REDUCE


How to Obtain and Run REDUCE

The REDUCE computer algebra system is released free-of-charge under a modified BSD license and can be obtained in two main versions from . There are also independent distributions available for some platforms not explicitly supported by the REDUCE developers. This page explains how to download, install and run REDUCE on the most widely-used platforms. (Alternative user interfaces such as Run-REDUCE or TeXmacs must be installed separately; see their own documentation.)

The easy way to obtain REDUCE

Download and install a pre-packaged REDUCE distribution that contains all the necessary binary files as well as documentation (and the main REDUCE source code). We currently distribute REDUCE in this way primarily for Microsoft Windows, Apple MacOS and versions of GNU/Linux based on Debian and Red Hat. This approach should work well if you use a supported platform and don't need the very latest updates. Simply click on the logo to visit the project page and then, towards the top of the page, you should see a large green button containing the word Download. SourceForge uses heuristics to pick the most appropriate distribution file for your platform automatically (although it might get it wrong, especially for GNU/Linux). If you hover over the Download button then a title should pop up that includes the filename explained below.

Note that we do not provide any automatic update facility; to update REDUCE just install it again. This is probably a good idea every year or so, or if you have encountered errors (especially ones we claim to have fixed).

Using Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOS

Hovering over the Download button should pop up a title including a filename of the form

  • Reduce-Setup_nnnn.exe on Microsoft Windows
  • Reduce-snapshot_nnnn.dmg on Apple MacOS

where nnnn represents the revision number.

Download the recommended file to your computer and install REDUCE in the normal way: on Windows, double-click on the installer file to execute it; on MacOS, double-click on the installer file to open it and then drag the REDUCE icon to your Applications folder. This process will install the CSL and/or PSL versions of REDUCE, which you can then run like any other application; for example, on Windows the Start menu will contain a folder called Reduce that contains applications called CSL Reduce and/or PSL Reduce, which you can run by clicking on them – more details of installing and running REDUCE on Windows are available below.

Using GNU/Linux

Hovering over the Download button should pop up a title including a filename of the form

  • reduce-complete_nnnn_amd64.deb on Debian-based Linux (e.g. Ubuntu)
  • reduce-complete-nnnn-1.x86_64.rpm on Red Hat-based Linux (e.g. Fedora and openSUSE)

where nnnn represents the revision number (and amd64 or x86_64 represents the architecture – we only support 64-bit processors).

Download the recommended file to your computer, open the Downloads folder and install REDUCE in the normal way, e.g. double-click on the installer file and then click on the Install button. This process will install both the CSL and PSL versions of REDUCE, which you can then run like any other application.

To run REDUCE on GNU/Linux, first open a Terminal window. Then executing redpsl will start PSL REDUCE with a command line interface (CLI), whereas executing redcsl will start REDUCE with a graphical user interface (GUI), although executing redcsl --nogui will start CSL REDUCE with a CLI. (The commands redpsl and redcsl are shell scripts installed in /usr/bin, which run binary files installed in /usr/lib/reduce.) The CLI version of CSL REDUCE provides input history, blue prompts and red input.

The commands rfpsl and rfcsl run the Redfront versions of, respectively, PSL and CSL REDUCE, which both provide the same consistent CLI with input history, red prompts and input, and blue algebraic-mode output.

Using the Files tab

If the above guidance does not work or does not meet your requirements then ignore the default download file and proceed as follows. Below the green Download button is a tab labelled Files and clicking on it takes you to a page offering REDUCE snapshots listed by date over several years. Recent snapshots normally contain folders labelled windows, macintosh and linux64, which contain respectively the Microsoft Windows, Apple MacOS and GNU/Linux distribution files as described above, plus a generic source code bundle in the form of a compressed tar file.

The distribution for GNU/Linux includes compressed tar files as well as .deb and .rpm files. If you don't find a GNU/Linux distribution here that you can use then please check the independent distributions. But beware that some of these distributions may be quite old.

Using other platforms

On a platform for which we do not currently provide REDUCE distributions, such as Android, the green box will instead be blue and labelled Browse Code. Clicking on it takes you to the Subversion code repository, where you might find source code for a particular platform.

Testing your REDUCE installation

For a very quick test that REDUCE is working, you might try typing the following lines of input to successive REDUCE input prompts in either the windowed or the command-line version: 

x^x;
df(ws,x);
int(ws,x);

Finally, the command

bye;

should terminate any version of REDUCE.

The hard way to obtain REDUCE

If the easy way doesn't work then you have the option of building REDUCE from the source code. For additional guidance on doing this, please see Chapter 2 of Inside Reduce. See also Installation on the REDUCE Wiki.

Details of installing and running REDUCE on Windows

The Windows installer gives you the option to install the REDUCE source code, files for CSL and files for PSL. The source code is entirely optional and only relevant if you want to understand how REDUCE works and/or modify it. You need to install files for CSL and/or files for PSL: CSL gives you a graphical user interface (GUI) by default like that shown in the main image on the home page, but can also be run with a command-line interface (CLI); PSL gives you a CLI running in a standard Windows Command Prompt window. Beware that the REDUCE installation process will overwrite any previous installation without warning (which is probably what you want).

Once you have installed REDUCE, you will see a folder called "Reduce" in your Start menu, which contains "CSL Reduce" and/or "PSL Reduce". (You may also see other items such as "CSL Bootstrap Reduce" and "CSL Lisp system", which are probably only of interest to developers. You can safely ignore them, or you can remove them by right-clicking on one of them, selecting "More > Open file location" and then deleting the shortcuts.)

If you want to run REDUCE in an existing Command Prompt window (rather than have REDUCE open its own window), note that the PSL Reduce Start menu item runs the command "C:\Program Files\Reduce\bin\redpsl.bat". (This assumes the default REDUCE installation folder; if you used a different location then please modify all file paths in this paragraph appropriately.) You can either enter this long command name (including the quotes) after a command prompt, or you can add C:\Program Files\Reduce\bin\ to your Path environment variable. The REDUCE installer does not do this for you. You can change your Path environment variable permanently via the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialogue, which you can find in Control Panel or by searching. In Windows 10, typing env with the Start menu open should suffice! Click on the Environment Variables… button at the bottom of the Advanced tab, then edit the Path variable to include C:\Program Files\Reduce\bin\. Editing the user variable is slightly safer than editing the system variable and will suffice unless you want the change to apply to all users.

Now opening a Command Prompt window and executing redpsl will start PSL REDUCE (with a CLI), whereas executing redcsl will start REDUCE with a GUI (and executing redcsl --nogui will start CSL REDUCE with a CLI). Both CLIs provide input history, and the CSL REDUCE CLI provides coloured prompts and input. The commands rfpsl and rfcsl run the Redfront versions of, respectively, PSL and CSL REDUCE, which both provide the same consistent CLI with input history and blue algebraic-mode output.

If you have Cygwin installed then you can use a Cygwin shell and the commands redpsl, redcsl, rfpsl and rfcsl work much as described above. But note that under Cygwin the CSL REDUCE GUI uses the X Window System, so you need to have an X Window server running, and the commands rfpsl and rfcsl both provide red (instead of white) prompts and input.