Structure

After downloading the Merlin 3.3 binary distribution and inpacking the archive into you preferred location, you should have a directory structure that looks like the following:

  /merlin
    /bin
    /config
    /docs
    /plugins
    /system
    README.TXT
    LICENSE.TXT

MERLIN_HOME Environment Variable

To use Merlin command line support or the Merlin NT Service you will need to define the MERLIN_HOME environment variable for your system and include MERLIN_HOME/bin in your system path. The MERLIN_HOME environment variable should point to the merlin directory.

Under Windows you can set environment variables by selecting the Environment Tab from the System Control Panel.

Under Lunix you can do this as follows:

  $ echo '
  > # set location of merlin
  > export MERLIN_HOME=/opt/merlin
  > # include it in the path
  > export PATH=$PATH:$MERLIN_HOME/bin
  > ' >> ~/.bash_profile
  $ source ~/.bash_profile

AVALON_HOME Environment Variable

Versions of Merlin prior to the 3.2-dev 20031210 build maintained a local repository of jar files under the %MERLIN_HOME%/repository directory. As of the 20031210 build the repository is maintained under AVALON_HOME which defaults to ${user.home}/.avalon. To override this behaviour you can either define a AVALON_HOME environment variable or you can add a merlin.properties file to ${user.home} containing the "merlin.repository" property key and a value point to you preferred repository location.

Maven Plugin Installation

The installation of Merlin is now complete, however, two plugins are provided with the installation supporting merlin development under the Maven platform. These plugins should be placed in the Maven plugin directory (%MAVEN_HOME%\plugins).

  %MAVEN_HOME%\plugins\avalon-meta-plugin-1.3.2.jar
  %MAVEN_HOME%\plugins\merlin-plugin-3.3-SNAPSHOT.jar

Please note that if you are upgrading an existing Maven installation you must delete the following two directories:

  %MAVEN_HOME%\plugins\merlin-plugin-* 
  %MAVEN_HOME%\plugins\avalon-meta-plugin-*

Validating your installation.

The following instructions assume that you have defined the MERLIN_HOME environment variable that points the directory containing the Merlin installation.

To confirm that you MERLIN_HOME variable is correct, you should open a new command line window and invoke the Merlin CLI application. The following command should list the Merlin CLI help information.

$ merlin.sh -help
usage: merlin [block] [-lang <code>] [-install <url>] 
  [-library <directory>] [-help] [-version] [-home <directory>] 
  [-impl <artifact>] [-debug] [-info] [-config <url>] 
  [-context <directory>] [-system <directory>] [-execute] 
  [-repository <directory>] [-kernel <url>]...

Next Steps

Now that you have installed Merlin on your system you can proceed to the Using Merlin tutorial page.