Gfortran packaging and installation

[Mark Hadfield]

Paul Thomas wrote:
> Mark,
> 
> By direct observation, I think that you are right about the 
> installation. This is a subject of much discussion on the octave list.  
> There is a Windows version of octave that comes with a minimum of Cygwin 
> ( pretty much nothing but the dll and one or two utilities) and is 
> installed by a downloadable executable.  That is the extent of 
> difficulty that most people seem to be prepared to encounter.  I will 
> have a word with Paul Kienzle, who prepared the octave installer, about 
> doing the same for gfortran.
> 
> Paul Thomas

Hmm. The Cygwin people recommend that third-party products do *not* 
bundle the Cygwin DLL but instead point to cygwin.com and say "Install 
This First". Eg see...

   http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2003-12/msg00387.html

The main reason is the havoc that can be caused by multiple Cygwin 
installations. Multiple copies of the Cygwin DLL are the most common 
problem, but conflicting registry entries are also an issue, eg from 
today...

   http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2005-01/msg00924.html

At the moment I know of 3 Gfortran binary packages for Windows/x86:

   1) Paul Thomas's monthly Cygwin snapshot (requires Cygwin)

   2) Francois-Xavier Coudert's weekly(?) Mingw version (requires Mingw)

   3) Francois-Xavier Coudert's weekly(?) "stand-alone" version (the
      Mingw version with a few extra libraries)

That sounds like a lot for one OS, but each has specific advantages. I 
presume that generating them is not too onerous. No. 3 should keep the 
comp.lang.fortran crowd happy. Given that and the recommendations of the 
Cygwin people, I advise against bundling the Cygwin DLL in the Cygwin 
version.


-- 
Mark Hadfield            "Ka puwaha te tai nei, Hoea tatou"
m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz
National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)