To run UNICORE/X, you need the SUN Java 5 JRE or SDK. If not installed on your system, you can download it from here.
UNICORE/X has been most extensively tested on Linux-like systems, but runs on Windows as well, and should also run on MacOS.
To install, unpack the distribution in a directory of your choice. You should then review the config files in the conf/ directory, and adapt paths, hostname and ports, The config files are commented, and you can also check the configuration guide
There are two scripts that expect to be run from the installation directory. To start, do
cd <inst> bin/start.sh
To stop:
cd <inst> bin/stop.sh