[Gcl-devel] Re: building GCL

[Mike Thomas]

Hi Stephen.

In answer to one of your questions below, the best place to get GCL help is
the GCL developers mailing list (users and developers really as there is no
other list - GCL users and developers seem to be thin on the ground) to
which I have CC'ed this reply.  You are welcome to join it via the "Lists"
link at the main GCL page:

http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gcl/

There is also a "CVS Repository" link there which will tell you how to get
the CVS sources.  These are considerably changed from those in the GCL 2.4.3
package.  As I have not finalised the best set of instructions for building
the latest CVS sources (see also comments below) I suggest you stick with
the sources you have until I tell you otherwise.

As to the rest of your email:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Leake" <address@hidden>
To: "Mike Thomas" <address@hidden>
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 11:41 PM
Subject: Re: building GCL


> "Mike Thomas" <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > Hi Stephen.
> >
> > Did this work out in the end?
>
> I had one more problem; there doesn't seem to be an "isnormal" in
> MinGW32, needed by gcl-2.4.3/h/gclincl.h. I replaced it with a kludge,
> since I'm not planning on doing any numerical work at the moment.


This problem is fixed with the latest Mingw32 headers - update from the
Mingw32 Sourceforge downloads page.

Incidentally I am using MSYS 1.07 and 1.08 (depending on the computer) to
host builds rather than Cygwin as it offers a number of concrete advantages
to Mingw32 developers.  Version 1.07 is the better one at this point as 1.08
inserts the wrong kind of path format into one place during configuration,
which has to be changed by hand.

As an example, with MSYS there is no need to worry about the "ln" problem
for example.  Configure and autoconf also work properly.

>
> I got Maxima running, and did my immediate task (sped up a computation
> by 300%).

Great news.

Were you using a different compiler with Maxima or a completely different
package?

What sort of computations?

We are always interested in hearing about how people are using GCL and what
it is about GCL which makes it useful to people.


> Where is the GCL CVS? I found one at UTexas, but there's also a Maxima
> CVS there, which is now superceded by the SourceForge one. However, I
> did not find a SourceForge GCL project, so I'm confused.

I'm blurry on the details, but as GCL is "official" GNU software it is
hosted by the Free Software Foundation.  (Or maybe it is the other way
round?)

> Also, is the Maxima mailing list the best place to post GCL bugs
> (which my "isnormal" problem is)?

No.  Use the GCL list as detailed above.  I suspect that most GCL readers
also get the Maxima list however.

The Maxima list is better for straight out Maxima questions eg bad results
from the "make check" command.

On the other hand, problems building Maxima with GCL will ultimately fall
into the ambit of one or the other list, so follow your nose.

>
> Thanks for your help,

No worries.  I look forward to hearing more about what you are doing with
GCL.

Mike Thomas.


>
> -- Stephe
> >
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Mike Thomas.
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Stephen Leake" <address@hidden>
> > To: <address@hidden>
> > Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2002 12:12 AM
> > Subject: building GCL
> >
> >
> > > Sorry, I just reread your instructions, and saw the "readme.mingw",
> > > which says "replace ln with cp". I'll try again!
> > >
> > > --
> > > -- Stephe
> > >
> >
> >
>