We carry out hands-on exercises during the school.
Therefore, we ask all participants to bring a laptop.
LHC experiments use ROOT software for data storage. To participate effectively in the hands-on exercises, it is highly recommended to install ROOT on your laptop.
Please install ROOT, complete the pre-school exercise (see below) and fill this 3-question survey: https://indico.desy.de/event/46666/surveys/ before the school begins.
Installing ROOT
Pick up the latest stable version. If you have already installed ROOT for other purposes, just use that version during the school.
(No need to download the latest version.)
Linux/Mac laptops
We recommend using Conda/Snap or a package manager available for your system.
https://root.cern/install/#install-via-a-package-manager
Alternatively, you might try using a pre-compiled binary if all the above methods fail.
https://root.cern/releases/release-63404/#binary-distributions
Windows laptops
Installing ROOT on Windows can be challenging, as CERN provides only limited (beta) support. Since CERN relies on Scientific Linux for data acquisition, simulation, and reconstruction, it’s best to learn ROOT in a Unix-like environment.
We recommend installing Linux on your Windows laptop (either as a dual boot—at your own risk—or by running Linux in a virtual machine)
- Virtual machine
-
Try the instructions prepared by another student who successfully completed the process
- https://github.com/theofil/I2TheTerascale/raw/main/docs/ROOT_Windows_2025.pdf (new 2025 instructions)
-
- Dual boot (Windows / Linux)
-
First, back up your data, decide how much disk space to allocate to Linux, and search Google for
dual boot windows linux
-
In case of problems, please use Google, Youtube, ChatGPT, deepseek etc to find solutions to any error messages you might be getting :-)
Pre-school-exercise
Assuming that you installed ROOT, open your terminal (command line) and run the following commands
wget https://github.com/theofil/I2TheTerascale/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
unzip main.zip
cd I2TheTerascale-main/code/C/
root -l makePlot.C
If the script runs successfully, you should be able to see this figure
Please note that your ROOT installation must allow external connections (some environments might block this for security reasons).
(New)
In case you get
Error in <TWebFile::TWebFile>: http://theofil.web.cern.ch:80/theofil/cmsod/files/data.root? does not exist
it's because ROOT requires the netx plugin to read remote files. In some installations of ROOT, netx plugin might be missing. If you don't have ROOT with ability to read remote files, download the offline version of the tutorial using the following commands:
wget https://theofil.web.cern.ch/cmsod/I2TheTerascaleOffline.zip
unzip I2TheTerascaleOffline.zip
cd I2TheTerascaleOffline/I2TheTerascale/code/C
root -l makePlot.C
If the above steps don’t work, attempt to resolve the issue yourself. If you’re unable to find a solution, try creating a simple program by copying and pasting the code from pre-school-exercise.C into a local file on your computer using a text editor (e.g., nano, vim, emacs, etc.).
Then open your terminal, move to the folder that the file you created resides
cd yourFolder
and execute
root -l pre-school-exercise.C
Tutorial's Documentation
It’s not required to read all the documentation before coming to school. However, if you’d like to read something on your way to DESY on Sunday, feel free to take a look at this.
https://github.com/theofil/I2TheTerascale/raw/main/docs/main.pdf
