Re: what is the best Windows distribution?

[Zhang Weiwu, Beijing]

On 04/18/2011 04:20 PM, Riccardo Mottola wrote:
> Currently the only supported way is MinGW. 

Thanks for the information. I come to realize MinGW+GnuStep setup 
doesn't have a packaging system or installer like CygWin, thus there are 
two choices to get applications.

1. To get applications packaged in a Win32 installer. There is only 
gorm, systempreferences and calculator available, a rather barren land.

2. To compile from source. This isn't trivial. For example, gnumail only 
offer source code in form of monotone checkout, so first problem is how 
to get monotone running. Many other application have source hosted on 
their site, and the way to get them may change. Besides it's not sure 
they will successfully be compiled, not even mentioning dependencies.

-1. Switch to cygwin. This is a dead-end at the moment.

Both seems to be much poorer choices than FreeBSD (excluding -1).

There is an additional choice that is also non-trivial: To run a 
X-server on Windows and to install a virtual machine where FreeBSD 
inside, and install application in FreeBSD, port to X-server in Windows 
2000.

This additional choice looks only as good as falling back to FreeBSD and 
tolerate 2 devices having no driver.

Thanks for commenting so far!

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