[winGRASS] Re: winGRASS digest, Vol 1 #6 - 2 msgs

[Andreas Lange]

Hi Ian,

thanks a lot for your comments.

Ian Baxter wrote:
> I think the question is the market you wish to have use your product. Win98
> is a lot of home users, students and such - all people who have valid
> reasons for using GRASS. The NT users are corporate, a bit more demanding,
> but they BUY the CD if it's easier than re-compiling all the code, etc....
> This pays the bills whilst playtime (the extra) goes to the people who will
> use eventually. But it makes it easier to support the people who want to use
> it now - and will financially support development through CD purchases and
> so on....
> 
> >
> > My suggestion to ease the load on Andreas as he prepares a WinGrass CD is
> > that we just officially support NT for Grass 5.00 and separately
> distribute
> > __W98__ patched drivers as a small zip file clearly marked as "Thrill
> > seeking test pilots only".  These executables can simply be copied over
> the
> > main distribution by interested users.
> 
> The easiest way to do it I think. A simple option in the install script
> could do it, no?

I could craft a install script that handles this. But i is my expirience
that one should handle porting issues with the code directly, not with
installation scripts replacing files. And there may be more areas where
Windows 9x/ME is different from NT/W2K.
 
> >
> > If user demand later dictates, then we can also officially support the
> 98/ME
> > strand of Windows in subsequent releases.
> 
> Start small, then expand. If you take on too much, well... Ever hear the
> fable of the monkey and the peas?
> The problem is, there are several versions of NT - so which one would you
> propose supporting? I would suggest 4.0/2000 as you largest installed user
> base.

NT 4.0 will require Service Pack 3 or higher. I do not expect any
problems with server/enterprise versions of NT/W2K, as the API should be
the same and there is alway the cygwin layer. 

The main problem at the time is that the XFree86 server is still
beta-quality. And cygwin is changing constantly, so it is hard to decide
if one should upgrade or stay at a certain version.
 
> I'm in a JDP right now with Whistler and support for that product can be
> easily done through the compatability mode of Windows XP. Developing for
> XP/Whistler in native mode may be bit more of a challenge and push release
> dates farther back for the CD...

Windows XP will not be supported until cygwin supports XP. But there is
a report that Windows XP/32bit works with cygwin. 
As GRASS itself has still problems with 64bit support (e. g. on Alpha
AXP, Sun SPARC, IRIX MIPS) and cygwin does not support it, there is no
reason to support this yet. 

cu,

Andreas

-- 
Andreas Lange, 65187 Wiesbaden, Germany, Tel. +49 611 807850
url: http://mitglied.tripod.de/AndreasLange
mail: Andreas.Lange_at_Rhein-Main.de - A.C.Lange_at_GMX.net