GeoGebra

What is GeoGebra?
GeoGebra is free and multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that joins geometry, algebra, tables, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package. It has received several educational software awards in Europe and the USA.

Quick Facts

Graphics, algebra and tables are connected and fully dynamic.
Easy-to-use interface, yet many powerful features.
Authoring tool to create interactive learning materials as web pages.
Available in many languages for our millions of users around the world .
Free and open source software.

System requirements

Minimum JRE version is 1.6
Preferably 1024 x 768 resolution. Minimum resolution is 800 by 600. Size is not given, but looking at the layout it makes more sense to use 1024 x 768.
Minimum 512Mb RAM internal memory. You might need more if your going for very complex models.


	GeoGebra on an eComStation machine with Open JDK. With the red dot "View3D"(!) you can rotate the presented model in all directions.

Installing GeoGebra
Download the file GeoGebra-Unixlike-Installer-4.4.42.0.tar.gz. Create a folder (directory) "GeoGebra". Open the tar.gz file with a filemanager. You get a new file "geogebra-4.4.42.0.tar". Open the file "geogebra-4.4.42.0.tar", this will take a few seconds. Now you get a folder (directory) with the name "geogebra-4.4.42.0". Open the folder "geogebra-4.4.42.0" and copy the contents to the new folder "GeoGebra". Remove the files "install-sh", "install.sh" and "uninstall.sh", we can't use these files. The file "geogebra" is also a Unix file with al kinds of options. You can delete it or keep it for what options are available in case you need something. The site www.geogebra.org does have an extensive help and tutorial, but they didn't think of other OS systems than the usual, so they always point out to installer programs and there aren't any for our OS. So we have to help ourself. The good thing? The file "geogebra-bugs.txt" stays unfortunately not empty on my system. I have made a report on their forum.

The used cmd file
GeoGebra works very well with Open JDK in OS/2-eCS. I have a geogebra.cmd file with the following contents;

@echo off
set BEGINLIBPATH=[drive: java]\JAVA160ga5\bin
set path=[drive: java]\JAVA160ga5\bin
[drive: GeoGebra]
cd [drive: GeoGebra]\GeoGebra
java -Xmx512m -Duser.home=[drive: GeoGebra]\geogebra -jar geogebra.jar --logfile=geogebra.log 2>geogebra-bugs.txt

I use 2 separate folders (directories), one for Java and one for GeoGebra with the files created by this program. The references used in the cmd file;

[drive: java] = drive with Java
[drive: GeoGebra] = drive with GeoGebra

should be replaced by real drive letters. Save the file and rename it to geogebra.cmd or use/adjust geogebra.cmd from the distribution. This file is copied to the GeoGebra directory. Furthermore, different paths?, adjust according to your needs.

Create a new program object or copy it from the file below. Specify the path and file name: "[drive: GeoGebra\GeoGebra\geogebra.cmd". In the tabpage Session check the boxes "OS/2 window", "Running as an icon" and "Close Window to end program". In the tabpage General you can enter the name "GeoGebra".

Parameters / options explained

The "-Xmx512M" indicates the maximum limit of the used memory.
The statement "-Duser.home=[drive: GeoGebra]\geogebra" will ensure that GeoGebra will save all necessary files in own directory instead of saving them in the home directory.
The option "--logfile=geogebra.log" will ensure that GeoGebra will save all necessary logfiles in own directory instead of saving them in the OS/2 \var\temp directory.
The addition "2>geogebra-bugs.txt" ensures that errors are saved in the file "geogebra-bugs.txt". The 2 in "2>" is not a typo!

Download
In the file you can find the above command file (all drive letters are on set to C:) and an OS/2 GeoGebra icon: GeoGebra-eCS.zip.

revision August 7, 2014