Installation of Elvira

Version 0.162  (November 7, 2006)

  1. Introduction
  2. Installing Java
  3. Uncompressing Elvira
  4. Running Elvira
  5. Final remarks

1. Introduction

The program Elvira is the fruit of a research project supported by the CICYT (a national Spanish research agency) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Techonology, which joined several researchers from Spanish universities and other institutions. The second phase of the project finished in 2005, but Elvira is still under development with the addition of new capabilities.

The program Elvira has its own format for storing models, a parser, exact and approximate (stochastic) algorithms for both discrete and continuous variables, a graphical interface for building and evaluating Bayesian networks and influence diagrams, with specific options for canonical models (OR, AND, MAX, etc.), explanation of reasoning, decision making algorithms, learning (model building) from databases, fusion of networks, etc.

Elvira is written and compiled in Java, which allows the program to run on different platforms and operating systems: linux, MS-DOS/Windows, Solaris, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to install Java before running Elvira.

2. Installing Java

You need to install the version of Java specific of your operating system. Elvira runs of Java versions 5.0 and higher, which are available for Windows, linux, and Solaris. Each of them has in turn two versions: SDK (Software Development Kit) and JRE (Java Runtime Environment). The first one includes the second. The second, JRE, is enough to run Elvira.

You can download the most recent version of Java from the Sun site.

3. Uncompressing Elvira

After installing Java, you must uncompress the Elvira.zip file, which is common to all the platforms: Windows, linux, Solaris... The size of version 0.162 is 3.2 MB.

In Windows XP this file will show up as a compressed folder. Please select the option "Expand files" on Internet Explorer and choose the folder where you wish to uncompress them; for instance, c:\elvira.

If you have older Windows versions, you need Winzip or other uncompressor; you can download an evaluation version from www.winzip.com. By pressing Control-E in Winzip you will access the Extract window. Please check that the options All files and Use folder names are marked. In the field Extract to write c:\ (or any other directory/folder where you wish to install it); this way, all the Elvira files will be uncompressed to the folder c:\elvira and the corresponding subfolders.

When clicking on the above-mentioned Elvira.zip file, your browser may show a folder icon, "elvira". In this case, right-clic on that icon and choose the option "copy". Then go to folder c:\ and paste there the folder "elvira" that you have just copied.

If you have followed the above indications, the folder c:\elvira will contain the file Elvira.jar. You will also find an introductory manual in c:\elvira\first-steps\first-steps.html.

4. Running Elvira

The easiest way to run Elvira in Windows is by double-clicking on the icon Elvira.jar in folder c:\elvira.

In linux, you must open a command shell on the directory in which you installed Elvira and enter the command "java -jar Elvira.jar". Elvira will automatically detect the language of your operating system. Alternatively, you can write "java -jar Elvira.jar -l ae" to see the interface in American English or "java -jar Elvira.jar -l sp" to see it in Spanish.

5. Final remarks

In the future we will try to offer an e-mail list and a FAQ where the users of Elvira can look for answers to their questions. Unfortunately, the author of this page cannot offer support to individual users of Elvira.


Javier Díez.  Latest update: November 7, 2006.