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Or MinGW if you don't want to rely on cygwin.dll.

Let me respond to your posting and try to work out a list of sites. As you say, gnusoftware.org is down and has been for quite some time. The links on opensource.org aren't a great deal of use but I did find O'Reilly OSDir's Windows section with 18 apps listed, and BerliOS's Windows category with 11 projects. OSSBlacksheep is just a CD you can buy with some free software for Windows - similar to some mentioned on Slashdot recently.

More useful than these is the old favourite Cygwin, a Unix-on-Win32 layer with gcc and tools, and its offshoot Mingw (aka Ming, Mingw32, Minimalist GNU-Win32) which is a native gcc and toolchain, without a Unix emulation layer. You can use Cygwin to port lots of Unix apps, and you can use Mingw to build the Win32 ports of things like perl and Mozilla. Actually I don't think you need both since Cygwin's gcc can build native executables too, but Mingw is slightly 'cleaner' if you have no need for emulated symlinks and other cruft.

Hmm, what else can I think of? Well a lot of the big applications like Emacs and Mozilla have native Win32 ports. Don't forget the old DOS stuff, DJGPP which is a GNU-based development environment for DOS - everything except fork()!. There used to be a rival called EMX but it seems to have faded away.

You're right that allowing Windows free software on Freshmeat but not Windows proprietary software is something of a double standard; but then so is allowing PalmOS (a wholly proprietary platform and not Unix). I don't think anyone expects Freshmeat to hold to a particular set of principles, it's above all a practical and useful site. So allowing Windows software but only when it is free might be a pragmatic compromise.

Maybe one day, one of the Freshmeat staff will be forced to use a Windows box for a few months, and then I'd expect a Windows section to appear pretty rapidly :-).

If you use cygwin just for development of native win32 applications consider using Minimalist GNU for Windows. Its a way more small download that cygwin and I guess less than 1% of the .NET download (wich you say is free now but is the devil you know).

I've been unimpressed with all the Linux books for newbies. The expert books are great but if your new to Linux they are also useless.
I've not looked at Linux for Dumbies and I have over all been impressed with the dumbies books.
The best by far was a booklet made by SCO for Xenix. This is obveously out of print but it was a mini refence.

Probably the best thing is time in the trenches. For exsisting Mac Os X and Linux users thats call up the shell and experement.
For Windows users however that's not so easy. But it can be done...
Msys is a Unix environment targeted at Windows software develupment.
Software dev is easyer from the Unix shell what can I say?

It's very Unix but still running under Windows. Just an app. Not a scary install like Linux as it dosen't threaton to destroy everything in favor of the new os...
(Think of an Os install as the Genisis torpedo from Star Trek II.)
Spock "It would destroy such life in favor of it's new matrix"
In otherwords Installing Linux means never being able to go back to Windows (the old matrix).
All your data is gone.. everything...
Your not just trying Linux your commiting to it.
New users need some asurence that Linux is the way to go.

If they can learn Linux from the safe confines of having never installed it so much the better.
Cygwin is annother Unix environment again for software develupment.

Add a good Linux or Unix newbie book and the trasnsition should be smoth.
I used Danix to move from Dos to Unix.
Unlike the rest Danix is a dos port of Unix commands so as to give Dos that "Unix" feal.
The other files in the linked archive are also good for the job.

Also I was going to frivlously suggest using a "hot geek chick" the way beer ads use super modles to sell beer.
"Drink beer and date a super modle"
"Use Linux and date a hot geek chick"

But being realistic people aren't going to switch to Linux in order to date hot chicks. I honnestly could not think of a dumber reason.

Still ammusing to think of Cat teaching Linux... Yummm.

with the administration where I work they'll insist on purchasing something, and waiting for someone to mail a physical box to each site.

Then write your own split program, compile it, test it, GPL it, box it, and site-license it to the company, charging for support. That's what I did, using unused computer lab time at my local community college (with permission) to develop Splitoris, a win32 command line file splitting program.

Download gpg from gnupg.org. Build it.

According to the GnuPG web site, building GnuPG on Windows 2000 requires a "special setup," which I take to mean Cygwin. I currently use MinGW because I have had trouble getting Cygwin to work. What OpenPGP compatible software package do you recommend for users of Windows operating systems?

MinGW that ncw uses is another port of gcc for/to Win32 platforms, but more integrated and lighter because there is no unix-like features. It can be used either natively on Win32 platforms or as a cross-compiler from others.

DJGPP is for DOS. I suggest MinGW.

http://www.wxwindows.org/ - mature crossplatform C++ library, and not only for GUI, either.

I don't know what you need, but WxWindows and GCC cross-compiling (see mingw32 faq, for instance) might be what you need?

WxWindows also have good bindings to python and perl etc. for more rapid crossplatform development.

DJGPP is gcc for DOS not for Windows. mingw or cygwin are gcc ports for Windows.

Or MinGW
A Windows port.

I guess anyone with CygWin loaded on a Win2k box should call it GNU/Microsoft Windows.

I detect sarcasm in your comment, but what you claim is actually the case. The name "Cygwin" was originally short for "Cygnus GNU/Windows" or something like that. Even the stripped down version of Cygwin based on msvcrt.dll rather than cygwin1.dll is named MinGW, for "Minimalist GNU/Windows".

the truth is if GCC was supported and was a functional on windows as it is on Unix

MinGW, a port of GCC to Windows, can compile just about any non-MFC app that MS Visual C++ can.

The graphics race is a little harder, but gain if there were versions of gimp, imagemagick, and Blender that worked as well in windows as in Unix there might be more of a horse race there too...

Blender works on Windows. So does GIMP, at least at the level of Paint Shop Pro. So does ImageMagick. (However, last time I tried IM, it claimed to read XCF but could not read its alpha channels.) So does a free (LGPL) office suite.

This is important because it would be great if mingw interoperated smoothly with C++ libraries built with Visual C++.

perhaps you should try getting them to compile and install unpackaged Windows software for a comparison.

Easy. If you have a source.zip, the user needs to follow these simple steps to compile a program on mingw:

1. Unzip the source file.
2. Double-click INSTALL.bat, which opens a command prompt and runs make.
3. Double-click the EXE that appears next to INSTALL.bat.

If you want a start menu icon, drag the EXE on top of Start, then drag it into Programs.

I fail to see why people feel the need to bow to RMS's ego; the GNU utilities are primarily rewrites of existing utilities, not innovative new technologies.

I say GNU/Linux, and I hardly consider it bowing to RMS's ego.
The GNU tools are a *huge* part of the Linux experience. The gnu compiler toolchain, the shell utilities, the autoconf/automake system, and the almighty emacs are like old and dear friends that make my workday more streamlined and productive every day. I find it such a culture shock whenever I work on a *BSD or Sun machine that doesn't have the GNU tools installed. The little inconsistencies and the smaller feature sets of non-GNU unixy tools all add up to make one realize exactly how convenient and powerful GNU software can be. Without GNU, Linux is just like a strange *BSD or a bloated minix.

The other reason GNU software deserves all the respect in the world is the portability. There are lots of portable utilities, but the GPL license and the high-quality of the GNU tools ensure they are available nearly everywhere. When I am far from penguin-land, I can still take comfort in having all of my favorite utilities available. Cygwin gives me a *real* shell with tools on Windows, autoconf makes my software build on OSX with zero changes, and a tiny little GNU sed even edits on my Palm3x!

And finally, GNU actually brings people to Linux. A friend of mine recently told me how much he like the PRC-Tools for developing PalmOS applications, and how he just discovered the same toolchain for Gameboy programming. He couldn't believe such good tools were available for free. I told him that he was using GNU, that GNU was awesome, that Linux is mostly GNU tools, and I can even make Windows binaries under Linux using yet another iteration of the same toolchain! Four hours later, he calls me back and asks "In going to install RedHat. Is that a good Linux?" I just smiled knowingly and said "That's a good GNU/Linux."

Apologies to any accidentally offended BSD users.

Qt's non commercial edition works on Windows.

Qt's non commercial edition does not work on Mac OS X.

Besides, QT 2.3 non-commercial for Windows works only with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, whose MSRP is $550. That's six months' wages for some people I know. It does not work with popular Win32 compilers MinGW (free software based on GCC) or LCC (free as in beer).

I have addressed only the limitations of the current Qt distributions. To answer trolls who may try to poke holes in my argument as it applies to OpenOffice.org: Yes, I already know that the current build processes for OpenOffice.org and Mozilla also require MSVC. Yes, I already know that cheaper versions of MSVC exist, but MSVC Professional is the cheapest available version that performs even minimal optimization. The cheaper versions of MSVC don't optimize the code at all; some don't even permit redistribution of binaries compiled with the software.

The Robotcop download page states that no binaries are available for versions of Apache HTTP Server designed for M$ Windows, and the binaries that do exist (for Red Hat Linux x86 and FreeBSD x86) aren't very compatible with mod_ssl.

"So compile it yourself!" For one thing, according to the compilation instructions, those who want to compile Robotcop for Windows will have to wait a year (estimated) until Apache 2.0 is no longer eta but Released. For another, not everybody can afford a license for M$ Visual Studio, which is required to build Apache HTTP Server; apparently, this popular Win32 version of GCC doesn't cut it.

In other words, Robotcop won't work for consumers who serve web pages from their home workstation that runs Windows.

Mingw32 and (if you like IDEs) Dev-C++ (devcpp comes with mingw32) will create native win32 programs/dlls that directly use the msvcrt dll.

buy a nice 2nd hand computer, install linux on it

Good idea, considering that Devkit Advance (a GCC port for cross-development of GBA software) is also available on Linux. However, some of the graphics tools may be Windows-specific.

nad then have a decent development platform that is legal. Otherwise little Johhny will have to search the WareZ sites for Visual studio or VC++

You assume that there is no relatively easy-to-use development environment on Windows other than Visual C++. Have you considered RHIDE (Borland-ish IDE for DOS, which is also available for Linux) plus MinGW (GCC port for native development of Windows software) or RHIDE plus Devkit Advance?

Windows creates criminals

You have that backwards. Microsoft Corporation is a criminal. Microsoft created Windows. Therefore, criminals created Windows.

I have played a bit in the past with this issue, and come to the conclusion of mingw (Minimalist GNU for Windows) and the dos/windows version of VIM. With this approach you sidestep the issue of cygwin.dll being GPL rather than LGPL, and thus can release proprietry programs if you choose. The windows version of GVIM (Graphical VIM) has the ability to use the commons windows hotkeys and so on, as well as the normal vim shortcuts, so users comfortable with either should feel at home. Another advantage MinGW has is the size of generated executables, by default they are so much smaller than cygwin and MSVC executables.

I think it is great that there will be a cygwin-w32 architecture available through the Debian packaging system. However, what I would really like to see are native ports of GNU & other freeware packages. I've used Emacs, Vim, and MiKTeX on windows, as well as many file-utils and devel-utils have been ported, partially listed here or here (compiled primarily the MinGW or DJGPP compilers), but they are not centrally available or managed. I would also argue that the Debian branch for cygwin programs should be called w32-cygwin, and the native programs be under w32.

Just some more thoughts to fuel the fire.

Compiler? Library? Duh!

Actually GCC does now have a threading abstraction. But you didn't use capital GCC for 'Collection', "mandria", so you are stupid after all.

You'd want mingw or cygwin instead of djgpp anyway.

And g++ (or any of these ports) cannot develop against native Windows QT. Different C++ ABIs, you see.

oops.. left out the links last time. (that preview button is fucking dumb.)

(this is just adding information to the instructions provided in nt/Install in the source distribution.)

1. grab the source distribution (mirror).
2. grab mingw 1.1. (file).
3. add the mingw bin directory to %PATH%
4. edit nt/configure.bat. the line 'set COMPILER =' should read 'set COMPILER=gcc'.
5. make
6. make install INSTALL_DIR=d:\foobar
7. you're done.

Actually I *want* the users to be able to create the objects on the stack

Without looking at exactly what you want to do, the usual answer in C++ is "add another level of indirection". Make a handler class that people can make and destroy on the stack or the heap as they want, and make that handler class manage the real resource - look at "smart pointer" classes to see how best to do this generically, or you can use hand-coded or template classes if you only have a few classes that need wrapping.

I have tried to stop the copy & assignment by making them private and undefined. Unfortunately the stupid MicroSoft VC++ does not like this

Are you sure ?? This technique has been around for 10+ years, I can't see (even) MS breaking this. I presume you're getting a link time error, in which case it means someone is actually trying to call the CC or AO !! I'd check your code, and if necessary get a port of NM (such as from MinGW to let you examine your object files to see who's listing the CC or AO as a unresolved symbol....

T

Probably because lcc is much smaller

Smaller I'll give you, because GCC optimizes for performance and robustness rather than the "fit everything into 64 KB" embedded/democoder mentality, but is 10 MB really that much of a problem for developers, most of whom have a high-speed connection or can let the 56K modem download while they're eating?

easier to understand

And what's so hard to understand about gcc -Wall foo.c -o foo.exe? For the VC++ fan, IDEs for MinGW are available.

and easier to install on Windows systems.

Installing MinGW GCC is a simple matter of using WinZip to extract a tarball and then setting two environment variables (MINGDIR and PATH).

Basically, there's a dependence flow, where each cell on a spreadsheet is referenced to cells on previous sheets.

The Free Software Foundation has a dependence flow manager that can track dependencies between objects in a filesystem and can call programs to re-create files when the files they depend on have changed. This tool is called GNU Make and comes with most distributions of a GNU system or a GCC development environment.

I'd actually love to move to a browser interface

And you can with server-side Ruby, Python, Java, or Perl. Simply port your simulation to a compiled or interpreted language, create a makefile to re-run the simulation whenever the input changes, and write CGI programs to coordinate the whole mess into a Web application. If the whole thing runs on one box (as is most often the case for a flat-file app), and that box must run Windows, use the Win32 version of Apache HTTP Server, the MinGW GCC distribution (or Cygwin if your app is GPL compatible), and ActivePerl or ActivePython.

konq/embedded runs on the qt ports to windows, macos, atheos, and beos.

None of the Qt ports you mentioned are free software or even free as in beer. If I want a decent browser on Windows, my choices are IE (predominance in server logs contributes to IE-only web design techniques such as VBScript), Opera (has problems with many sites), Mozilla (a few textarea glitches), and a Konq/E based browser (requires a $1200 Qt license to compile for Windows plus $500 for VC++ because Qt for Windows doesn't support mingw gcc or cygwin gcc). I'm happy with Mozilla 0.9.3 for the time being.

isn't the CYGWIN.DLL released under LGPL

No. Cygwin1.dll is under GPL with exception "You may link this library to any OSI certified open source software." The -mno-cygwin switch uses msvcrt.dll instead of cygwin1.dll; so does MinGW GCC.

Most windows lusers couldn't compile anyway

They can if the installation wizard handles compiling the software; such an installation package would be similar to a source RPM. And yes, there is a free full-featured GNU compiler for Windows. There are two in fact: MinGW GCC and the GCC from Red Hat Cygwin.

they had brains they wouldn't be using an OS designed for two year olds.

So we're supposed to run games for the Wintendo platform under Wine? Good luck.

I upgrade my software with apt

Pretty hard to do if the distro on your Debian CD doesn't support your network connection hardware and protocols (winmodem, AOL, Juno, NetZero, network card, cable modem, DSL modem, PPPoE, etc.).

I read my docs online

Pretty hard to do if you can't boot or if your video subsystem isn't working.

Distribution of binaries is of the utmost importance for platforms like Windows, where a compiler does not come with the operating system, and the compilers that are readily available are often non-free.

So what if MinGW or Cygwin doesn't come with the system? They're both easy to download and install, and they're both GPL'd free software (based on GCC and other GNU stuff). Or, you can use the (non-free but free beer) LCC compiler. However, Mac OS 9 systems (that can't run OS X because don't have a G3 mobo and 128 MB of RAM), on the other hand, don't even have a command line; good luck getting GNU anything to work.

If you don't want that happening, please support the GCC/MingW/CygWin, ReactOS and WinE open source projects.

And I've certainly dl'd MP3's over 56kbps.

But you can't create them in the United States and several other countries without buying licensed software from a software firm that pays the MP3 encoder software patent license royalties, which are currently USD$15,000 for the first 6,000 units shipped yearly and USD$2.50 for each additional unit. This is why official LAME binaries will not be released before around 2010 (good thing what happened to copyright duration hasn't (yet) happened to patent duration). BTW, to compile LAME on Win32, get GCC for Windows.

If you think licensing fees are the problem, it's time for you to upgrade.

I agree totally. After having upgraded from MP3 to OggVorbis, the only MP3 files I encode are Wrapster archives containing .ogg files.

I use three different versions of GCC (for Linux, DOS, and even Windows, and they all accepted the DOS-style CR+LF newlines in my game's source code. Could that be because CR+LF is also the standard in many RFCs?
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

BillWinUsr who probably has no compiler ready

If Mozilla were using GCC for Windows, this would be no problem. Bill could just double click make.bat and play some Minesweeper, Solitaire, or Vitamins while GCC is compiling everything.

Stallman calls it GNU/Linux because most of what fills /.../bin comes from the GNU system, and it even uses GNU libc. It is a GNU system, just running on a kernel called Linux.

Just because it uses GCC doesn't make it a GNU system. Otherwise, you'd have GNU/DOS (gcc here) and GNU/Win32 (no wait, that's Cygwin, but there's another Win32 gcc).

GNU/Linux is a GNU system largely because its libc is GNU libc. Solaris would probably have Sun libc. Windows has MSVCRT; does Cygwin or the like turn Windows into GNU/Windows? I believe DOS + DJGPP = GNU/DOS; what do you say?

There are also cross-platform GUI environments like WxWindows, V, etc. See the MinGW FAQ for more information as well!

JimD

You could try Mingw32 - a port of GCC which uses MSVCRT.dll or MSCRT.dll runtime libraries instead of CYGWIN.dll and thereby avoids any licensing issues which you might run into by having to distribute CYGWIN with all your binaries. I've used it successfully for porting some of my own code without any real problems (just hiccups caused by using function names which are already used by MS libraries but not by Linux ones, or by defines which are already set up on Windows such as NOERROR or NO_ERROR).

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

If the X-Box is a Unix-like system, that would make Windows® CE a flavor of Unix. Actually, Windows 9x and NT almost are, thanks to Red Hat's Cygwin port of GNU and (to a lesser extent) the minimal GCC for Windows.

Cheers!

JimD