Release 0.7.6 Alpha - Additional ports to FreeBSD and Mingw

Release 0.7.6 brings two new platforms, FreeBSD and Mingw. Mingw is no doubt the simplest way for Microsoft Windows users to get started with the language, some important mingw usage tips are below. Usage for both is similar to Linux platform (for FreeBSD, it is identical), you may ignore references to the external garbage collector for all platforms as the collector is now internal and part of the standard build.

Mingw requires installation of a GCC and Msys runtime in order to be useful. Any will probably work, but I have found the GNUStep distribution at http://ftp.gnustep.org/pub/gnustep/binaries/windows/base-1.11.1-gui-0.10.1/GNUstep-base-1.11.1-gui-0.10.1-3.exe
I will probably mirror it here at a later time as the usage of it for Twilight is not it's primary purpose. There is an issue with the Msys console in that it tends to "hang" when there is a great deal of output. When the output completes it will catch up, so it doesn't break anything, but it is disconcerting. There is a batch file included with the Twilight distribution which you can use to run builds from a Windows Console, which does not have the issue. If you grab the above GNUStep Mingw/Msys distribution and install it to it's default C:\GNUStep, you can follow the below instructions, otherwise modify them to fit your installation areas.

Install Msys, I recommend GNUStep to the default location.
Unpack the twilight-mingw-(version).tar.gz into your home directory (or whever you like.)
Open a windows command prompt
The archive extracts to twhome, enter twhome/tw/current
execute the setenv_mingw.bat file, if you did not install the above distribution to the default location modify the paths in the batch file first
You are now ready for builds as outlines in the Getting Started and related documentation.

craig_welch2 – Fri, 2006 – 09 – 22 00:48