Re: Installation on windows (fwd)

[Alex Perez]

Nicola Pero wrote:
> > > > are there specific reasons for including the msys developer toolkit
> > > > and libintl? If you don't install them, GNUstep still builds.
> > >
> > >
> > > Cool ... I included them because ... I think the msys developer toolkit
> > > includes cvs maybe ?  I wanted to download from CVS when I built ...
> >
> > no it does not, you need to manually get/install this.
>
>
> Thanks -- but surely the cvs command line client is included -- I didn't
> install anything but what is listed in the documentation, and I used the
> 'cvs' command line client to download gnustep.  I don't know which of the
> 3 packages provided it, but it was there.  I'll check later tonight.
>
>
>
> > > ... and libintl, I just thought it was needed for libiconv ...
> > >
> > > ... but if it all builds (and works) without them, I agree we should
> > > remove them :-)
> >
> > agreed, however not yet. There are currently issues with the path 
> > handling which causes certain things to only work inside the msys 
> > environment. If you remove it before those issues are fixed, you will 
> > introduce more problems.
>
>
> Thanks -- ... there might be some confusion ? ;-) ... we are talking of
> the msys developer toolkit (ie, additional developer tools), not of msys
> (the base development environment).
>
> Anyway.  Which issues ?  Which path handling ? :-)

Unicode path handling under win32 is basically completely broken. I am 
not privy to the details, but all I can say for sure is that I believe 
it manifests itself as a problem when you launch a gpbs or gdnc (which 
are both true GNUstep tools, unlike gdomap, which AFAIR is a C app) from 
a path with a space in it, it fails miserably. This should not happen. 
Windows is riddled with paths with spaces, and they must be properly 
supported. I understand the inherent limitations of GNU Make and 
GNUstep-make and spaces, but this is not what I am referring to. GNUstep 
apps at runtime should have 100% support for being launched in a 
directory with spaces, as well as opening files up in directories with 
spaces. The current installer "works around" this problem by installing 
GNUstep to c:\GNUstep, which is in violation of the Windows FSH, but 
it's the only solution that currently works without fixing the problem 
with win32 path handling properly and completely.

> Let's fix them if we have any.

Sheldon Gill knows probably better than anyone else what needs to be 
done to resolve this. I suggest you send him an e-mail, since I don't 
think he's subscribed to this list currently. I've been discussing 
various aspects of win32 gnustep issues with him privately recently, and 
he knows far more about it than I'd ever care to know :) You can contact 
him at address@hidden , or if he is lurking on the list reading 
this, I'd like to encourage him to come out of his hole and speak to this :)

Cheers,
Alex Perez