[Axiom-developer] Metadata for the uploaded Windows source/binary package.

[Mike Thomas]

Hi all.

The upload is complete, along with a copy of libgmp.dll and
gmp-static-mingw-4.1.tar.gz.

The source (both Axiom and embedded GCL) was updated from CVS HEAD
approximately last Saturday.  It includes the Axiom "mnt/windows" binaries
and all intermediate files + some build logs.

The alterations are largely Bill's original patch kindly supplied to me
earlier in the year; little extra was needed.

I have not yet gone over the changes to ensure that the source tree will
still work on other platforms - I know there are some loose ends yet to be
tidied up in the Makefiles and source.  Those changes should not be
difficult.

I substituted GCL CVS HEAD for GCL 2.6.5 and made appropriate changes to the
pamphlets.

I hand patched the GCL code rather than regenerating patches for the CVS
version.

(Suggestion: Perhaps GCL should have a new "quiet compiler" flag in the
compiler package and a configure option (--with-external-objects ?) to add
external objects to the link.  Each of these would ease the patch workload
in the Axiom build system.)

Camm, I chose CVS HEAD at the time as I was expecting to debug for months
rather than days and figured that it would be easier on a cleaner source
tree - I rewrote the PE-COFF linking in the HEAD branch specifically to
support my attempt to debug Axiom.  Profuse apologies for potentially
undermining your good intentions re the stable version of GCL - 2.6.5.

I used:

  - MinGW32 gcc 3.4.2 with latest libraries, binutils,

  - hosted by MSYS,

  - MikTeX - a free Win32 TeX/LaTeX package,

  - in the particular Axiom build I uploaded, a dynamic GMP library
(libgmp.dll) is needed, but you will be better off building with the static
GMP library I provided separately (from somewhere on the web) to build or
else the GCL internal GMP source (takes longer to build though).

To use the Axiom binary in the uploaded package, just:

1. make a directory "c:/cvs/head" (no other directory will do) and unzip
"axiom.tgz there,

2. put libgmp.dll in the "c:/cvs/head/mnt/windows/bin" directory,

3. double click in Windows explorer on the axiomSYS executable,

4. open a Windows command prompt and execute these two commands:

5. path c:\cvs\head\axiom\mnt\windows\bin;%path%

6. axiomSYS

Surprisingly I was also able to just double click in Windows Explorer on the
"axiomSYS.exe" binary in "c:/cvs/head/mnt/windows/bin" and get AXIOM to work
without setting any environment variables - it found the autoloads without
problems.

Cheers

Mike Thomas