Preparation

Install JDK

If you are building the Micro-Manager Java GUI, Java 1.6 or 1.7 is recommended[1]. The simplest way is to use OpenJDK:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jdk

(You can also use openjdk-7-jdk.)

Install ImageJ

Download the Linux version of ImageJ from the NIH website. From a terminal, unzip to /usr/local/, and remove the embedded JRE, as we already have one installed.

cd ~/Downloads/
sudo unzip ij*-linux*.zip -d /usr/local/
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/ImageJ/jre
sudo chmod a+Xr /usr/local/ImageJ

Install Build Programs and Libraries

You will need a subversion client to checkout the source code, several libraries, and build tools. Install them with:

sudo apt-get install subversion build-essential autoconf automake libtool \
                     libboost-all-dev zlib1g-dev swig

You may also need to install additional packages (for cameras and special hardware). See the full list in #Dependencies

Fetch Source Repositories

Create a directory for the the subversion repositories, such as ~/mm. Besides the source tree, additional binary dependencies are stored in the 3rdpartypublic repository. The build scripts in the source tree assume 3rdpartypublic is in the same parent folder level:

mkdir ~/mm
cd ~/mm
svn co https://valelab.ucsf.edu/svn/micromanager2/trunk/ micro-manager1.4
svn co https://valelab.ucsf.edu/svn/3rdpartypublic/

This creates 2 new folders in the mm directory:

    ~/mm/micro-manager1.4
    ~/mm/3rdpartypublic

Building Micro-Manager

Create the Autotools files

cd ~/mm/micro-manager1.4
./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-imagej-plugin=/usr/local/ImageJ

Compile

make

Install

sudo make install-ijplugin

Post Install

Editing the startup script

A script named mmimagej will have been installed in /usr/local/ImageJ. You might want to edit its contents to pass extra flags to Java. You may also want to put this script in your PATH.

Running Micro-Manager

Start Micro-Manager by typing:

/usr/local/ImageJ/mmimagej 2>&1 >/dev/null &

To view the Core logging in the terminal while Micro-Manager is running, start simply as:

/usr/local/ImageJ/mmimagej

Appendix

Dependencies