Cross-Platform Installation Guide

FockMap runs on .NET 10 (LTS), Microsoft’s open-source, cross-platform runtime. This guide covers installation on Windows, macOS, and Linux, plus container-based workflows.

About the Platform

.NET 10

.NET 10 is Microsoft’s Long-Term Support (LTS) release of the unified .NET platform. Key characteristics:

• Open source: MIT licensed, developed on GitHub
• Cross-platform: Native support for Windows, macOS, and Linux
• High performance: Modern JIT compilation with tiered optimization
• Unified runtime: Same codebase runs identically across platforms

F# Language

FockMap is written in F#, a functional-first language on .NET:

• MIT licensed compiler maintained by the F# Software Foundation
• Member of the .NET Foundation, ensuring long-term governance
• Interoperable with all .NET libraries and tools
• Strong type inference catches errors at compile time

Installation by Platform

Windows

Option 1: Visual Studio Installer

1. Download Visual Studio 2022 (Community is free)
2. In the installer, select the “.NET desktop development” workload
3. Ensure “F# language support” is checked

Option 2: Standalone SDK

# Download from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download
# Or use winget:
winget install Microsoft.DotNet.SDK.10

Verify installation:

dotnet --version
# Should output: 10.0.x

macOS

Option 1: Homebrew (recommended)

brew install dotnet-sdk

Option 2: Official Installer

1. Download the .pkg installer from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download
2. Run the installer and follow prompts
3. The SDK installs to /usr/local/share/dotnet

Verification:

dotnet --version
# Should output: 10.0.x

Note for Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3): The .NET SDK provides native ARM64 builds. Homebrew automatically selects the correct architecture.

Linux

Ubuntu/Debian (apt)

# Add Microsoft package repository
wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/$(lsb_release -rs)/packages-microsoft-prod.deb -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb
rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Install SDK
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-sdk-10.0

Fedora/RHEL (dnf)

sudo dnf install dotnet-sdk-10.0

Snap (distribution-agnostic)

sudo snap install dotnet-sdk --classic --channel=10.0

Verification:

dotnet --version

Docker

For reproducible builds and CI/CD, use Microsoft’s official .NET SDK image:

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:10.0

WORKDIR /app
COPY . .
RUN dotnet build -c Release

Interactive development:

docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/app -w /app mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:10.0 bash

Available image variants:

Building FockMap

Once .NET is installed, clone and build:

git clone https://github.com/your-org/fockmap.git
cd fockmap

# Restore dependencies and build
dotnet build

# Run tests
dotnet test

# Build release version
dotnet build -c Release

Performance Considerations

.NET 10 uses a tiered JIT (Just-In-Time) compiler that optimizes code progressively:

1. Tier 0: Fast initial compilation, minimal optimization
2. Tier 1: Recompiles hot paths with full optimizations
3. On-stack replacement: Updates running code without restart

For numerically intensive workloads like Hamiltonian construction:

• First execution may be slower as the JIT compiles code
• Subsequent runs benefit from cached native code
• Steady-state performance is comparable to ahead-of-time compiled languages
• SIMD vectorization is automatic for array operations

Benchmark guidance:

• Warm up by running the computation once before timing
• Use BenchmarkDotNet for rigorous measurements
• Release builds (-c Release) enable full optimization

Memory:

• .NET’s garbage collector is generational and concurrent
• Large array allocations go directly to the large object heap
• For very large Hamiltonians, consider streaming or batching term generation

IDE Support

Each platform has mature F# development tools:

VS Code + Ionide provides:

• Syntax highlighting and error checking
• IntelliSense (autocomplete)
• F# Interactive (FSI) integration
• Go to definition, find references

Install Ionide:

code --install-extension Ionide.Ionide-fsharp