Hello everybody,
for various reasons, I'm bound to the Windows platform (XP) at present.
I have been struggling with the compilation of LyX on Windows for some
time and I thought you might be interested in an experience report:
Cygwin & Qt X11/free & LyX 1.3.1
--------------------------------
Cygwin has a nasty bug that prevents you from running any LyX version at
present. The problem is related to the gcc 3.3.3/3.4.1 output (I don't
know the full details but it is related to the way constants are
stored). Compilation/Linking works but you cannot start the
application.
However, if you switch back to gcc 3.3.1, you can - in principle -
compile and run LyX 1.3.1 with the Qt X11 library provided by
kde-cygwin.sf.net. Unfortunately, the cygwin setup tool no longer
allows you to downgrade to gcc 3.3.1. But have a look at the various
mirrors; the package is still there and you can install it by hand.
Of course, this is not the whole story (what did you expect?): In order
to compile LyX 1.3.1, you have to remove all "#pragma interface" and
"#pragma implementation" lines from the source code.
THEN you can enjoy LyX 1.3.1 on the Windows platform! Finally... But
please note that Germany Umlauts are not printed correctly in the LyX
menus ("a instead of ä)
Cygwin & Qt X11/free & LyX 1.4.0
--------------------------------
All I said before, also applies to LyX 1.4.0. However, the final
application is not usable. The "configure" script that comes along with
LyX (to determine the available text classes etc.) does not complete.
You have to press Ctrl-C to stop it. When you start LyX nevertheless,
you are not able to set layouts like "itemize" or "description" (might
be related, might be not...)
Cygwin & Qt Win32
-----------------
I tried to compile Qt Win32 with cygwin a couple of days ago and I
failed. I don't remember the details but it was definitely too
difficult to fix with a few minutes (by myself :-)).
MinGW & Qt Win32
----------------
The snapshot available on the kde-cygwin.sf.net website does not work!!!
However, two days ago I was able to check out a working version from
CVS. I could compile & start the Qt applications (designer...) and they
looked good. Use cmd.exe (not MSYS) and follow the compilation
instructions. Don't use MSYS if you don't want to spend time on
fixing. The Qt library produced a lot of debug output and IMHO was a
bit slow (maybe due to the debug output).
Highly motivated, I started compiling LyX 1.4.0. However, in order to
run autogen.sh, I needed a few more tools (partly available on the
mingw website). Don't forget to install some Perl distribution. Even
after the installation of all required tools, I couldn't compile LyX.
Once again, I don't remember the details (big sorry) but it was not
trivial again. Or maybe I was just to stupid...
Summary: If you are in a hurry or you can just spend a few hours on LyX,
download an older version of gcc-cygwin and use the QT/X11 libary. If
you are looking for adventures, choose another option and share your
experiences with us :-)
Kind regards,
Michael
