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<div><a href="index.html" title="">Macaulay2Doc</a> > <a href="_getting_spstarted.html" title="">getting started</a> > <a href="_checking_spyour_sp__Macaulay2_spinstallation.html" title="and bookmarking the Macaulay2 documentation">checking your Macaulay2 installation</a></div>
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<div><h1>checking your Macaulay2 installation -- and bookmarking the Macaulay2 documentation</h1>
<div><p>At a command prompt in a terminal window, type <tt>M2</tt>. If Macaulay2 has been installed correctly on your machine, you should see a prompt such as this:</p>
<pre> indigo% M2
Macaulay2, version 1.0
with packages: Classic, Elimination, LLLBases, PrimaryDecomposition,
SchurRings, TangentCone
i1 : </pre>
<p>If this is the first time that you are running Macaulay2, then Macaulay2 creates a directory called <tt>.Macaulay2</tt> in your home directory (on unix machines), or called <tt>Library/Application Support/Macaulay2</tt> under MacOS X. Inside this directory are several files of interest, including an <tt>index.html</tt> file that contains links to your local copy of the Macaulay2 documentation.</p>
<p>The <a href="_view__Help.html" title="view online doc with a web browser">viewHelp</a> command in Macaulay2 starts up your web browser (if it is not already running) and places you at this <tt>index.html</tt> page. </p>
<pre> viewHelp</pre>
<p>This web page includes links to the main Macaulay2 documentation, as well as documentation for any installed packages. This is a good time to bookmark the page in your browser.</p>
<p>At this point you should try something simple in Macaulay2, such as</p>
<pre> printWidth = 60
R = QQ[a..d]
(a+b+c+d)^4</pre>
<p> To exit Macaulay2, type one of: <a href="_exit.html" title="exit the program">exit</a>, <a href="_end.html" title="stop loading a file">end</a>, <a href="_quit.html" title="quit the program">quit</a>, or your end of file character (which, under Unix, is often CONTROL-D).</p>
<pre> exit</pre>
<p>Macaulay2 can be run in this way from the command line, but it is generally much more convenient to run Macaulay2 from inside the emacs text editor. This is because you can more easily view larger objects, do command completion, use cut and paste, search, save your session, and so on. There is a nice mode for running Macaulay2 inside emacs.</p>
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