The preferred way to install root is from source and with *cmake*. The installation from source might not be necessary but is necessary for example if extra libraries (such as GQt for the FACT++ GUI) are required.

First download the source tar-ball from http://root.cern.ch (The version in the following is just an example, names and places are just suggestions)

{{{
[0] tar xvfz root_v6.14.04.source.tar.gz  # Extract the tar file 
[1] mv root-6.14.04 root-6.14.04-src      # Rename the source diretory (for convenience)
[2] mkdir root-6.14.04                    # Create a build directory
[3] cd root-6.14.04                       # Change into the build directory
[4] cmake ../root-6.14.04-src             # Create the build environment
[5] make                                  # Make root
[6] . bin/thisroot.sh                     # Properly setup your environment
}}}

Expect the compilation to take quite some time! With four 2.5GHz cores (-j4) it usually takes around one hour!

You might want to call cmake to set up the build environment with a different (e.g. faster) compiler like clang:

{{{
[4] cmake -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ ../root-6.14.04-src
}}}

To force the compilation of the GQt module

{{{
[4] cmake -Dqt=ON ../root-6.14.04-src
}}}

This option is *not* supported anymore in root 6.18. No solution for this exists by now. If you really need it (required to compile the FACT++ online GUI), you must not use this root version by now!

Note that the current version of root (6.14) need !RootNewMacros.cmake during compilation of derived projects which is (only) located in the source directory. Therefore, you must not remove or change the name of the source directory. I hope that will be fixed in the future.

== Saving Space ==

To save space, after compilation you can create a binary package with `make package`. This will create a `.tar.gz` file. You can then extract this file (`tar xvfz filename.tar.gz`) to any location you like (the default ist `./root`) and remove the build directory (and if you like also the source directory).

== Font size ==

Lately, on modern screens, the default GUI fonts of root (10 and 12) are exceptionally small. They can be changed by adding the following lines to your `.rootrc`. As root is always using the one in your home directory additionally, it is advisable to add these lines to your global `.rootrc`.

{{{
Gui.DefaultFont:            -*-helvetica-*-r-*-*-18-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
Gui.MenuFont:               -*-helvetica-*-r-*-*-18-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
Gui.MenuHiFont:             -*-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-18-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
Gui.DocFixedFont:           -*-courier-*-r-*-*-18-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
Gui.DocPropFont:            -*-helvetica-*-r-*-*-18-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
Gui.IconFont:               -*-helvetica-*-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
Gui.StatusFont:             -*-helvetica-*-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
}}}

== Packages ==

Ubuntu Packages known to be required

* libxpm-dev
* libxft-dev

Suggested (speeds up compilation):

* clang (-DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++)
* llvm-5.0 (-Dbuiltin_llvm=OFF -DLLVM_CONFIG=/usr/bin/llvm-config-5.0)
* libafterimage-dev (-Dbuiltin_afterimage=OFF)
* libftgl-dev (-Dbuiltin_ftgl=OFF)
* libglew-dev (-Dbuiltin_glew=OFF)
* libz-dev
* libcfitsio-dev
* libgl2ps-dev
* libgsl-dev
* liblz4-dev
* liblzma-dev
* libssl-dev
* libgif-dev
* libxml2-dev
* libfftw3-dev 
* libtbb-dev
* libsqlite-dev
* libpythia8-dev
* libblas-dev

If you have a too old version of cmake, you can download binary packages at https://cmake.org/download/. Usually, it is enough to call cmake with its full path to switch version. So just unpack the tar-ball and call the cmake binary in the package.