Re: HOWTO: lilypond-1.3.98 on windows32

[James Hammons]

> Well, you have access to the cygwin installer?  I had a look at it,
> but decided not do make the effort of adding or adapting it for
> lilypond.  It's in the cygwin cvs tree.

Hmm.  I'll have to take a look.

> Still, learing a bit about bash, and running that iso a plain dos box
> gives you so much more power and convenience.  If only for tab
> completion of paths, command history, tracing...

In Unix, yes (I do know enough about bash to be dangerous, BTW).  In Cygwin,
well...  Err, not quite.  If it was as stable/did what you would expect I
might feel differently about it (e.g., it ignores .bashrc and uses .profile
instead--go figure).  I guess they're inching up on that, though.  :-p

> ...  But after a couple of months, I realised that
> having to use windows all morning made me very restless and was bad
> for my mood.

Another glowing testimonial for Bill Gates & Co.!  ;-)  I can assure you
that writing for Windows is enough to drive a mad man sane...  ;-p

> That's why we had discussions before, and that's why Han-Wen proposed
> to reconsider distributing windows binaries.  Linux is much better
> suited, easier, and more fun for running LilyPond.  Especially for
> newbies.

Yes, well, maybe once Plex86 can run Windows there won't be any need for
them anymore.  ;-)  In the meantime, however, those of us who are stuck
developing on Windows boxes really appreciate the effort that goes into
making those Win32 binaries!

> We can distribute the collection of scripts in a setup.zip and maybe
> also have an upgrade.zip?  The toplevel entry into the install.sh
> could be a batch file that states something like: ``install cygwin or be
> on your own.  See readme.text''

That would be fine.  Those who want to strike out on their own/have a
compact install would have at least a little bit of guidance as to what to
do and why.  They just might be able to contribute something useful to the
project as well.  ;-)

-- Shamus