Downloading MARK

To download and install MARK, simply:

  1. download the current stable MARK setup.exe file (version 10.x). It is roughly 19-20 MB in size -- downloads should take only a few seconds on a semi-decent broadband connection.
  2. Double-click the setup.exe file you just downloaded. This will spawn one of the (by now) ubiquitous setup routines most Windows programs use.

Operating system support

MARK was written as a Windows application (meaning, it runs best on a machine running the Microsoft Windows operating system - either as the primary OS, or within a virtual machine). However, having said that, MARK can run quite successfully on a number of non-Windows platforms: (i) if you use robust Windows emulation software for the GUI-based MARK, or (ii) ussisng RMark as a front-end (under either Linux or OS/X). The following table lists the platforms (operating systems) MARK has been run on, using either variants of native Windows, or Windows emulation software.

windows

MARK was written for Windows 7 or newer (i.e., Windows 7 -> 11). MARK is not supported in any way for software older than Windows 7 (neither is anything else, by and large, so you really should upgrade if you're still using Windows 7 - even Windows 10 is approaching end-of-life).

windows

For Mac users, you have a couple of options, somewhat dependent on whether or not you have an Intel-based Mac, or one of the newer (and more proprietary) ARM-based systems (either the M1 or M2 flavor of the CPU). If you're using an Intel-based Mac, you can either (1) access the numerical capacilities of MARK by running it either from the command line, or using the RMark interface (the vast majority of uses are using the RMark approach). Instructions for setting up RMark and mark.exe on a Mac (or Linux) machine can be found here. For the moment, if you're running an ARM-based Mac (i.e., either the M1 or M2 chips), running the executable from the command line (or via RMark) is not an option (since it would require compiling on an ARM-based Mac, which we don't have -- feel free to buy us one if you want...).
  Alternatively, you can (2) run MARK within a virtual machine. There are several options -- we'd suggest having a look at either VirtualBox, or Parallels. Note: When preparing .inp files on the Macintosh it seems to be important to convert the end-of-line character from Mac or Unix/Linus to DOS/Windows . This can be easily done in BBedit, a number of free utilities, or by opening and saving the file in WordPad.

windows

You have several options for running MARK under Linux. First, you can run MARK under emulation. Your primary choices (at the moment) are to use either (i) wine, which is an open source implementation of the Windows API on top of Linux windowing environments. MARK runs nearly perfectly under wine 0.9.xx (or newer), although there are a few cosmetic problems which limit some uses of MARK (in particular, the simulation facility). Alternatively, and similar to running MARK on a Mac (above) (ii) you can run MARK using Windows installed into a virtual machine (e.g., VMWare server, or VirtualBox, both of which are free). Because you literally install Windows under VMWare or VirtualBox, you have 100% compatability with a true Windows machine (meaning, some of the small issues running MARK under wine go away), but the penalty is performance - MARK under VMWare or VirtualBox generally is somewhat slower (maybe ~5%) than on a native Windows machine (or running under Wine, which has near-native speed, but can be flaky to get things working).
  Alternatively, and again, similar to Intel-based Macs (above), you can access the numerical capacilities of MARK by running mark.exe either from the command line, typically using the RMark interface. See below.

Using RMark - Mac and Linux users...

Many (most?) Mac and Linux users will opt for running the MARK executable via the RMark package. Instructions on setting up RMark and mark.exe on a Linux-based or OS/X-based machines can be found here.