Re: Patches for insight to work native on 64bit windows

[Roland Schwingel <roland at schwingel dot com>]

Hi Keith,

Keith Seitz <keiths@redhat.com> wrote on 14.03.2012 18:41:29:
> On 03/14/2012 04:48 AM, Roland Schwingel wrote:
>
> > Some days ago I wrote that I am working myself on an insight 
version for
> > windows native 64bit (mingw-w64). I am quite far with it. It runs quite
> > fine here (both using gdb 7.4 and gdb head). I would like to send my
> > patches.
>
> That is excellent news. I haven't had much luck with Cygwin at all
> lately, and I *really* wanted to get Linux, MinGW, and Cygwin working
> "well" for a release. Alas, I have been swamped lately.
At present I am building for mingw 32bit and 64bit plus linux 32bit for 
regressions (OpenSuse 11.4).
My main focus is windows (especially 64bit) and also mac os. When I got
a fully stable version for windows I will also try to build a mac OS X 
version (10.6 and up).

> > [tcl/tk 8.6 vs 8.4]
> This is an area I'd like to see change. I know that I have *not* used
> the repo-supplied Tcl/Tk/itcl/iwidgets for well over two years. Instead
> I use the system-supplied RPMs (Fedora 15).
>
> But I'll bet that for Cygwin (and probably MinGW, too), we'll have to
> keep using the in-repo version.
I made some changes to tcl/tk and gdb that allow Insight to be built
portable. Means I have an insight folder containing all needed libraries and
resources which can be freely copied whereever wanted to. That way
this version is not dependant upon system libraries (for major parts).
And eg. on windows there is no system supplied tcl/tk so insight has
to come with its own version - when build for mingw.

> > libgui:
> Yeah, this stuff is way out of date, and to be honest, I'm not really
> sure how much of it is used nowadays anyway. I few bits and pieces, I'm
> sure (preferences, the tktable widget, one or two other bits). Since I
> seldom (if ever) use windows, I am forced to rely on feedback/help from
> actual users.
I am also not sure how much is used from libgui. I would like to see
it slimmed down to what is really needed. Is anyone else using libgui
(beside of insight).

> > iwidgets:
> > Need to be updated to version 4.0.2 (from 4.0.1) to work with 
tcl/tk 8.5
> > and up. I did (yet) not make any private changes here.
>
> I have been using 4.0.2 locally (again, on Fedora), so that should not
> be a problem.
>
> > itcl:
> > I updated to version 3.4.1. The old 3.3 does not work well with newer
> > tcl/tk versions. I took the itcl initscript (with small changes) from
> > itcl4 so it works also with newer tcl/tk.
>
> Indeed. I've been using 3.4.7.
Oops. There is a 3.4.7?

> All this speaks to a bigger question:
> would it be possible to release system-supplied versions of tcl, tk,
> itcl, itk, and iwidgets for Cygwin? I'm not sure how Chris, Corinna, et
> al would feel about this, though. I don't know who would offer to
> maintain those packages.
AFAIK there was recently an update of cygwin's tcl/tk to 8.5.11
(and there is also an itcl/itk/iwidgets version), but I see 2 problems.
Cygwin is still limited to 32bit executables. Nowadays very much of the
applications are heading to 64bit on windows, so there also needs
to be a 64bit insight version. The only solution I see here is mingw-w64
therefore I started out for this version. The recent updates of tcl/tk
require X11 and are no longer using the native windows backend thus
has more dependancies.

> > Any suggestions/objections?
>
> Absolutely no objections. Send your patches along. [As I mention in
> response to your other message, I may have to ask for an assignment
> form. Unfortunately, despite my efforts through the years, I cannot seem
> to get the FSF and Red Hat to agree to assigning ownership of gdb/gdbtk
> and libgui to the FSF, so I need an assignment similar to what is used
> for Cygwin contributions. Email me off-list and I can send you the form.]
Already done.

Roland