/lib/commons-logging-1.1.jar:$AVANA_HOME/lib/commons-math-1.1.jar:$AVANA_HOME/lib/jcommon-1.0.0.jar:$AVANA_HOME/lib/jfreechart-1.0.1.jar

java -Xms256m -Xmx800m it.southdown.avana.ui.AvanaGUI


5) In your case, replace the path (/Users/asif/Downloads/AVANA) in "AVANA_HOME" line to where you have installed the tool.

6) Open the Terminal. Navigate to the folder (/Users/asif/Downloads/AVANA) on the Terminal.

7) Make the "runAvana.sh" file executable through the following command:

chmod a+x runAvana.sh

8) Execute Avana:

sudo ./runAvana.sh

9) Sudo is to give you admin access in case you need authorisation. Enter the administrator password of your computer when prompted.

10) Done! Enjoy measuring entropy!