Microsoft Windows

Raven Pro and Raven Lite require a PC running the Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP Home, or Windows XP Professional operating system with a processor running at 500 MHz or higher (1 GHz or higher recomended), and 256 MB of RAM. The required version 1.4.2 of Java is automatically installed with Raven.

Raven Pro 1.3 and 1.4 and Raven Lite 1.0 will install and run on Windows Vista. Raven Pro 1.2.1 will install on Windows Vista if you follow the steps outlined in the FAQ, and it will run on Windows Vista without taking advantage of any of the new display features of Vista.

We've done limited install testing and some user testing of Raven Pro and Raven Lite on Windows 7. We haven't come across any problems to date, but please let us know if you see any.

To enable Raven Pro and Raven Lite to open MP3 files and other formats of audio files on Windows, you need to download and install the QuickTime Player. To download and install QuickTime, proceed through the steps listed here.

Mac OS X

Raven Pro and Raven Lite require a Macintosh computer with at least 256 MB of RAM, running Mac OS X version 10.2.6 (Jaguar) through 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and Apple Java 1.4.1 or higher.

Raven Pro is being tested on 10.6 (Snow Leopard) but recording is not yet supported on that version of Mac OS X. Snow Leopard introduced changes to some underlying technologies that Raven uses. We have identified and fixed some problems and need to test them before making a build available to the public. We plan to support Snow Leopard in an upcoming build of Raven Pro 1.3 and in Raven Pro 1.4 build 24. Raven Lite 1.0 build 9 update 17 does not launch on Snow Leopard, but update 18 does run on Snow Leopard. If you have not upgraded to Snow Leopard yet, please update your Raven Lite to update 18. If you've already upgraded to Snow Leopard, then you will need to reinstall Raven Lite at the build 9 update 18 level.

We recommend a 400 MHz G4 processor or faster or an Intel Mac (Mac mini, iMac, MacBook, or MacBook Pro) for running Raven. Note that for Intel Macs, there is a bug in Apple software that requires a workaround to enable Raven to record via external (e.g. USB or Firewire) devices.

On Mac OS X, Raven Pro and Raven Lite should be able to open MP3 files without any additional software because QuickTime should already be installed as part of the operating system. On Mac OS X 10.6 systems, users will have to set their Java Preference to use a 32-bit JVM in order to use QuickTime for Java with Raven. To set this preference, open /Applications/Utilities/Java Preferences, and move the 32-bit JVM to the top of the list for applications.

Linux

Raven Pro 1.4 and Raven Lite 1.0 require computers running Linux to have at least 256 MB of RAM (1 GB recommended) and to be configured with Sun Java 5.0 or higher. We've tested Raven Pro and Raven Lite on Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and Fedora. To get Raven Pro or Raven Lite to install, you need to set the permissions on the installer file to be able to execute it on your system.