Install on Windows



As you mentionned the long startup problem need more explanation 

Why is there problem starting maxima from xmaxima  ?
while there is no when maxima is started from DOS with MAXIMA.BAT command

for a reason I ignore the environment variable HOME is set to "C:\" by xmaxima 
and  it is not set when maxima is started from MAXIMA.BAT

it can be checked from maxima  with the command 
:lisp (maxima-getenv "HOME")

When environment variable MAXIMA_USERDIR does not exists (as with previous version of xmaxima) 
maxima uses HOME variable plus "/.maxima"   see init-cl.lisp

then we get a $file_search_lisp variable (":lisp $file_search_lisp") which begins with 
((MLIST) C:\/###.{o,lisp,lsp}   ....
Which is probably incorrect with the succession of \/    
I presume that this variable is used to search the libraries 
when starting maxima :it can explain this long startup
 
Without xmaxima , the environnement variable HOME does not 
exist and then we get a $file_search_lisp variable  which 
begins with 
((MLIST) /###.{o,lisp,lsp}   ....
Which is better 


So I think that the problem is in the construction of the 
$file_search_lisp variable  when the MAXIMA_USEDIR variable 
does not exist and the HOME variable is "C:\"

To confirm that I made the following tests from DOS (without xmaxima) 

with the commands 
SET MAXIMA_USERDIR=
MAXIMA.BAT 

there is no long delay.
and the lisp variable $file_search_lisp  begins with 
((MLIST) /###.{o,lisp,lsp}   ....

with 
SET MAXIMA_USERDIR=C:
MAXIMA.BAT 

there is no long delay too .
and the lisp variable $file_search_lisp  begins with 
((MLIST) C:/###.{o,lisp,lsp}   ....

but with 
SET MAXIMA_USERDIR=C:\
MAXIMA.BAT 
there is a long delay  .
and the lisp variable $file_search_lisp  begins with 
((MLIST) C:\/###.{o,lisp,lsp}   ....



----Message d'origine----
>Sujet: Re: [Maxima] Install on Windows
>De: James Amundson <amundson@fnal.gov>
>A: paricaud@club-internet.fr
>Copie à: Maxima List <maxima@www.ma.utexas.edu>
>Date: 04 Feb 2003 12:21:59 -0600
>
>On Tue, 2003-02-04 at 07:51, paricaud@club-internet.fr wrote:
>> On my Windows98 Machine I have also a 50s startup Time.
>> But when I set the environment variable MAXIMA_USERDIR to an almost empty directory then startup time is only a few seconds.
>> I guess that by default , the MAXIMA_USERDIR is something like "C:"  and may be there is during startup a routine which searches each libraries on  the whole disk, or something like that.
>> 
>> So it is better to create a maxima.bat file containing:
>> set MAXIMA_USERDIR=C:\MAXIMA_USER
>> "C:\Program Files\Maxima-5.9.0.rc4\bin\xmaxima.exe"
>> 
>> Or add the following command to autoexec.BAT
>> set MAXIMA_USERDIR=C:\MAXIMA_USER
>
>Thank you for this hint. I am now completely confused. MAXMIA_USERDIR is
>not used by any tcl or lisp code. It is only referred to by the maxima
>Bourne shell script, which is not used in Windows.
>
>Hmmmmm...
>
>Thanks,
>Jim
>
>