Re: [feature/internal-msys] thoughts of a more function windows package

[Phillip Lord]

Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> writes:

> Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@russet.org.uk> writes:
>
>> But, mingw64 does not have all the packages I need.
>
> Ok, here goes a data point:
>
>> How do people use Emacs on windows?
>
> I install MSYS2 and execute a shell script that installs this
> packages:
>
> universal-ctags-git ag putty-ssh aspell aspell-en aspell-es diffutils
>
> (the scripts prepends the names listed above with the corresponding
> mingw-w64-i686/x86_64 prefix). Then I install emacs with `pacman`,
> either from MSYS2 binary repository or from the packages I build.

In your case, you are using msys effectively as an installer, to install
mingw64 packages. Likewise, I presume, with Emacs? This seems to come in
both an msys2 and mingw64 package.

Any reason for putty rather than openssh?


>> I mean, do they install find,
>
> I don't use it. I don't use it on GNU/Linux either (I work 99% of the
> time on GNU/Linux).

Oh, I'm a find junkie.

>> ls,
>
> Is it necessary?

Not sure. I thought dired used it, at least if it's there but maybe not.


>> git,
>
> Git for Windows.
>
>> aspell
>
> See above.
>
>> and all the rest by hand?
>
> On my case, only Git for Windows and MSYS2 are installed by hand.
>
> BTW, Git for Windows is also based on MSYS2: it installs the required
> pieces that are required for running the parts of git that still depend
> on POSIX.
>
> It theory, instead of Git for Windows I could also run MSYS2's own
> git.exe setting magit-git-executable and vc-git-program, without adding
> MSYS2 /bin directory to PATH, but last time I tried it was somewhat
> slower than Git for Windows, which is slow enough itself. Also, the
> later comes with some goodies built-in, such as git-svn. MSYS2 git
> package requires about 30 MB, while Git for Windows 240.

Yes, I hear that magit is difficult to use on Windows. I don't know if
that is fixable within Emacs, or if it is fundamental to Windows.



> I execute runemacs.exe from wathever/msys64/mingw64/bin. emacs.el sets
> PATH and exec-path:
>
> (defun anade-a-path (path)
>   (setenv "PATH" (concat (getenv "PATH") path-separator dir))
>   (setq exec-path (append exec-path (list dir))))
>
> (anade-a-path (file-name-directory (car command-line-args)))
>
> With this I can execute programs on emacs.exe directory (that is,
> whatever/msys64/mingw64/bin) with no problems.

That's a good data point! Thank you.

Phil