Requirements

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ACL2 Version 6.2 Copyright (C), Regents of the University of Texas ACL2 is licensed under the terms of the LICENSE file distributed with ACL2.

Obtaining Common Lisp

ACL2 works on Unix, GNU-Linux, and Mac OS X, which we call "Unix-like systems", as well as many Windows operating systems (at least including Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP). It can be built on top of any of the following Common Lisps, listed here alphabetically.

Often we put timing comparisons between different lisps in the ACL2 News.

Obtaining Allegro Common Lisp

The website for Allegro Common Lisp, a commercial implementation, is http://www.franz.com/. You may be able to obtain a trial version there.

Obtaining CCL (OpenMCL)

Clozure CL (CCL) was formerly known as OpenMCL. Quoting from the Clozure CL web page: ``Clozure CL is a fast, mature, open source Common Lisp implementation that runs on Linux, Mac OS X and BSD on either Intel x86-64 or PPC.''

For Windows users: We observed stalls using CCL 1.5 on Windows (in May, 2010), though not with CCL 1.4. We have been told by a CCL implementor that this bug has been fixed, and people running CCL 1.5 under Windows at a revision less than 13900 should update.

Here is an easy way to obtain and build the latest version (generally recommended) for Linux on running on x86 or x86-64. First execute the following shell command to create a ccl directory, but substituting for linuxx86, if appropriate, any of darwinx86 (which we use for modern Macs), freebsdx86, solarisx86, windows, darwinppc, or linuxppc. 

svn co http://svn.clozure.com/publicsvn/openmcl/trunk/linuxx86/ccl
Note: if you prefer the latest release, you can obtain that instead, for example as follows (but replace "1.9" by the latest version, for example as described at http://ccl.clozure.com/download.html, and replace linuxx86 if appropriate as described above). 
svn co http://svn.clozure.com/publicsvn/openmcl/release/1.9/linuxx86/ccl
Next rebuild the executable by issuing the following commands, but replace "./lx86cl64" by a suitable executable; e.g., for 64-bit Darwin (on Mac OS) use "./dx86cl64". 
./lx86cl64
(rebuild-ccl :full t)
(quit)
./lx86cl64
(rebuild-ccl :full t)
(quit)

Now your CCL executable is up to date. Next, create a suitable script, say as follows, where DIR is the full pathname for the directory above the new ccl directory. 

#!/bin/sh

tmp=`uname -a | fgrep x86_64`
export CCL_DEFAULT_DIRECTORY=DIR/ccl
# Start up 64-bit or 32-bit lisp, respectively:
if [ "$tmp" != "" ] ; then \
    DIR/ccl/scripts/ccl64 $* ; \
else \
    DIR/ccl/scripts/ccl $* ; \
fi
Be sure to make your script executable. For example, if your script filename is my-script then on linux you might want to execute the following shell command. 
chmod +x my-script
Your script (invoked with a suitable pathname, or just the filename if the directory is on your path) will now start the updated CCL lisp image.

More details if you want or need them:
Step 3 in http://trac.clozure.com/openmcl/wiki/UpdatingFromSource has more details on building from source. Alternatively, you can download a gzipped tar file; see the main CCL page, or visit the page of stable Clozure CL snapshots for ACL2 users. (Subversion and gzipped tar files are great, but not so much a CCL disk image (.dmg file), as we have had a report of the extracted CCL opening its own window when you start it up.) If you don't want to write your own script (as suggested above) then after obtaining CCL, you may wish to edit file ccl/scripts/ccl or file ccl/scripts/ccl64, depending on whether you want to use a 32-bit or 64-bit version (respectively).

Obtaining CLISP

CLISP is a non-commercial Common Lisp implementation, available from http://clisp.cons.org/.

Obtaining CMU Common Lisp

CMU Common Lisp (sometimes called CMUCL) is a non-commercial Common Lisp implementation, available from http://www.cons.org/cmucl/.

Obtaining GCL

You do not need to fetch GCL if instead you download a binary Debian package for ACL2. Thanks to Camm Maguire for maintaining this package. Note that it may take some time after each ACL2 release for this binary Debian package to be updated for that release. Here is a shell command that might be used to obtain that package. 

apt-get -q install gcl gcl-doc if running Debian
Otherwise, you can fetch GCL in one of the ways described below. Note that in Spring 2013 there were updates to GCL, reflected in ACL2, that allow ACL2 (starting with ACL2 Version 6.2) to build not only on traditional ("CLtL1") GCL but also on ANSI GCL.

The simplest way may be to fetch a recent version of GCL from the main GNU website for GCL. The main GCL implementor has told us that he hopes to make suitable versions of GCL Version 2.6.8 and GCL Version 2.6.9 available in tarball form at that website in approximately mid-June, 2013.

Another way to fetch a recent GCL is with one of the following commands, which will retrieve recent development/unstable cvs sources. 

cvs -z9 -q -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sv.gnu.org:/sources/gcl \
     co -d gcl-2.6.8 -r Version_2_6_8pre gcl

cvs -z9 -q -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sv.gnu.org:/sources/gcl \
     co -d gcl-2.6.9 -r Version_2_6_9pre gcl
As per GCL installation instructions, you may wish to build GCL as follows on a 64-bit linux machine, instead using --enable-maxpage=524288 on a 32-bit linux machine, and perhaps --enable-maxpage=262144 on a Mac. 
./configure --enable-maxpage=1048576
make
You can build an ANSI image by adding --enable-ansi to the above ./configure command. Alternatively, you might find suitable prebuilt binaries for a variety of machines here:
http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=gcl

Note: On rare occasions you may see a hard error when using GCL obtained before early June, 2013, sometimes (not always) labeled as "bad plist", that may be due to interaction between GCL and GNU Make. The main GCL implementor has told us that he has fixed this problem, and will provide tarballs at the main GNU website for GCL in approximately mid-June, 2013 (as noted above).

Obtaining LispWorks

LispWorks is a commercial Common Lisp implementation. You can download a free, restricted, version from http://www.lispworks.com/. You may ask the vendor for an evaluation license for the full product if you are considering purchasing a license.

Obtaining SBCL

SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) is a non-commercial Common Lisp implementation, available from http://sbcl.sourceforge.net/.

Note for 32-bit linux users: When building ACL2 with SBCL 1.0.18 and 1.0.39 on 32-bit Linux, we ran out of memory with the SBCL message "Heap exhausted, game over." We solved the problem by modifying our sbcl script to use --dynamic-space-size 2000, for example: 

#!/bin/sh
export SBCL_HOME=/projects/acl2/lisps/sbcl/sbcl-1.0.39-x86-linux/output
/projects/acl2/lisps/sbcl/sbcl-1.0.39-x86-linux/src/runtime/sbcl --dynamic-space-size 2000 $*
Your results may vary; one user has reported solving the problem with --dynamic-space-size 2000000000.

Performance comparisons

You can see recent performance numbers by following this link, or by going to the ACL2 home page and following the link "Recent changes to this page".

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