Subject: Windows build (was: A few questions about Maxima)
From: David Billinghurst
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:34:16 +1100
On 17/03/2011 5:03 PM, petrosez at gmail.com wrote:
> Would you, please, give to an absolute beginner, like myself,
> some advice to try the Windows build?
Petros,
The full instructions to build an installable package are in the
INSTALL.win32 file
http://maxima.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/maxima/maxima/INSTALL.win32?revision=1.12
You don't need all the software listed in "External Requirements" if
allyou want is to build a maxima executable. Some of it is required for
documentation and some for the installer.
There are several ways to build under windows.
a) You need to choose a lisp system, including gcl, ccl and clisp.
b) You can use a make under a unix shell - msys or cygwin - or try a
lisp-based build.
I personally use:
* clisp under cygwin. All the dependencies are available as cygwin
packages and the unix build instructions just work. However,
maxima under clisp is relatively slow and you also have the
overhead of cygwin.
* gcl under msys. Getting a gcl working under windows is a
problem, as only specific versions of gcc work. The resulting
maxima is much faster and this is used for the current windows
distribution. Once your system is set up correctly then
subsequent builds are easy.
There are recent reports of success using ccl. I haven't tried it.
This should get you started.
David