2.1 Before Installation : Requirements

System requirements

The compiler needs at least the following hardware:
  1. An Intel 80386 or higher processor (for the intel version). A coprocessor is not required, although it will slow down your program’s performance if you do floating point calculations without a coprocessor, since emulation will be used.
  2. 4 Megabytes of free memory.
  3. At least 3 Megabytes free disk space.

Software requirements

Under DOS
The DOS distribution contains all the files you need to run the compiler and compile pascal programs.
Under UNIX
Under UNIX systems (such as LINUX) you need to have the following programs installed :
  1. GNU as, the GNU assembler.
  2. GNU ld, the GNU linker.
  3. Optionally (but highly recommended) : GNU make. For easy recompiling of the compiler and Run-Time Library, this is needed.
Under Windows
The WINDOWS distribution contains all the files you need to run the compiler and compile pascal programs. However, it may be a good idea to install the mingw32 tools or the cygwin development tools. Links to both of these tools can be found on http://www.freepascal.org
Under OS/2
While the Free Pascal distribution comes with all necessary tools, it is a good idea to install the EMX extender in order to compile and run programs with the Free Pascal compiler. The EMX extender can be found on:
http://www.leo.org/pub/comp/os/os2/leo/gnu/emx+gcc/index.html