IDL is a commercial tool for data visualization with its own programming language.
See also: https://portal.nv5geospatialsoftware.com/

A installation download is available from the STRW Linux desktop environment under directory:

/strw0/downloads/idl_9.1

in which you will find versions for Linux, MacOS and Windows

Install the appropriate package for your operating system.

If you run IDL on your laptop, you need to point it to our license server. For this you need to setup a ssh tunnel that maps you local port 4080 onto the license servers port 4080. This can be done on Linux using the ssh command line tool:

ssh -g -L 4080:license.strw.leidenuniv.nl:4080 yourstrwusername@ssh.strw.leidenuniv.nl

Now keep this ssh session alive as long as you need to run IDL.

You need to tell IDL to use the floating license server through the above tunnel. For that you can run the LicenseAdministrator tool to tell IDL where obtain a license. Choose option 'Use License Server' and fill in for the server name: localhost and for the port: 4080. Then connect. You should see a blue bar and a green Tick sign which mentions 'Successfully connected'.

This concludes getting a license to your laptop. Now you are ready to start working with IDL full capability set!