Re: [Axiom-developer] Help needed

[Bill Page]

Quoting C Y <address@hidden>:

> Martin Rubey wrote:
>
> > > I think that it is a real possibility to build both HyperDoc
> > > and Axiom graphics under cygwin in this manner. Cygwin is a
> > > "unix emulator" for windows. GCL however currently only builds
> > > under MSYS/MinGW which a native Windows build environment.
> > > Requiring both cygwin and MSYS/MinGW to build Axiom on Windows
> > > is a bit of a heavy requirement but it is possible.
> >
> > Do you think it would be possible to bundle this up in a
> > (albeit huge) package, that works more or less out of the
> > box? (However, again: it makes sense only if HyperDoc browse
> > works)
>
> That might be technically possible but large doesn't even begin
> to describe it.

No. Let's be clear. The *build* environment would require both
cygwin and MSYS/MinGW. That is large but not huge. I run both of
these easily in my usual Windows development environment.

But the *run-time* (binary) environment would not be much bigger
than the current Linux and Windows binaries. Applications built
with cygwin require only the presence of the cygwin dll library.
There used to be a license issue about distributing packages
containing only that part of cygwin - I am not sure if that is
still the case or not - but in any case requiring that the user
install a minimal cygwin environment as a prerequiste is not all
that bad. Applications built with MSYS/MinGW on the other hand
run natively on Windows and do not require any extra specially
licensed libraries.

cygwin provides a online download and update facility similar
to Debian apt-get, so if it was possible to package Axiom for
cygwin this way, it would make it very easy for Windows users
to install Axiom.

> At that point we might as well think about bundling a live
> ISO with an emulator and do things that way - it would probably
> be simpler.

A live ISO that will boot under VMware was developed by Alfredo
and is already available. See

http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/DoyenCD

> > This would be WONDERFUL!

In principle it would be easy to create a new DoyenCD with
Axiom compiled from wh-sandbox which would already contain
Martin's guess package.

> Keep in mind that this would be an X Windows application
> under Microsoft Windows, and would not match at all closely
> the look and feel of any normal Windows application.

That is true, however Xming integrates very well with Windows
in my opinion. The X managed windows appear along with the
windows managed directly by Microsoft Windows. It is true
that they have an "odd" menu system by Windows standards but
in other respects they look familiar.

> Also, it may conflict with existing cygwin/X setups - not
> sure about that.

No, I don't think so. But in general I avoid running the
X windows server under cygwin. I like Xming much better.

> > You see, I'm a bit reluctant to drive people into developing
> > HyperDoc too much, since what I really want is a bit different.
> > (namely, a HyperDoc replacement running on any good internet
> > browser, having the functionality of HyperDoc but moreover
> > understanding documentation written in LaTeX with ALLPROSE
> > / aldoc conventions.)
> >
> > But if it is not tooooo big a project, such a bundle would be,
> > again: WONDERFUL.
>
> I don't quite know about the technical difficulty, as it's been
> a while since I have dealt with any of these systems.  I would
> expect such a bundle to be HUGE.

No, I don't agree. It is not likely to be any bigger than the
existing HyperDoc application under Linux - smaller perhaps
because the web browser itself would presumably be just be an
easily satisfied pre-requisite, i.e. all Windows users have at
least IExplorer and FireFox is very easy it acquire.

> If we can successfully release a "normal" Windows binary perhaps
> we can look next at bundling cygwin and X for an "all-in-one"
> type release.

That's the easy part. Finding a way to build HyperDoc and
Axiom Graphics as cygwin applications while running AXIOMsys
as a native application with the right support for sockets
might be the hard part.

Regards,
Bill Page.